The 1964 Movie "For Those Who Think Young" -- Part 6

Following Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

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College playboy Gardner "Ding" Pruitt III seduces young women by inviting them to his luxurious apartment, where he serves them alcoholic drinks. Sandy Palmer has socialized with Ding, but she refuses all his invitations to his apartment.

At the beginning of the movie, he is asking her merely to go on a date with him (is not inviting her again to his apartment). She refuses to go on a date with him, saying that she needs to study for a test. Because he persists, she relents to a date later that evening.

For the date, she insists that he take her to The Silver Palms nightclub where her Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody perform as singers. The two uncles have forbidden their niece Sandy to enter the nightclub, but now she can pretend that her date Ding has taken her into the nightclub. When Woody sees Sandy and Ding in the nightclub, he throws both of them out.

Since they have been thrown out of the nightclub, Ding tries to take advantage of the unexpected situation by inviting Sandy again to his apartment. As always, Sandy again refuses to go to his apartment, because she foresees that he will serve her alcoholic drinks and try to seduce her. Sandy demands that Ding drive her back to her sorority. The date has ended.

Soon afterwards, a long time passes in the story. Woody has begun a drunken-comic act that becomes very successful. Woody now earn so much money by performing his comic act that he and Sid are able to buy the nightclub. They rename the nightclub as Surf's Up, and they refashion it to attract more college students as customers. They establish new procedures in the nightclub to make sure that alcoholic drinks are not served to the many customers who are younger than the legal drinking age, which is 21. The too-young customers are served only soft drinks, such as Pepsi Cola.

The movie skips over that interval -- at least a few months -- when Uncle Woody and Uncle Sid become able to buy the nightclub and then refashion it.

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During that months-long interval, Sandy and Ding have continued to date, platonically. He has stopped inviting her to his apartment, because he knows she will not fall for that tactic of his. Furthermore, he has stopped dating other women. Ding and Sandy have established a steady boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.

Instead of drinking alcohol and engaging in sexual activities in his apartment, Ding and Sandy drink lemonade and surf at the beach.

Ding and Sandy drinking lemonade at the beach

In general, the college students spend most of their leisure time dancing and surfing at the beach. They do not need to drink alcohol and engage in sexual activities in order to have fun.

Like all the other beach movies of the early 1960s, there is no "dirty dancing". Everyone dances the twist to pop music that is played by Caucasian musicians. None of those movies play any Negro music -- or even show any Negroes at all.

In the evenings, the college students go to the nightclub to enjoy dances that look like this:

Click on the above image and then

click on the link Watch this video on YouTube

Everyone is always dancing the twist. There never is any "dirty dancing" or any Negro music.

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Another wholesome activity shown in the movie For Those Who Think Young is the National Collegiate Ice Cream Eating Contest, which takes place in Baskin-Robbins ice-cream shops.

The students of Ocean Crest College support their college's contestant as he eats as much ice cream as he can during the game period. Of course, the college's contestant wears a suit and tie during the competition.

See, college students in 1964 did not have to binge-drink alcohol in order to have fun!

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In my previous article Why Penny and Robbie risked pregnancy, I pointed out the importance of the social rules about "going steady" during the late 1950s and early 1960s. A young couple would follow those rules in a progression that led gradually into sexual activities. In the case of Penny and Robbie in Dirty Dancing, they had followed the going-steady rules to a point where they felt that sexual intercourse was appropriate.

In the case of Sandy and Ding in For Those Who Think Young, she compelled him to stop trying to use alcohol in order to short-circuit the progression toward sexual intercourse. During the skipped-over months-long interval in the movie's story, Ding was patiently following the going-steady rules with Sandy.

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One day at the beach, Sandy decides that the time has come to advance to a more intimate stage in their relationship. This key scene begins at about 1:07:30 in the following video.

Sandy confides to her friend Karen Cross (played by Nancy Sinatra) that she is about to take an action that will show that she no longer is "too nice" for Ding. Furthermore, she will show that Ding perhaps is "too nice" for her.

In other words, because of Ding's months-long compliance with the going-steady rules, Sandy is about to take the initiative to advance their relationship forward from a stage that has become "too nice". Sandy remarks that she has been "treading water" and will soon "make my move when I'm ready". After a short wait, Sandy declares to Karen that now she is "ready". Sandy approaches Ding and begins to dance with him.

