Don’t Make Waves ** (1967, Tony Curtis, Claudia Cardinale, Sharon Tate, Robert Webber, Joanna Barnes, David Draper, Jim Backus, Mort Sahl, Edgar Bergen) – Classic Movie Review 6320

‘What the Italians do with a bed… the Americans do with a beach!’ This 1967 beach farce Don’t Make Waves sure looks good on paper. The director (Alexander Mackendrick) and star (Tony Curtis) of the 1957 classic Sweet Smell of Success reunite for a satirical comedy about Sixties California stereotypes such as muscular beach boys and scantily clad beauty queens.

But this time it is the sour smell of failure because Ira Wallach’s screenplay (from his own novel Muscle Beach) makes few waves through its mix of romance and farce as New York tourist Carlo Cofield (Curtis) finds love as well as waves on the Southern California beach.

But Curtis, Sharon Tate as a skydiver named Malibu, Claudia Cardinale, Robert Webber and Joanna Barnes, as well as the Byrds’ theme tune Don’t Make Waves (written by Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman) ingratiate with their flavour of the Sixties, and old-timers Jim Backus, Mort Sahl and Edgar Bergen provide the odd smile here and there, old-timers maybe but not having lost their timing.

Curtis recalled: ‘I was a college professor and Cardinale was the love interest, but a lot of attention went to the second female lead, a surfer girl named Malibu, who accidentally knocks me out with her surfboard: Sharon Tate.’

Also in the cast are David Draper, Ann Elder, Chester Yorton, Marc London, Douglas Henderson and Dub Taylor.

Don’t Make Waves runs 97 minutes, is made by Filmways Pictures, is released by MGM, is written by Ira Wallach, George Kirgo and Maurice Richlin, shot in Metrocolor by Philip Lathrop, produced by Martin Ransohoff and George Calley, and scored by Vic Mizzy.

Sharon Tate got ‘introducing’ billing in the credits of two films: Eye of the Devil (1967), filmed earlier but released later, and Don’t Make Waves (1967). And actually neither was ‘introducing’. She had previously appeared in an unbilled bit part as Beautiful Girl in The Americanization of Emily (1964).

Tate later recalled that the happy atmosphere on set was spoiled when a young stuntman drowned after parachuting into the Pacific Ocean.

The Barbie Doll called Malibu Barbie is based on Sharon Tate’s character.

RIP Martin Ransohoff, who died on 13 December 2017, aged 90.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6320

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