Palm Springs Weekend

I recall the New York Times gave a favorable review to this sprightly fun film that became a smash hit for Warner Bros.

Troy Donahue who was the biggest star on the WB lot is first billed over other WB stars Connie Stevens, Ty Hardin and Robert Conrad. The WB stars all look great. Stefanie Powers is Donahue's romantic interest. The set up is thin but fun: a group of college students converge on Palm Springs for a weekend of romance and fun. Jerry Van Dyke, and Carole Cook give fun support. WB gave Ty Hardin a shot at stardom with other WB films such as Wall of Noise ( with another WB star Dorothy Provine), PT 109, and George Cukor's The Chapman Report.

Troy Donahue's real life best friend Greg Benedict, and best man at his wedding to Suzanne Pleshette has a small pivotal role in Palm Springs Weekend. This was WB's reply to smash hit MGM film Where The Boys Are that starred Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, and Dolores Hart ( who would leave Hollywood and become a Nun). During this time Columbia also had a stock company of Stefanie Powers, Michael Callan, James Darren, Deborah Walley. I wish those days would return!

Troy'Donahue made 4 smash hits at WB with Delmer Daves: A Summer Place with Sandra Dee, Parrish with Diane McBain and Connie Stevens, and Susan Slade with Connie Stevens and Rome Adventure with Angie Dickinson and Suzanne Pleshette. Palm Springs Weekend was Donahue's first film at WB without the mark of Delmer Daves. Troy Donahue's hit streak at WB continued with this film directed by veteran Norman Taurog.

Trivia note that Troy Donahue at first refused the film but was enticed to star into it and sings the title song over the credits. Suzanne Pleshette was offered role that eventually was played by Stefanie Powers.

If you like swinging hips and swinging fists and you are of a certain birth vintage, namely a baby boomer from the 50's or 60's then the 1963 Palm Springs Weekend will be right up your alley. With up and coming stars such as Connie Francis, Stefanie Powers, Ty Hardin, Troy Donahue, and Robert Conrad, you have all the making of another beach blanket bonanza with swinging hips and fists as the beach parties get pretty hot and heavy.

The film packs a mighty punch with lots of lips a smacking and fists a flying as the boys and girls at the Palm Springs Hotel are there for a good time and not a long time while on a weeks vacation school break. There are new romances for some of the older generation as well as some of the first teenage loves. Heck there is even an attractive tom boy named Amanda North (played by Zeme North) who while babysitting the hotel owners son Boom Boom Yates (Bill Mumy) she has achieved a black belt in the art of Jiu Jitsu and uses her martial arts skills to put some unorthodox moves on her love interest Biff Roberts (Jerry Van Dyke).

This beach blanket hipster is the original fun loving film which preceded the latter and more successful 1965 Beach Blanket Bingo and other beach related films. It may be old and the (then) young film stars such as Ty Hardin, Troy Donahue, and Robert Conrad have now passed away but their youthful images live on in campy classics such as Palm Springs Weekend.

I give the film a respectable 6 out of 10 IMDb rating.

The above quote is from the Broadway musical "A Chorus Line," and came to mind as I watched this piece of nostalgia from the '60s.

For baby boomers, Palm Springs Weekend is incredible fun; we get to see all of the TV stars we grew up with: Troy Donahue, Stefanie Powers, Robert Conrad, Connie Stevens, Jerry van Dyke, Ty Hardin, Billy Mumy, and old-timers Carole Cook, Andrew Duggan, and Jack Weston.

There's not what you'd call a plot, exactly. A bunch of kids descend on Palm Springs Weekend for fun in the sun and find romance. Soft-spoken, pretty Connie Stevens plays a young woman who takes up with a rich man's son (Robert Conrad); he turns out to have a quite a temper. All the while, she flirts with a cowboy (Ty Hardin, and I had forgotten how handsome he was). Cook runs the motel where everyone is staying; Mumy is her brat son; Duggan is the police chief of Palm Springs; and Powers is his daughter, who ends up involved with Donahue, a med student.

