I'll Take Sweden

Wise-cracking widower Bob Hope (as Robert "Bob" Holcomb) arrives home to discover his pretty blonde daughter Tuesday Weld (as JoJo Holcomb) is engaged to pseudo-rock 'n' roll singer Frankie Avalon (as Kenny Klinger). Mr. Avalon has dropped put of college, rides a motorcycle, lives in a small trailer, and takes Ms. Weld out to strip clubs. Hope is horrified. In order to get Weld away from Avalon, he accepts a job transfer to Stockholm. There, Hope discovers a Swedish custom regarding pre-marital sex...

We are told, in order to determine how well they are "suited for each other," Swedes have sex before getting married. This insures a low divorce rate. Hope romances attractive Dina Merrill (as Karin Granstedt Martoni) and Weld prepares to lose her virginity during a two week vacation with playboy Jeremy Slate (as Erik Carlson). Hope declares, "Nobody's gonna chalk up any mileage on JoJo without getting a driver's license first!" To make Weld change her mind, Hope contacts Avalon in America...

Avalon returns to the storyline and gives the film a final burst of energy. The highlight is his performance of "I'll Take Sweden, Ya Ya Ya!" In brief blue swim trunks, Avalon gyrates around a boatyard, attracting Rosemarie Frankland in a white bikini. The beauty queen with obvious assets moved from Hope (one of the comedian's many alleged companions) to Grass Roots singer Warren Entner. Avalon was no longer selling rock 'n' roll records, but he is funnier and more appealing than all others, herein.

****** I'll Take Sweden (6/2/65) Frederick de Cordova ~ Bob Hope, Frankie Avalon, Tuesday Weld, Dina Merrill

In rattling off one lame joke after another, persevering like a stevedore in the face of his time slipping away, cocky crooked grin intact, Hope approaches depths of surrealism that should've impressed Bunuel. When he tells Dina Merrill that he's never met an interior decorator with her exterior, and she reacts with a dewy smile, it's like cutting the eyeball in Un Chien Andalou. Meanwhile Frankie Avalon struts around like he's the Tom Cruise of his generation. Check out Frankie's astonishing, hip-gyrating 'I'll Take Sweden Ya Ya Ya' number and you'll swear someone slipped mescaline into your coffee. This is one of the all time great camp classics, awaiting its proper appreciation.

For a Hope fan like me, the flick was a disappointment. Don't look for his comically flustered style til the last part, when he runs amusingly through the many stranger-filled hotel bedrooms -- and just what is it those bedroom couples are doing? It's then that the movie really gels.

That's not to overlook the opening scene where gyrating teens of the mid-1960's could light up a city, while Hope's strait-laced father looks on disapprovingly. So how's he going to keep daughter Weld from marrying into Avalon's reckless crew. By moving to sophisticated Sweden, of course. Trouble is, as Dad finds out, Sweden's even looser sexually than back in the good old USA. Good thing Sweden's Dina Merrill is there to help ease his protective tension. But what about the stiffly handsome Slate whose got his Swedish eye on Weld. So what's Dad to do.

Basically the movie's about sexual innuendo at a time when American mores were changing from the conformist 1950's. (A couple more years and the free-wheeling Hippie movement would appear.) So in that cultural sense the movie appears unfortunately dated with its cutting-edge emphasis of the time. I'm surmising, but I suspect Hope was hoping to connect with the younger generation, given the flick's key aspects. Too bad his brand of delightful humor wasn't better served.

Anyway, for Hope fans, hang on til the last part when the tempo picks up. In the meantime, there's cutie Weld to entertain the eyes of hormonal guys like me.

As far as comedies that deal with young people's attitudes towards sex go; "I'll Take Sweden", dumb as it may be, has loads more charm than the largely gross comedies that are dished up to audiences today.

Bob Hope, (with badly died dark hair) ever the professional, copes well with the sometimes unfunny lines given to him. There's super elegant Dina Merrill; Frankie Avalon brimming with youthful ebullience and Tuesday Weld, simultaneously demure and sexy, as always.

Despite the often ridiculous depiction of the social mores of the time, somehow the movie remains immensely watchable largely because of the cast, who all had careers of some interest. From this fun but undoubted mediocrity, Hope's movies went downhill steadily and embarrassingly. Merrill went into television with unspectacular results. Avalon didn't quite survive the beach movies which made him so popular at the time. Weld had the good sense to break the mold into which the system had cast her, moving on to many fine performances, if not quite becoming the star that at the time would have seemed she was destined to become.

For those interested in the actors involved, there's something to enjoy in this innocuous yet not obnoxious 95 minutes.

In an effort to keep daughter Tuesday Weld away from bad boy Frankie Avalon, Bob Hope takes a job in Sweden. This is just another of the egregiously unfunny movies Hope was making in the 1960s. The film has one distinguishing feature: it manages to cast Weld and make her completely unappealing! Surprisingly cast to begin with, Weld has little to do but roll her eyes or wince at Hope's unfunny wisecracks. Perhaps Annette Funicello or Deborah Walley would have been a better choice for Weld's role. She's far too intelligent to have us believe she'd be smitten with the empty headed Avalon. The presence of classy Dina Merrill, as Hope's love interest, is a plus even if her Swedish accent is a bit half-hearted. Directed, in the style of the average 60s sitcom, by the undistinguished Fred DeCordova.