THE RIGHT APPROACH 1961

I really miss the old days when late-night television used to be a film fan’s oasis of the great, near-great, and downright worst of what Hollywood had to offer. My lifetime love of film is a direct result of an equally lifelong battle with sleep, and the broad assortment of old movies that kept me company (on non-school nights, anyway) via The Late Show and The Late Late Show. There were no high-flown designations of “classic” films or "encore" broadcasts then; they were merely referred to as “old movies” and “reruns.” The scope and variety of said films was so vast, one could watch Geraldine Page in Toys in the Attic at 11:00pm, Mamie Van Doren in Girls Town at 1:00am, and see in the morning with Joan Crawford in Dancing Lady at 3:00am.
TV stations had lots of airtime to fill, lots of used cars to sell, and sizable packages of obscure and forgotten films of all stripes to do it with. Although I could have done without the commercial interruptions every five minutes, this unaccredited course in The Insomniac’s Film School provided a peerless film history education.

Frankie Vaughan as Leo Mack
"I learned a long time ago: nobody looks out for Daddy if Daddy don't look out for Daddy!"

Juliet Prowse as Ursula Poe
"You can marry a lot more money in five minutes than you could make in a lifetime!"

Martha Hyer as Anne Perry
"I'm not desperate. I like my life...I go where I want, when I want. Men aren't all that important."

Gary Crosby ad Rip Hulett
"You been beltin' that grape a little...eh, Daddy?"

David McLean as Bill Sikulovic
"It isn't always what a person gets that's important. It's what he gives up to get it!"

Jesse White as Agent Brian Freer 
"Y'know you're a very good lookin' boy in my opinion. A red-blooded, he-man type!"

Jane Withers (yes, Josephine the Plumber) as Liz
"Sue me, but whenever I meet one of those 'Personality Boys' I wanna hide the good silver!"

A particular Late Show favorite that has been popping up recently on cable TV is The Right Approach. It's another one of those "rips the lid off the garbage can" showbiz exposé movies that Hollywood seems to enjoy churning out. Films that attempt to shed light on, usually through overstated cliché and melodrama, the ruthless backbiting and treachery that so often accompany a star's climb to the top.

These sorts of movies bank on show business having a sleazy kind of allure for the audience, yet after 90 minutes of trumpeting glitz and glamour, they always have to wind things down with a moralistic ending that supports the simple virtues of decency and a good heart. Striving for up-to-the-minute daring, The Right Approach dates itself instantly (and hilariously) with its profusion of swingin’ Sixties Rat Pack-era “ring-a-ding-ding” hipster slang, and each turn of its defanged, What Makes Sammy Run? meets The Sweet Smell of Success plotline. Ranking high on my “so bad it’s good” guilty-pleasure trash-o-meter, The Right Approach begs for a DVD release.

Vaselined Vegas Lounge Lizard
No, that isn't Valley of the Dolls' Tony Polar, but it might as well be. Like a great many male singers of the day, the late British pop star Frankie Vaughan was fashioned in the mold of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin (complete with that weird, jaw-dislocating singing affectation so favored by Sammy Davis, Jr. and Mel Torme.)  

This unaccountably forgotten camp treasure from 1961 has the look and feel of the bargain-basement, but it boasts a pretty snazzy pedigree. It’s based on an early, not very well-received play by Garson Kanin (Born Yesterday, Adam’s Rib) titled The Live Wire. It was adapted for the screen by Garson’s brother, Michael Kanin, and sister-in-law, Fay (The Opposite Sex). It features a song by the award-winning songwriting team of Marilyn and Alan Bergman (The Way We Were), and has a cast full of actors I'm gonna guess were all under contract at 20th Century-Fox at the time. 

Oscar-nominee Martha Hyer (for Some Came Running) appeared in Fox’s The Best of Everything (1959); Liverpool crooner Frankie Vaughan was hot off of the lamentable Marilyn Monroe musical, Let’s Make Love (1960); and the ever-watchable Juliet Prowse had nearly caused an international incident by getting under Nikita Khrushchev’s skin in Can-Can (1960). Like most every film released by Fox between 1953 and 1967, The Right Approach was filmed in CinemaScope, but perhaps Fox broke the bank with How to Marry a Millionaire, for this film is strictly economy class and shot in black and white...somewhat atypical for a movie this light (with musical numbers, yet).

Because the system works, the system called, reciprocity
Mitch (Steve Harris) clips the locks of Bill (David McLean), who ties the tie of Rip (Gary Crosby)

In a reversal of the usual all-girl formula of films like The Pleasure Seekers, Valley of the Dolls, and The Best of Everything; The Right Approach tells the story of five bachelor buddies rooming communally in a reconverted Hawaiian restaurant high in the Hollywood Hills. There’s med student, Bill; barber-to-be Mitch; aspiring set designer, Horace; jazz musician, Rip; and I-have-absolutely-no-idea-what-he-does, Granny (yes, Granny is a dude). What becomes instantly obvious is that all are at least a decade too old for this kind of boyish, clubhouse arrangement, with Bill, the most glaringly elderly of the bunch, the only one afforded a backstory (military service and familial self-sacrifice) explaining away his late-bloomer status.

