By Todd Garbarini
Bye
Bye Birdie (1963) is an
exuberant, squeaky clean musical comedy from Columbia Pictures that is based
upon the 1960 Broadway musical of the same name. It is also extremely dated by today’s standards
and flat-out corny at times. Overall,
however, it is a fun ride that sports a good number of memorable musical
interludes, the title song easily giving the viewer a severe case of
earworm. Director George Sidney was no
stranger to musicals as he was also responsible for Ziegfeld Follies (1945), The
Harvey Girls (1946), Holiday in
Mexico (1946), Annie Get Your Gun
(1950), Showboat (1951) and Scaramouche (1952). Here, he brings to the screen the story of
Kim MacAfee (twenty-two year-old Ann-Margret in her breakout performance) as a high school girl who becomes the envy of her peers when she is given the opportunity to kiss teen
rock idol Conrad Birdie on the Ed Sullivan Show in front of the whole nation-
a development that leads to a rift with her boyfriend Hugo ( real-life teen idol Bobby Rydell in a
passable performance). Inspired by the military
drafting of Elvis Presley in December 1957 (he went on to co-star opposite
Ann-Margret in 1964’s Viva Las Vegas,
also directed by George Sidney), Bye Bye
Birdie possesses an infectious energy with its smile-inducing attempts to
curtail the ever overflowing zeal of female fans who cannot get enough of the
titular singer (Jesse Pearson). That fervor for Elvis would soon be eclipsed by
something even more radical: Beatlemania. Why girls would be expected to swoon
over the less-than-stellar looks of Birdie is anyone’s guess but in this film
fantasy we are also expected to believe Paul Lynde could have fathered
Ann-Margret. Lynde is actually very funny
in his role (with his quirks and mannerisms that made him literally the center
of attention on Hollywood Squares), especially
in his rendition of “Kids,†a song about annoying offspring.
The film opens with a tantalizing
rendition of the title song by Ann-Margret set against a bright blue screen,
and this illustrates that this is primarily a star-making showcase for her. Although she appeared previously in smaller
roles in Pocketful of Miracles (1961) and State Fair (1962), the vivacious actress shines in this film. The aforementioned sequence is a powerful and
memorable enough showcase to have influenced an entire episode of AMC’s fine
series Mad Men and reportedly was
shot after filming wrapped specifically to promote her. Ann-Margret’s singing bookends the film as
Albert Peterson (Dick Van Dyke, as his usual and likeable self) tries to write
a song that Birdie will sing on the TV show. Albert’s girlfriend Rosie DeLeon (Janet Leigh, in a musical performance
I would never have expected from her) wants his domineering mother (Maureen
Stapleton) to butt out of his business and marry Albert. As a Hollywood musical, everything turns out
for the best in the end, but not before the lead characters belt out a few
songs of their own.
Bye
Bye Birdie was the first
movie that I ever rented from West Coast Video in the fall of 1987 on VHS. The Columbia
Home Video tape was even produced in the old oversized clamshell box and the
picture quality was absolutely horrendous. Twilight Time’s brand-new Blu-ray blows all previous home video
incarnations of this film out of the water. Retaining the film's original
anamorphic 2.35:1 Panavision aspect ratio, the image is head and shoulders
above the Pioneer special widescreen laserdisc edition from the 1990’s and the
DVD from 1999. The Blu-ray contains an
isolated music and sound effects track and has been pressed in a limited number
of 3,000 copies, so click here to pick one up from Screen Archives
Entertainment. They also offer the
infectious soundtrack album which can be purchased here.