Where the Boys Are (1960)

If someone drew a triangle using the bubble-gum pop of Gidget (1959) and the knee-deep cheese of Frankie and Annette’s Beach Party (1963) as the base angles, and the steamy melodrama of A Summer Place (1959) as the apex angle, and then, after adding a little geometry to this triangulum, I think we'd find another coming of age flick set against the backdrop of sand and surf right smack in the middle: Where the Boys Are (1960).

While writing novels about people going on a journey, author Glendon Swarthout had himself quite the career in both print and on the big screen. They Came to Cordura, which focused on a ragtag group splintered off from Pershing's expedition into Mexico to hunt down Poncho Villa, for one example. Another, The Shootist, focused on the end of the journey for aging gunslinger, J.B. Books. Both books were adapted to films of the same names, Cordura in 1959 and The Shootist in 1976, starring Cary Cooper and John Wayne respectively.

But his most famous stories usually added a coming of age factor, with the likes of Bless the Beasts and the Children, adapted to film in 1971, and his wildly popular Where the Boys Are; a "zany satire on the holiday pursuits of the American teenage girl" which provided the first ever insider-look into the annual collegiate invasion of Florida over Spring Break.

As the legend goes, while serving as a professor of English studies at Michigan State, Swarthout took a group of his honors students to Fort Lauderdale over the Easter break; and what he witnessed during this two week excursion / field research opportunity would serve as the basis of the novel. And upon its release, some compared it to Margaret Mead’s anthropological study Coming of Age in Samoa, referring to it as Coming of Age in Florida.

 Glendon Swarthout.

“It occurred to me as the week progressed that this would make a very fine novel,” Swarthout said in a later interview with Larry King (1985). “I could at the same time write a kind of profile of that particular generation - their aspirations, their hopes, their fears and so on.”

"Why do (college kids) come to Florida?” asks Merritt Andrews, the lead character in Swathout’s novel. “Physically to get a tan. Also, they are pooped. Many have mono. Psychologically, to get away. And besides, what else is there to do except go home (for Spring Break) and further foul up the parent-child relationship?

Meanwhile, “Biologically, they come to Florida to check the talent. You've seen those movie travelogues of the beaches on the Pribilof Islands where the seals tool in once a year to pair off and reproduce. The beach at Lauderdale has a similar function. Not that reproduction occurs, of course, but when you attract thousands of kids to one place there is apt to be a smattering of sexual activity."

First published in 1958, MGM quickly swooped in and turned the novel around and made a tidy sum off their minimum budget.

However, one should point out that George Wells' screenplay only covers the first half of the book, as the second gets even zanier with the radicalization of Merrit as she tries to help smuggle guns into Cuba to help Uncle Fidel and the Fuller Brush Beard Brigade's revolution that ends in disaster.

No, the film adaptation of is more concerned with another revolution. And while Where the Boys Are definitely has the wholesome late 1950s sheen on the surface (-- beginning with Connie Francis' infectious theme song), down below it makes no bones about poking the taboo of premarital S-E-X right in the eye with a very sharp stick. 

From the opening scene, Merritt (Hart) is already duking it out with her uptight college professor over the elder's archaic views on sex and the dating habits of the young American female. But as the film plays out, Merritt has some major issues over the practice of what she's been preaching – a far cry from the character in the novel, who lost her virginity long before she headed south.

Also of note, in the novel Merritt only travels with one companion who basically disappears, leaving our protagonist to sleep with every male character we’re destined to meet in the film, gets pregnant, refuses all overtures of marriage, drops out of school, and moves home to regroup.

But Wells and director Henry Levin had something different in mind for the film, basically splitting Merritt into four different characters, giving us a quartet of anxious co-eds from a winter-socked and flu-ridden mid-western college ready for their own pilgrimage south, where the chief of police (Wills) preps his men for their upcoming battle with higher education, and where the boys outnumber the girls 3 to 1.

Good odds for these gals, each with their own goal: too tall Tuggle (Prentiss) is on the hunt for a husband, preferably one with feet bigger than hers that she can look in the eye without bending her knees both figuratively and literally; Melanie (Mimieux) also has her sights set high, wanting to notch a couple of Ivy Leaguers on her soon to be discarded chastity belt; and while the pugnacious Angie (Francis) will settle for just about anything, Merritt isn't really sure what she's looking for, if anything at all, really, romantically speaking.

Kudos to the casting director for filling those roles out, too. These seemingly mismatched puzzle pieces shouldn't fit but they do and the sense of camaraderie found with these girls is one of the film's strongest points.

And the resulting chemistry with their respective beaus-to-come is just as wonderful as the film follows them through the entire week of Spring Break, where the girls move from one bizarre locale to the next, taking in the sun, the suds and the scenery.

Along the way, Tuggle falls for the lanky TV Thompson (Hutton), and Angie finds romance with Basil, a myopic bass player (Gorshin), whose experimental jazz combo-band pays the audience to listen to them, dig?

The brainy Merrit also finds her match with Ryder Smith (an eerily untanned Hamilton), as they hurl intellectual barbs at one another over the "Stud / Slut Dichotomy" to keep him at arm’s length, allowing the reluctant Merritt to ease into the relationship.

And as TV's police-band radio constantly updates us on the collegiate shenanigans erupting around them (-- a favorite being a live hammerhead shark reported in a hotel swimming pool), the couples schmooze, snog, bicker over commitments, fight, break-up, make-up, snog some more, culminating in climactic calamity at a fancy dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant, where the whole gang winds up in a giant aquarium with the showcase aqua-bat, leading to a mass arrest.

To make matters worse, the overly naive Melanie has taken her best friend's Kinsey-backed advice to heart. And while the film's overall tone is comedic, it can also be downright brutal at times, with poor Melanie usually taking the brunt of it, serving as an abject lesson for the others when she's suckered to a private motel party by a couple of no-goodniks posing as Yale students.

When she finally susses out the ruse and tries to leave, it's too late. What happens next is only implied, but there is no mistaking the devastating final result once the motel door slams shut.

The other girl's relationship problems pale in comparison, but they are the bumps along the way just the same. TV wants to knock-boots with Tuggle but she's determined to wait until she's married. TV takes the hint, and the specter of a long term commitment frightens him off. And knowing that once Spring Break is over means the probable end of their relationship, a conflicted Merritt's hot and cold act is wearing awfully thin with Ryder, resulting in a similar nasty spat.

And then things get really twisted when everyone's relationships are saved or cemented as a direct result of Melanie's sexual assault.

And this is why I'm just as conflicted about my feelings for Where the Boys Are. On the surface, it's beautifully shot, filled with adorable characters, who we openly root for to make it work, and so immersive in the chaos of one raucous week I could almost enjoy it unconditionally -- almost.

Because underneath, it's mixed message of saying sex is OK but the only one who actively engages in it winds up raped, brutalized and in the hospital is a pretty twisted way to moralize away it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

And, well, I kinda have a problem making all of that compute while trying to laugh at an aquarium full of goofballs.

Originally published on April 14, 2000, in the Bargain Bin.

Where the Boys Are (1960) Euterpe :: MGM / P: Joe Pasternak / D: Henry Levin / W: George Wells, Glendon Swarthout (Novel) / C: Robert Bronner / E: Fredric Steinkamp / M: George Stoll / S: Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, Yvette Mimieux, Connie Francis, George Hamilton, Jim Hutton, Frank Gorshin, Chill Wills