As Sandy begins to dance with Ding, however, he immediately invites her to his apartment. She responds that his apartment is "off-limits". She wants to advance their relationship, but she still does not want to go to his apartment, where she foresees that he will serve her alcohol and try to undress and seduce her.

Because Sandy still refuses to go to his apartment, Ding lies to her that he is inviting her to his apartment next Tuesday in order to celebrate his 21st birthday. He assures her that a lot of people will be at his party, and so she agrees to come to the birthday party in his apartment on Tuesday.

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Because of Ding's sudden invitation to his apartment to celebrate his birthday, Sandy does not follow through on her declared intention to "make my move". The movie audience does not know what she intended to do.

I think that Sandy intended to advance to "second base" with him. She did not intend to do so right there in the middle of that beach party, but she intended to do so after the beach party. The "baseball bases" of the going-steady rules have been defined as follows:

First base = kissing, including open-mouth (or French) kissing

Second base = petting above the waist, including touching, feeling, and fondling the chest, breasts, and nipples

Third base = petting or orally stimulating below the waist, including touching, feeling, and fondling the vagina, clitoris, penis, or testicles

Home base = sexual intercourse

Sandy had decided to "make her move" by advancing from first base to second base in their relationship. Surprised, however, by Ding's invitation to his apartment to celebrate his birthday, Sandy decided to postpone her move until after that birthday party.

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I will continue this article in Part 7.

The 1964 Movie "For Those Who Think Young" -- Part 5

Following Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

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Here is a better video of the entire movie.

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The heroine and hero of the movie For Those Who Think Young are 19-year-old Sandy Palmer and 20-year-old Gardner "Ding" Pruitt III. Sandy is poor, and Ding is rich.

Ding's maternal grandfather is Burford Sanford Cronin, a very wealthy businessman. He has donated money generously to Ocean Crest College, in California, where Sandy and Ding are students. As a major donor, Cronin sits on the college's Board of Directors and thus participates in the determination of the college's policies.

Ding's grandfather B.S. Cronin (right)
at a meeting of the college's Board of Directors

Near the movie's end, the movie audience learns that Cronin became wealthy in organized crime during the Prohibition years -- 1920 to 1933. In other words, he became wealthy by smuggling and selling alcohol while it was illegal in the United States. He had a mob nickname "Nifty" -- he was called "Nifty" Cronin.

Mobster "Nifty" Cronin being released from prison in 1931

Cronin spent the years 1926-1931 in prison. After he was released, he quit organized crime and used his remaining wealth to become a legal businessman and a generous philanthropist. He kept his mobster past as secret as he could.

In these circumstances, Cronin insists that his grandson Ding must marry a young woman from a high-society family. Cronin figures that such a marriage might add much respectability to his own family's criminal past.

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Because Cronin wants his grandson Ding to marry into a high-society family, he objects to Ding's continuing romance with Sandy. Normally, Ding seduces women and then soon breaks up with them. Since Sandy has avoided Ding's seductions -- by refusing Ding's invitations to go to his apartment to drink alcohol alone with him -- Ding continues to date Sandy in a platonic relationship that does not involve alcohol and sex.

Cronin fears that Ding eventually might marry Sandy, and so Cronin tries to break them up as a romantic couple. Cronin visits Sandy's Uncle Woody and offers to provide the money for Sandy to transfer to a better college on the East Coast. When Woody refuses to participate in such a scheme, Cronin decides to pressure him by causing trouble for the nightclub that Woody now owns in partnership with Uncle Sid.

Cronin uses his position on the college's Board of Directors to cause the college to launch a secret investigation of the nightclub's enforcement of the legal drinking age. A female professor of Sociology volunteers to visit the nightclub incognito to order to record cases when under-age students are served alcohol.

As it turns out, Uncle Woody and Uncle Sid effectively enforce the legal drinking age in their nightclub. Under-age customers are served only soft drinks, such as Pepsi.

