The Pleasure Seekers

I so enjoy teasing a friend of mine about his long-time and, let's face it, abject adoration of the Swedish bombshell, Ms. A-M. This one was shown on American Movie Classics recently, "formatted" (Why do they bother?!?), which reduces one's visual pleasure by approximately 50%! But even without a forty-foot wide screen to celebrate her astonishingly talented assets, Annie is something to behold. When she waggles that tush...well, it's no wonder she performs almost all of her musical numbers indoors on studio sets. The censorious Spanish would have had her arrested! It rivals "Viva! Las Vegas" as her finest hour!

As an artifact of times long gone, this is still fairly enjoyable. Today's young ingenues seem like such tired-out, world weary ladies of the evening compared to the virginal Miss Tiffin, the ambitious Miss Lynley and the incomparable Miss Margret. (Eat your heart out, J. Lo!) And with Brian Keith and Gene Tierney on hand to attest that those beyond their thirties could still care for each other (though it takes the scriptwriters until about the final sequence to maneuver them to that realization), one can regretfully observe that we've come a long way from the bright and beautiful early Sixties, and there's not much to crow about on that score.

Although some consider this a remake of Three Coins In The Fountain and Jean Negulescu directed both films, The Pleasure Seekers takes a decidedly less serious tack. The three women in The Pleasure Seekers are quite a bit younger than the trio in the first film and their romantic problems are similar, but not as critical.

The three girls are Carol Lynley who works for an American wire service in Madrid, entertainer Ann-Margret, and Pamela Tiffin who is fresh off the boat and fresh off the farm so to speak who is bunking in with them temporarily. And all three have their romantic flings that look like they're going to go belly up, but in the end seem to work out.

Lynley's is the most complex and the most interesting. She's the girl Friday of her boss Brian Keith who would like to make the association personal as well as professional. But he's slightly married to Gene Tierney. And on the other end is Gardner McKay another reporter who's interested in Lynley also, but Keith is harassing him, not because of that but because McKay is ruining his career with his late night carousing. It's what inevitably happens when personal and professional lives get mixed.

Tiffin who usually was the wide eyed innocent in her salad days gets zeroed in on by Anthony Franciosa who plays a no account count who just wants into her pants. But she falls in love and if you don't know how this works out, you haven't been to too many films. Franciosa who is a favorite of mine is the best in the film.

Ann-Margret accidentally gets run into by Dr. Andre Lawrence on his motor scooter. He's from the country who is in town to raise money for his clinic. Ann-Margret would like to help, but Lawrence is a macho guy and help from a woman in the culture he was raised would be looked down on. Stupid, but that's how they say it is. This is the weakest part of the film, though Ann-Margret gets some nice musical numbers.

If you watched Three Coins In The Fountain you know how this one comes out. The Pleasure Seekers has no air of sadness over it that the other film has with Clifton Webb's terminal illness. The location cinematography around Madrid is nice to see and certainly stimulated tourism which I'm sure was Francisco Franco's idea in letting the American film company shoot a movie in his capital. There is not one scintilla of a hint of any dictatorship in The Pleasure Seekers.

Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn wrote some not too memorable songs for this film and it actually got an Oscar nomination for musical scoring for Alfred Newman.

I was in Madrid in 2001 and it looks pretty much the same as it did in 1964. The scenery and the girls are real pretty, how can you go wrong.

Granted ---this movie is sooo 60's! But, I thought it was a fun film. Granted, there was a mad attempt to recapture the 50's here (DID NOT WORK)---but it was easy on the eyes and entertaining----PLUS Ann-Margret was indeed Ravishing! ---especially in that PINK ruffled dress singing the title tune! Worked For Me!!!

This film was mentioned in a book I have about bad movies. No, these are not incompetent films or films with horrible production values, but ones that are sleazy and over-the-top--sort of like guilty pleasures--and that is definitely true of "The Pleasure Seekers".

What the producers of the film did was take the 1950s film "Three Coins in a Fountain" and inserted a lot of sexual innuendo--at least, as much as they could get away with in 1964. While I liked the original film, "The Pleasure Seekers" was far inferior because it lacked heart and subtlety--replacing it was bedroom scenes and talk about premarital sex.

The film is about three young American ladies who live in Madrid and are trying to have healthy relationships while strenuously avoiding premarital sex...at least sometimes. Carol Lynley plays a career girl who has her sights set on a married man (Brian Keith) as well as a single guy. Pamela Tiffin plays a stereotypical beautiful but dumb lady. She falls for an over-sexed rich playboy (Tony Franciosa) who promises marriage but really wants another notch on the bedpost. Ann-Margret plays a woman who is infatuated with a doctor who obviously has a secret, as he plays hard to get!! After all, this IS Ann-Margret and he either must be gay or married to resist her many charms.

Towards the end of the film, it appears that the three have struck out in love and two of them are preparing to go back to America. However, because this is a Hollywood-style film, you know that at least some of these relationships will work out for the best. Tune in for yourself to see where these high-minded ladies land in this trashy soap.

Overall, the film sure looks nice. It was filmed in and around Madrid and is pretty just like the original film (which was filmed in and around Rome). The music is also very nice and evocative. As for the acting and writing, it all seemed rather fake--like the people were playing caricatures instead of real people. Not a whole lotta depth with these folks--just a lot of raging hormones and inconsistent behavior. It is truly a guilty pleasure--the sort of titillating fare that they no longer make but was popularized in the late 1950s to mid-1960s--just as the Production Code was on the way out.

Deep and insightful? No way,...but still worth a peek. For a similar experience, try watching THE BEST OF EVERYTHING (1959) and PEYTON PLACE (1957)--two films that manage to tell similar stories but in a bit better way.

I saw this movie in a theater in the 1960s when it was released. I soon bought the soundtrack. The music is upbeat and fun, and Ann-Margret's purring voice in several of the songs were worth the $3.50 or whatever soundtracks cost back then. I wish I still had the vinyl LP, but I left it behind years ago for lack of space, and I have often wished I hadn't. The cover shot of Ann-Margret dancing in a hot pink ruffled dress, if I remember correctly, should have been sufficient cause for me to hold onto it.

Ann-Margret dominates any film she's in, but Carol Lynley and Pamela Tiffin were also lusciously beautiful. I had forgotten Gene Tierney was in the cast, but now I remember her bitchy vignette (type casting, from what I read about her).

I wish 20th Century Fox would release this film on DVD. I'd love to see it again.