A horny adult man makes the moves on some teenagers before joining the army, but make it wholesome.
My first experience with Bye Bye Birdie the musical was when my local high school did a production of it when I was a kid. I had very little interest in the show before seeing it, as my opinion of Elvis’s Christmas album was very low, and I knew Birdie was supposed to be based on him. I only vaguely recollect that one of the girls pretended to smoke and an old lady who sat behind me gasped and exclaimed, “Oh my god, is she smoking?!” like she thought some drama teacher would let their student light up on stage. Other than that, completely forgettable, not something I was into.
Years went by, and during my Mad Men obsession I watched the episode completely centered around the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency’s attempt to recreate this iconic opening number to sell diet soda to women. It was, unknowingly at the time, my second exposure to Ann-Margret (my first surprisingly being the 10th Kingdom miniseries my friends and I would marathon every once and a while because Scott Cohen is adorable), and I was absolutely fascinated by her. I’ve always wanted to check out the movie based on Ann-Margret and Ann-Margret alone, and man, did she deliver.
This woman was made for the camera. When she sings, “Guess I’ll always care,” I felt my heart skip a beat. You just can’t replicate this, as Roger Sterling astutely stated when their client disliked the commercial, that the girl they cast is “Not Ann-Margret”.
This musical was inspired by the real-world reaction to Elvis Presley being drafted into the United States military. News travels fast that Conrad will be joining up ranks, to the despair of all teenage girls across the country, and one man named Albert (played by Dick Van Dyke after originating this role on Broadway) who wrote him a song for Birdie’s next motion picture he’s now not going to film. Since this is the first song he’s sold in 6 years, Albert takes this as a sign to give up the profession his mother wanted him to pursue and become a biochemist, since, you know, he got the degree and all.
Today I learned a yardbird is a military recruit, and not a band or a kitchy lawn ornament my grandfather had when I was a kid.
Albert’s secretary/long-time fiancé Rosie (played by Janet Leigh), who relies on the song’s success as her ticket to get Albert to finally marry her against his mother’s wishes, cooks up a scheme with Ed Sullivan to have Birdie perform one of Albert’s songs called “The Last Kiss” on Ed’s show before Birdie ships out. She’ll get some random teenage Birdie fan from Ohio to appear on stage so Birdie can kiss her, and thus every other teenager symbolically, goodbye. Rosie hopes that people will like the song and buy it as it will be Birdie’s last release for a while. Ed agrees to the concept, and Rosie heads to the local Conrad Birdie Fan Club to change some heart-eyed girl’s future. It’s wild to think there once was a time where someone could pick up a phone and ask a person on the other end to connect them to a child whose name some fan club chapter leader let you snag out of a file cabinet at random.
Kim McAfee, who is not the founder of the shitty antivirus software that somehow consumes all your computer’s resources in order to try and protect it, is that lucky teenage girl that Rosie picked for a grown-ass man to violate on national television in front of millions of people. She’s more preoccupied by her recent “pinning” by a boy at her school named Hugo (played by Bobby Rydell of Grease’s Rydell High fame and nothing else). Kim dreamingly regales the tale to her overly-enthusiastic friend Ursula over the phone, who then spreads this new information like wildfire. I’m super curious how often this “pinning” thing happened in real life, since it seems like a weird gesture I’ve only witnessed in movies. I’d ask my parents about it, but they were fresh out the womb when this movie was supposed to take place, and my grandparents are all dead, so I’m going to assume it’s a thing someone did one time and now every other piece of media uses it as shorthand for deciding to get awkwardly groped in the back of a car as opposed to a physical object a guy gives to a girl to wear on her blouse.
Today I learned that “What’s the Story, Morning Glory?” was a thing people said, and not an Oasis album.
When Rosie reveals her plan to Albert, he reacts well until Rosie suggests he use this good news as an opportunity to tell his mother they’re getting married. When his mother shows up to the office he immediately breaks this promise as she is a walking, talking guilt machine. Rosie proceeds to try and contact Kim anyway, despite her future with a JustNoMIL. Kim is still goo-goo for Hugo, as she believes getting felt-up for 5 seconds by her high school sweetheart makes her a woman now or something.
I hate this song so much because Ann-Margret puts on her socks with the heels on the side of her legs and that has to be uncomfortable.
When Kim finds out Birdie is coming to Sweet Apple, OH to lock lips with her, she devolves into a screaming mess. Hugo is upset that his new steady is going to be kissing an old, famous stranger, but she gaslights him into accepting it because the event will be good for the economy or some shit. The entire gang gathers in one of the worst states in the country for Birdie’s arrival, and everyone predictably loses their shit for the knock-off Elvis.
This guy does absolutely nothing for me, and I’m like kind of annoyed that Ann-Margret thinks he’s the bees knees.