Donahue gets top billing and sings the theme song, sort of. He looks bloated here and overly made up, and definitely not as good as he looked in his earlier films. However, there was always something appealing about him and he always managed to hold his own. His stature and strong speaking voice helped. The humor, often provided by clownish Jerry van Duke, is obvious and geared to the teen set. Since it was made for the teens of the early '60s, the movie succeeds very well if not compared to something like Citizen Kane.

Palm Springs Weekend is sure a look back in time and a fun one, even if some of those college kids seemed a little long in the tooth.

Palm Springs Weekend which was unashamedly ripped off from Where The Boys Meet The Girls, gave the Warner Brothers television stars a last time to strut their stuff before the cameras. Within three years all of these contract players would be gone from the Warner lot as the British invasion led by the Beatles reconstructed the whole idea of what a teen heartthrob was supposed to be.

Troy Donahue(Surfside Six), Ty Hardin(Bronco), and Robert Conrad (Hawaiian Eye), are all on spring break and bound for that favorite west coast location, Palm Springs. While there Donahue gets involved with Stefanie Powers the police chief's daughter and Hardin and Conrad get to fight over Connie Stevens who's lying about her age. She's borderline jailbait, but looks old.

In that department Connie was the most ludicrous, but the notion that these guys were all students of some kind is beyond belief. All of them were past 25 at this point, they must have felt ridiculous. But the stars of 90210 didn't look much like high school kids so nothing's really changed.

But romance was in the air in Palm Springs Weekend, even Jack Weston the college basketball coach gets to have a fling with hotel owner Carole Cook. Best in the film is Jerry Van Dyke who supplies some needed comic relief and plays a mean banjo.

Still the film really hasn't worn well over the decades. But it's pleasant enough entertainment. Troy Donahue gets to sing over the title credits. That was a mistake.

You have got to give Warner Bros studios credit for milking Troy Donahue for all they could get with the teenage audience....there was "Summer Place", "Parrish", "Susan Slade", "Rome Adventure"...Warner Bros was riding the high waves with Donahue for the teenage audience in the early 60s.......then they apparently decided to remake "Where the Boys Are"....this time the film is in Palm Springs California instead of Florida....Stephanie Powers more or less recreates the role Delores Hart had in "Where the Boys Are".....a young student looking for teenage/young adult love...Troy Donahue basically recreates the role George Hamilton had.....the handsome lover boy looking for romance.....basically corny and overly silly in a lot of respects. Plenty of comedy though as Jerry Van Dyke plays a over the top goofball who winds up with the homely down and out girl...sort of like the role Frank Gorshin had in Boys Are with Connie Francis....lots of similarities with both films. Troy Donahue did not have to do much acting...just stand around looking handsome and available and the gals ate him up. In a silly teenage film like this much acting was not required at all. For my money a scene near the end where Donahue and Stephanie Powers were standing in front of a fake, paper rock, supposedly in the desert was laughable....Powers says "look out there, see the sands, it is the valley of lost lovers" ha=ha-ha.....or something to that effect....Donahue stands there listening to her with a silly gape on his face....just totally laughable acting. Nothing like that old puss himself Jack Weston to play the lovable loser - he was the basketball coach trying to keep his players under control and falling for the matronly owner of the motel they were at....Weston always a lovable loser, just like in "The Cincinatti Kid" and "Thomas Crown Affair" in the 60s..... For my money Jerry Van Dyke steals the movie as a looney over the top comedian....once again, this is a teenage love flick at it's best....if you saw "Where the Boys Are" you have seen "Palm Springs Weekend"....just the same two films stitched together with different actors....Bob Conrad as the spoiled, rich kid with the fast T-Bird and Connie Stevens as the nubile, and very available coed....she gets mixed up with the wrong guy. Top notch film for the teenagers in the early 1960s.