At left, Rip (Gary Crosby- son of Bing and author of the illuminating Mommie Dearest-like tell-all memoir, Going My Own Way ) fixes his neck brace (don't ask) while at right, lanky beanpole Granny (Paul Von Schreiber) prepares for bed wearing only a pajama top - therein setting the stage for one of the most unappetizing and unwanted buffalo shots in cinema history.

Into this happy, pentamerous setting comes Mitch’s older brother Leo, a caustic, wannabe singer /actor of near-supernatural amorality. A lying, cheating, self-interested, double-crossing, womanizing opportunist decades before these character flaws became standard equipment for reality TV stardom; Leo’s poisonous influence on The Hut--as the “boys” have dubbed their digs--and the lives of the ladies he comes into contact with provide both the drama and moral of The Right Approach. And, might I add, it also provides a great deal of the unintentional comedy. Bad boys and bad girls are the real heart of any showbiz drama, and in Frankie Vaughan’s Wile E. Coyote interpretation of Leo Mack, The Right Approach has one doozy of a villain. Cross Patty Duke as Valley of the Dolls’ Neely O’Hara with Stephen Boyd’s Frankie Fane in The Oscar (1966), and you have some idea as to the camp histrionic heights this film can reach in its brisk 92 minutes.

Gardner McKay, co-star of The Pleasure Seekers (center), starred in the 20th Century Fox TV series Adventures in Paradise from 1959 to 1962. He appears as himself in a brief cameo in The Right Approach when Leo (left) lands a bit part on the series.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

We Americans are a celebrity-obsessed bunch who love to romanticize the lives and careers of the rich and famous. All the while feeling the need to reassure ourselves (incessantly) that in spite of their looks, wealth, and notoriety, the famous are a shallow, amoral bunch without a shred of integrity or decency between them. Hollywood, an industry that’s always known what side its bread was buttered on, has been more than happy to feed this dysfunction with glitzy tales of fame idolatry disguised as cautionary fables designed to placate the unwashed masses that all that unattainable, envy-inducing glamour and wealth they've been waving in fron tof our noses is an unworthy pursuit fraught with heartbreak, treachery, and compromised ideals. 

That these lacerating indictments of Hollywood’s superficiality are made by individuals (directors, actors, writers) all seeking fame and fortune in the self-said industry doesn't strike anyone involved as a tad disingenuous, probably explains why these films always feel so false and over the top. 

The Live Wire is the name of the 1950 Garson Kanin play upon which The Right Approach is based. It's also the title of the movie industry magazine at the center of the film's plot, symbolizing the Holy Grail of success.

PERFORMANCES
I don't know much about UK star Frankie Vaughan. All I know is that I so soured on him in Let's Make Love (not his fault, I just disliked that movie so much) that his deliciously nasty turn as the bad guy in The Right Approach came as a welcome surprise. He's not much of an actor, but like countryman Tommy Steele, he has a persona that seems to be ON all the time, making him an energetic showman and a dynamic--if not exactly believable--screen presence. 

One of my favorite things is that he has these great, silent-movie-type Snidely Whiplash eyes that dart about cartoonishly whenever he's about to do something underhanded. Fans of Let's Make Love will recognize that film's theme song as well as the title tune from Fox's The Best of Everything played frequently in this film's background.

Change Partners
That's Juliet Prowse, Robert Casper, Frankie Vaughan, & Martha Hyer.
The Right Approach would have been really gangbusters if its couplings had gone the direction the gazes in this screencap hint toward. (Martha Hyer's giving Juliet Prowse one of those Candice Bergen looks from The Group.)

I really got a kick out of Juliet Prowse in this. Playing a hard-boiled, gum-chewing hash-slinger even more amoral than Vaughan's character, she gives the film a lift whenever she shows up. Not as glacially classy as Martha Hyer (a Hitchcock blonde if there ever was one) Prowse has the lion's share of the film's smart-ass dialog, a terrific screen presence, that wonderful accent, and we even get to see her dance a little bit (albeit in a cramped, one-room apartment...but those legs!).

Clip from "The Right Approach" (1961)

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

With Russ Meyer dead, Paul Morrissey bitter, and John Waters gone corporate; it's growing near impossible to find solid camp these days. The Right Approach has all the requisite bad dialog, weak songs, cliched plotting, exaggerated performances, and self-serious moralizing to make it a classic of the trash-with-class genre, but it is soooo hard to find. I still have my old pan-and-scan VHS TV copy from who knows how many years ago, but I would love to see this restored in widescreen.

Leo Mack, Up To No Good, As Usual

BONUS MATERIAL
In addition to all the above, The Right Approach is a lot of fun for some of the glimpses it provides of early Los Angeles.

Juliet Prowse's place of employment in the film, Sonny's Drive-In, is located on the southwest corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Vine in Hollywood. Just three blocks south of the Villa Elaine apartments, where I lived when I moved to L.A.

I worked as a personal trainer back in the day, and for a brief time in the late '80s, Juliet Prowse was one of my clients. I couldn't believe my luck. She was not only a dance icon I'd admired for years, but she turned out to be a real sweetheart, as well. In 1990, I attended a revival of the Stephen Sondheim/Jeff Goldman musical Follies at the Long Beach Civic Opera. Prowse was phenomenal (of course), and David Edward Byrd, the designer of the original 1971 theatrical poster, was commissioned to design a new one for this production, which I was thrilled to get signed. 

The Right Approach played (most often at the bottom of a double-bill) 

in Los Angeles during the summer of 1961

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 - 2012