THE YOUNG SWINGERS

Molly Bee and Rod Lauren

THE YOUNG SWINGERS (1963). Director: Maury Dexter.

Mel Hudson (Rod Lauren) manages a Hootenanny club called the Vanguard. The owner of the building, a witch named Roberta Crawford (Jo Helton), wants the club out of there and employs dirty tricks to get them gone, using her lawyer Bruce Webster (Justin Smith) to do most of the work for her. Her granddaughter, Vicki (Molly Bee), takes over while Roberta is out of town, and strikes up an acquaintanceship -- and more -- with Mel. Can they get her aunt to change her mind? Meanwhile everyone, including Mel, Vicki, Fred (Gene McDaniels), Pete (Larrs Jackson, who also does impressions), and the Sherwood Singers perform some perfectly pleasant numbers. 

Gene McDaniels

The Young Swingers is not a good movie, but at least everyone in it has a more than decent voice, and most sound much better than the pop singers of today, most of whom sound alike (and are auto-tuned on top of it). Rod Lauren sings better than he acts in this -- he seems tranquilized most of the time -- but he was to become more expressive in such films as Black Zoo (in which he played a mute character). Years later he was accused of hiring someone to murder his Filipino wife. Molly Bee first came to fame at 13 warbling "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus" and had a respectable vocal career with only a few film credits. Larrs Jackson (aka Jack Larson), who does a lousy impression of Groucho but isn't bad at Ed Sullivan and Walter Brennan, had quite a number of credits after this. Of all the singers in this perhaps the most impressive is Gene McDaniels, who sings two snappy numbers and sings them really well. He should have become as famous as Johnny Mathis and others. 

Verdict: Good songs, good singing, but no real story. **1/4.