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COME JOIN THE PARTY--THE BOYS (& MEN) ARE HERE!!! & THE GATEWAY THEATRE IS A COUPLE OF BLOCKS FROM WHERE I LIVE!!!
Back where the boys are
 Connie Francis, star of the movie "Where the Boys Are," was in Fort |
In a return trip on Friday to Fort Lauderdale beach, singer and actress Connie Francis recalled how underwhelmed she was by her first visit half a century ago.
"This place is a morgue," Francis, 71, remembers telling the movie
producer who had brought her to Fort Lauderdale to film 1960's iconic
beack flick Where the Boys Are.
The quiet didn't last. The movie — a coming-of-age romp starring Francis, George Hamilton and others — helped to usher in the modern-day Spring Break phenomenon that turned Fort Lauderdale into a fountain of youth.
The city's relationship with the mass of fun-seeking college kids
soured in later years before getting back on track. Now officials are
betting the memory of the early spring flings is fond enough to support
a whole new shindig.
Francis, who lives in South Florida, joined Mayor Jack Seiler and other
dignitaries on Friday afternoon to announce the first edition of "Where
the Boys Are: Connie Francis' Great American Beach Party."
The city-sponsored event, which Seiler said would offer "good
old-fashioned family fun," takes place Memorial Day weekend, May 28 and
29, on the same shore where Francis, in the role of Angie, frolicked
with her classmates in scenes filmed here.
Seiler said the weekend will feature live music, a classic car show,
Spring Break reunions, themed events such as hula parties and beach
blanket bingo, and a screening on the beach of the original movie. A
publicist for Francis said she will attend many of the festivities.
Francis arrived for Friday's announcement, with her hit song Where the Boys Are filling the air, in a vintage red Cadillac convertible and was escorted
to the curb at A1A and Las Olas Boulevard by four shirtless young men
in swim trunks. At a podium facing the water, Francis regaled onlookers
with Where the Boys Are tales and credited the movie with luring young America to "the sun, the sand, the surf and the sex of Fort Lauderdale."
While she spoke, patrons of the Elbo Room — the durable dive bar that
had a star turn in the movie — leaned over the second-floor railing
with beers in hand and watched the proceedings from across A1A.
Seated on the podium behind Francis were locals with their own
Hollywood connections. One, banker Jack Abdo, was hired as an extra for
a street scene in Where the Boys Are, although he's never been able to spot himself in a frame of the film. "I've looked for it," he assured.
He also was an usher at the movie's world premiere at the Gateway Theater on Sunrise Boulevard.
Mary Taylor, another extra, also can't say for certain that she made
the final cut. But she has friends who insist they have sighted her on
screen.
The last time she watched the movie, about five years ago, Taylor said, "I found it very quaint."
Fun, as shown in Where the Boys Are, was bound to look
quaint in hindsight. Where Spring Break misbehavior in the 1960s tended
toward lampost-climbing and sleeping on the beach, the '70s and '80s
saw more public drunkeness, drug use and fighting — enough that local
residents and businesses revolted, and the city severed its Spring
Break ties for awhile.
Taylor said the time preceding all that friction was "more innocent"— sometimes painfully so.
"I can't believe how how lame we were!" she said of the early partiers
on Fort Lauderdale Beach. "We thought we were so bad. We thought we
were so cool. We might as well have been doing a minuet."
Sean Piccoli can be reached at spiccoli@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4832.