I saw this again recently. Liked it more the second time around. Maybe I saw it in a better mood.
Apparently the cast got cranky the film went to Ann Margret but do you blame George Sidney? Do we really want more of Dick Van Dyke as a momma's boy, with Maureen Stapleton clearly too young to be his mother, or Janet Leigh as his long suffering fiance, the entire point of her character now gone that she's an Anglo and not a hispanic (surely they could've gotten away with that in 1963), or Bobby Rydell's whimpy boyfriend, or the actor who plays Ann-Margret's mother being this sort of blank slate with her campy husband (I sense the rage building in that woman, as if she's going to poison him), or Jesse Pearson's caricature rock star?
There are some funky numbers, garish colours, the concept of Lynde as a suburban dad is funny, Ann-Margret is sensational and it's not believable for five seconds she'd go back to Rydell. Why didn't they cast a pop star as Conrad?
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