In what is essentially a very mediocre version of the Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movies of an earlier era, this young adult musical takes a cliched plot into 16 themes and falls flat on its beehive. Mary Ann Mobley is Judy; Chad Everett is Mickey here. Mobley is a songwriter who has created controversy at a prim-and-proper all-girls school by writing a sexy song, and Everett is the publisher of the song that she's written who spills her secret, getting her into trouble with the hierarchy long hairs at the school. Wanting to write an article about her, they decide to do a cheesecake spread and need to find a girl to stand in for the disagreeable Mobley. A subplot has fellow co-ed Nancy Sinatra (!) hiding the fact that she's married. The grandson of the stuffy school founder (Willard Waterman) shows up midterm to throw Mobley out, but it's obvious that romance is going to bloom between the initially feuding Mobley and Everett.
With musical performances by various bands (including the Dave Clark Five and the Animals), this has plenty of distraction to keep its audience entertained, but what is obvious is that some of the musical performances are just plain mediocre. Atrud Gilberto's performance of "The Girl From Impanema" is so slow and sleepy that it makes Dinah Shore's singing seem energetic. There are a few cool dance numbers (one where Waterman loses his pants while in a genie outfit) and an organ solo that is pretty hot, but this will never compete with the Connie Francis musicals that MGM was producing at the same time. It also gets on the trend of skiing pictures of the time by having a lengthy sequence on the slopes, but unfortunately this ends up being as slow as cross-country, and everything from there is downhill.
With musical performances by various bands (including the Dave Clark Five and the Animals), this has plenty of distraction to keep its audience entertained, but what is obvious is that some of the musical performances are just plain mediocre. Atrud Gilberto's performance of "The Girl From Impanema" is so slow and sleepy that it makes Dinah Shore's singing seem energetic. There are a few cool dance numbers (one where Waterman loses his pants while in a genie outfit) and an organ solo that is pretty hot, but this will never compete with the Connie Francis musicals that MGM was producing at the same time. It also gets on the trend of skiing pictures of the time by having a lengthy sequence on the slopes, but unfortunately this ends up being as slow as cross-country, and everything from there is downhill.