AN ICY TREAT FOR THE SUMMERTIME BLUES

Kudos to Turner Classic Movies as the channel has been dipping into its vaults and recently airing some camp and cult classics from the 60s/70s such as The Maltese Bippy and Wicked, Wicked. They do it again this Thursday July 8 at 9:30am with the rare broadcast of Winter a-Go-Go a beach ball in the snow released in 1965!

A personal favorite, Winter a-Go-Go heads straight for the slopes and remains there the entire time. Those Swingin’ Summer boys, William Wellman, Jr. and James Stacy, put on some clothes and head for Sun Valley to open a ski resort one of them has inherited. They take along some nubile dishes including Beverly Adams, Julie Parrish, Linda Rogers, and Nancy Czar to help out. These enterprising babes even don bikinis despite the fact that the temperature does not go above 40 degrees!

The film has the obligatory scantily clad ski babes and their horny tight pants wearing boyfriends you'd expect to find in this type of film. But what makes the movie especially interesting and an undiscovered camp classic is that it arguably introduces the first ambiguous gay character to appear in a beach-party type movie. The role of Roger that screenwriter Bob Kanter created for himself is the asexual best friend of socialite Janine (Jill Donohue). Though he travels with her and her friend Dori (Judy Parker) there is no evidence of any current or past romance with either gal. During the course of the film Janine sets her sights on Danny (Stacy) and Jeff (Welmman, Jr.) but winds up reuniting with Burt (Anthony Hayes). Dori makes goo-goo eyes at Frankie (Tom Nardini) throughout the film. Poor Roger—if he is not running to Jeff and Danny for protection from the bullying Burt he just sits there drinking his cokes making catty comments about the proceedings.

So sit back and enjoy the twistin' Winter a-Go-Go girls, handsome James Stacy, rockin' music from The Hondells and the Nooney Ricket 4 with Joni Lyman, and the bitchy barbs of Bob Kanter. Highly recommended!