The next 30 minutes of this movie suffer from “we couldn’t figure out how else to include these songs so we had them all happen in the house so we wouldn’t have to build more sets” syndrome. The commercial I watched on Plex about Sam Adam’s Summer Ale with your cousin from Boston produced more laughs out of me in 15 seconds than literally everything from this slog of the middle of the movie. Kim’s parents are now hesitant to allow Kim to kiss Birdie because the men are all upset at the effect Birdie’s had on their wives, until Albert and Rosie offer them a spot on the Ed Sullivan show to promote Dad’s fertilizer business. Hugo is similarly concerned about being cucked on the small screen, but Ann-Margret uses her Ann-Margret powers and persuades him, yet again, to cool his jets. Rosie is still upset that Albert is letting his mother hold their relationship hostage, and he penguin waddles in an attempt to earn her forgiveness. When Albert tries to tell his mother his plans for the future, she reacts in a completely reasonable way by attempting suicide.
The next day, during rehearsal, all hell breaks loose and destroys the group’s best laid plans. After Birdie plants a practice kiss on Kim and she faints, Hugo breaks up with her on the spot. Albert finds out that the Russian Ballet that is performing on the show is going to take an extra 4 minutes, so the song, the kiss, and everyone’s speeches are going to be cut, only allowing 30 seconds for a small wave from Conrad. Bye Bye 2 million records sold, a wedding, and a booming fertilizer business.
Birdie is unfazed by this news and hits up a local club to flirt with a group of high school students. Kim, now recently single, tries some college boys on for size, which sends Hugo into a complete frenzy. He storms off leaving Kim alone without her beau or her Birdie.
God, I love how Ann-Margret dances; she was tailor-made for the 1960s. Also, the way this number tried to replicate the dance at the gym from West Side Story is hilarious.
Heartbroken and disappointed, Rosie heads to the only other club in Sweet Apple that serves liquor. Albert runs into her there, along with his mother, who has somehow snagged a date? Rosie spots Albert, and in a truly bizarre scene tries to get an entire group of Shriners to violate her to make Albert jealous??? He comes to her rescue, and she swoons at his display of possession. They decide to elope after the Ed Sullivan show so Rosie can finally lose her bloom.
Y’know, I was kind of curious why Rosie was styled like Anita from West Side Story, until I found out that Chita Rivera originated this role on Broadway. This would *also* explain why “Spanish Rose” was in the Broadway show but cut from the movie. In the musical, Albert’s mom didn’t like Rosie because she was Hispanic, and I don’t know if they omitted this because of the casting of Janet or because they decided to avoid the subject all together by not casting Chita. Chita apparently doesn’t like the movie adaptation of the show, either, and like, I can’t really blame her there. They cast someone else in her role that couldn’t dance, and the studio had the nerve to ask if they could film Chita performing so Janet could use the tape to rehearse from. Hollywood is ruthless.
Albert, after unsuccessfully trying to convince the ballet to change their song back to something shorter, instead decides to use his biochemistry degree to cook speed and drug the conductor. When it finally kicks in, the orchestra has no choice but to follow along to the maestro’s new tempo, to the absolute frustration of the dancers on stage. I found it odd that they sped up the footage of the ballet instead of trying to get the dancers to struggle with the faster music, but whatever… maybe it was too dangerous to get them to rush with the all the lifts, who knows.
Anyway, Birdie gets to sing the song, and instead of kissing Kim, he gets a punch in the face by a teenage Hugo. Although the night was a disaster, Albert tells his mother he’s marrying Rosie anyway, and his mother surprisingly doesn’t care because she got hitched to the dude she met in the bar the night before. Everyone lives happily ever after, except Conrad, since he’s still going into the army after all. The end.
I don’t have the best memory, but when I watched this movie I was like, “hmmm… this feels… off”. TURNS OUT it’s because they changed a lot of the plot? In the musical, Rosie convinces Hugo to sabotage the broadcast by punching Birdie because she was mad at Albert, and afterward Birdie and Kim run away together. Birdie is later arrested for trying to hook up with an underage kid (which is kind of hilarious considering Elvis’ real-life relationship with a teenager while he was deployed), and Albert has to bail him out and disguise him as an old woman to get him out of town. Also, there’s no Russian ballet, biochemistry degree, or drugging the composer. Albert simply decides to be an English teacher, marries Rosie, and moves to Pumpkin Falls, Iowa.
Paul Lynde, who originated the role of the dad on Broadway and is doing The Most in this movie, had some harsh words for the remake as well, insinuating the changes were made to shift the focus to Ann-Margret as opposed to the rest of the cast. The opening and closing number “Bye Bye Birdie” was written for the film and payed for out of the director’s pocket, which kind of proves Paul’s point. Similarly to the Hairspray musical movie adaptation, this film lost its teeth, and is mostly a sugary-sweet ode to teenage frenzy and how to protect your virginity At All Costs. That said, I didn’t like the stage show when I saw it a billion years ago, either. But I liked it better than whatever this is. Let’s thank the movie for launching the careers of Dick Van Dyke and Ann-Margret and instead watch Bye Bye Greasy anytime we get an itch for a 1950s musical about a cool guy in a leather jacket.