The 1963 Movie "Palm Springs Weekend"

The 1963 movie Palm Springs Weekend provides contrasts to the movie Dirty Dancing, which takes place in 1963. Both stories depict romantic adventures of young people at resort hotels.

The movie Palm Springs Weekend was made because of the commercial success of the 1960 movie Where the Boys Are, which takes place at a resort hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This 1960 movie focused on four college girls looking for fun and love at a resort hotel during their spring vacation. In contrast, the 1963 focuses more on a few college boys, members of their college's basketball team.

Both movies feature music and dancing. There is no rhythm-and-blues or rock-and-roll. Rather, there is pop, jazz and folk music -- which were the music genres that college students preferred in 1963.

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The following video clip from Where the Boys Are plays the pop music featured in that 1960 movie.

The following video clip shows how jazz music was featured.

At this link, movie critic Allan Arkus praises the movie Where the Boys Are, including the movie's music.

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In Palm Springs Weekend, the main male character, Jim (played by Troy Donahue), is a college student on a basketball scholarship studying to become a doctor. While on spring break, he has a romance with a girl named Bunny (played by Stephanie Powers) who lives in Palm Springs.

The following two videos show shows glimpses of the music and dancing featured in Palm Springs Weekend. Pay attention also to the clothing that college students wore while vacationing at a resort hotel in 1963.

Beginning at 0:25 in the above video, you will see the main female character, Bunny Dixon, wearing tight white jeans that are similar to jeans worn by Baby Houseman in Dirty Dancing.

I suspect that those the decision to put Baby into white jeans in Dirty Dancing was inspired by Bunny's white jeans in the movie Palm Springs Weekend.

White jeans worn by Bunny in "Palm Springs Weekend" --
similar to jeans worn by Baby in "Dirty Dancing"

The following video is not from Palm Springs Weekend, but it shows the Modern Folk Quartet singing their song "Ox Driver's Song". The movie features that group singing that song in the resort hotel. Unfortunately, I could not find a video clip of that scene in the movie.

The movie features also a couple of characters playing an acoustic guitar and a banjo and singing the pop song "Bye Bye Blackbird". Unfortunately, I could not find a video clip of that scene, but you can see a glimpse of that scene in the first of the above three videos, beginning at 2:27.

Music played with a banjo and acoustic guitar,
while a girl dances the twist.

The movie does not have any rock-and-roll or rhythm-or-blues music. The movie also does not have any "dirty dancing" -- rather all the characters dance only the twist.

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In 1963, Caucasian college students were not influenced much by Negro music or dancing. (In 1963 the polite words were "Caucasian" and "Negro".)

The 1963 movie Palm Springs Weekend depicts a college culture that is entirely Caucasian. Not even one non-Caucasian person is seen in the movie. The main male characters are the members of a college basketball team that is said to be the best team on the West Coast, and all of them are Caucasian.

Maybe some Negros worked at hotels in Palm Springs in 1963 -- and maybe they listened to music and danced like the employees in Dirty Dancing -- but they sure did not affect the Caucasian college students depicted in the movie Palm Springs Weekend, who are depicted listening to pop and folk music and dancing the twist.

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By the way, the basketball team's coach is played by Jack Weston, who plays Max Kellerman in Dirty Dancing.

Jack Weston playing a basketball coach
in the 1963 movie "Palm Springs Weekend"

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The romance between Bunny and Jim in Palm Springs Weekend corresponds roughly with the romance between Baby and Johnny in Dirty Dancing.

Bunny's age is not specified. (The actress Stephanie Powers was 20 years old when the movie was made.) Bunny lives at home with her mother, who is a housewife, and with her father, who is the local sheriff. Bunny works in a store that sells music records.

Jim is a pre-med student and basketball player at an unidentified West Coast college. (The actor Troy Donahue was 27 years old when the movie was made.) Nothing is known about Jim's family.

Jim is sexually aggressive. He sees Bunny working in the local record store and immediately begins flirting and getting physically close with her.

Jim approaches Benny in the record store

He invites her to his hotel's swimming pool.

Bunny comes to the pool at Jim's hotel

Bunny accepts his invitation and comes to the pool, where they continue flirting. Jim indicates that he will not marry until he finishes his medical studies, seven years in the future. In the meantime he intends to be sexually active. Bunny asks whether he would marry a sexually experienced woman and thus exposes his double standard.

Bunny is not intimidated by Jim's aggressiveness. On the contrary, she puts him on the defensive and compels him to continue their relationship according to her own rules. Because of her propriety, backbone and spunk, she wins Jim's love, and they become a beautiful couple.

A future doctor's wife and a future doctor

This movie is lousy, but I did enjoy watching the interaction between Bunny and Jim. They portray an ideal beginning relationship for a young middle-class couple in the early 1960s. They have fun playing their sexual roles confidently in the courtship conventions of that time. He makes moves on her, while she sets his limits. By playing this fun game, they grow to respect and love each other.

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The relationship between Bunny and her father is a major element of the story. As a sheriff happily married to a caring and loving housewife, he has raised Bunny to be well behaved and respectful and to feel protected and secure. Despite his social authority, she teases him playfully within their family.

As the sheriff, he has to protect his city during the annual invasion of college students misbehaving during spring break. He distrusts the strangers, especially the males, and he discourages (but does not prohibit) his daughter from involving herself personally with them.

Toward the movie's end, the father makes a false assumption that Jim has committed a crime. However, the father's suspicion is disproved, and so he has to apologize to Jim and allow him to continue his beginning relationship with Bunny.

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In both movies -- Palm Springs Weekend and Dirty Dancing -- the admired father expresses suspicions about his daughter's new boyfriend. Although the father's suspicion is proved to be mistaken, his protectiveness is an important part of his daughter's life. The daughter respects and admires her father and hopes that her new boyfriend will turn out to be a similar, successful man.

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The early 1960s were the culmination of a long period of growing prosperity. A young person who followed the social rules and earned a college degree could well expect to become financially comfortable. The movie Palm Springs Weekend portrays a group of male college students who are enjoying that prosperity and looking for their future wives.

The young men wear nice clothes -- jackets and ties even on vacation -- because they are dressing for success.

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Below, again, is the beginning of the excellent documentary series Making Sense of the Sixties, which explains the social environment and attitudes of Caucasian college students in the early 1960s.

See also my previous posts of the explanations of sociologist Elaine Tyler May -- Part 1 and Part 2.