Between BEACH PARTY/’63 and MUSCLE BEACH PARTY/’64 (tv’s BEWITCHED with wife Elizabeth Montgomery came next), journeyman director William Asher tried something ‘serious’ to laughable effect with this mafioso crime drama. Produced by Peter Lawford post-Rat Pack exile (retribution after Lawford’s Kennedy in-laws snubbed Sinatra), he still managed to bag Sammy Davis Jr. & Joey Bishop in roles while Jack Palance stand-in Henry Silva stars as a grown-up Sicilian WWII partisan (speaking Italian rather than Sicilian dialect in the prologue) who’s tricked into coming to America to take out the mob men who informed on Johnny Colini. Taking the same name, Silva’s tagged ‘Johnny Cool’ and starts crossing names off his list between trysts with an unbecomingly brunette Montgomery.* The departed include Telly Savalas, John McGiver, Mort Sahl (!), even Jim Backus, who gives us a taste of Mr. Magoo before dying. (Judging by the haphazard cutting within scenes, I fear the film's editor may also have been dispatched.) The mob and the law will catch up with Silva’s Cool, but not before Sammy sings the title track and takes off his eye patch. That’s a surprise! Another is seeing how seriously everyone takes this junk and that, in its way, it’s a fun, dumb watch.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Babyboomers of all genders & sexual persuasions knew their fantasies had matured when they graduated from blonde Elizabeth Montgomery in BEWITCHED to Diana Rigg in THE AVENGERS.
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