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Eventually, Cronin takes further action to cause trouble for the nightclub. He still associates with several of his former fellow mobsters, who all are old men now, like himself. Cronin manages to get those old mobsters hired temporarily at the nightclub. Now as nightclub employees, the old mobsters allow all the college students to enter without checking their identification cards and ink-stamping the hands of the students who are too young to drink alcohol.

Of course, many of the minor-age students happily order alcoholic drinks. Cronin tips off the police department, which subsequently raids the nightclub and arrests all the minor-age drinkers, all the nightclub employees, and the owners Sid and Woody.

Cronin apparently figures that the police raid will bankrupt Sid and Woody, who then will be compelled to agree to Cronin's offer to send Sandy away to an East Coast college -- away from her boyfriend Ding.

In these circumstances, Sandy initially agrees to transfer away to an East Coast college. By agreeing to so so, she figures that Cronin will arrange for the police to drop all charges related to the under-age drinking at the nightclub. If the charges indeed will be dropped, then her Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody will be able to maintain their profitable ownership of the nightclub.

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I will continue this article in Part 6.

The 1964 Movie "For Those Who Think Young" -- Part 4

Following Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

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Studying the movie For Those Who Think Young has caused me to rethink a previous article that I wrote --  Why Penny and Robbie risked pregnancy. There I failed to mention the possibility that one factor in that pregnancy might have been alcohol.

According to a scholarly article, binge drinking is a significant factor in unintended pregnancies. The statistics are illustrated by this chart.

Correlation of binge drinking and unintended pregnancy 

The horizontal axis shows the number of binge-drinking episodes (five or more alcoholic beverages on one occasion) during the three months before an unintended pregnancy. The vertical axis shows the percentage of pregnancies that was unintended. If a woman binge-drank twice or more during three months, then a subsequent pregnancy probably was unintended.

We can't say for sure whether Penny Johnson was a binge drinker or whether she drank at all. We can say, though, that binge drinking generally should be a significant factor in speculations about the causes of her unintended pregnancy.

We con't know whether the movie character Johnny Castle was a binge drinker, but the actor Patrick Swayze was an alcoholic. On one occasion his wife even moved out of their home because of his drinking. The book The Fans' Love Story, which I recently reviewed, includes an interview of Mike Porterfield, who was working as a cook at a filming location. Porterfield said that Swayze bought "a six-pack or two of beer" every evening.

The book reported also that the watermelons in the movie were based on resort employees' practice of serving vodka-spiked watermelons at their parties.

In these circumstances, it's reasonable to suppose that the movie characters Johnny Castle and Billy Kostecki were binge drinkers. It's reasonable to suppose further that Penny Johnson was a binge drinker too and that her pregnancy was at least partially a consequence of her binge drinking.

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Because of Baby Houseman's observations of binge drinking among the employees at Kellerman's in the summer of 1963, she would have been especially interested in the anti-alcohol message in the movie For Those Who Think Young, which she watched in the summer of 1964.

Much of the movie revolves around the issue of whether college students younger than the legal drinking age, 21, should be allowed to drink alcohol. The movie distinguishes between the drinking by under-age male students and by under-age female students.

In one scene, Uncle Woody responds to college teacher Dr. Pauline Swenson, who has argued that no college students should be allowed to drink alcohol. He points out that many college students are old enough to drink legally:

Almost half your students are old enough to vote, marry, join the Armed Forces or demand the service of any drink they might choose to order. ... They are men, Doctor. You spell that M-E-N.

Uncle Woody does not argue that under-age college men should be allowed to drink, and he does not allow them to drink in his nightclub. However, his response indicates that legal-age men should be able to drink without interference.

In another scene, however, Uncle Woody is talking with his niece, Sandy Palmer, whom he is trying to control. He forbids her to come into the nightclub where he works, because she might become involved romantically with trouble-making men there.

Uncle Woody
It [the nightclub] is a dive, and you're not a kid any more. Why don't you try to realize that?

Sandy Palmer
I'm 19, and according to the laws of California, I can drive, get married, and I can even have a baby.

Uncle Woody
Don't you dare have a baby before you have a diploma!

In Uncle Woody's discussions about under-age college students, the problem of pregnancy comes up in his discussion about an under-age female student. If a female college-student becomes pregnant, then she will not graduate from college.

Uncle Woody forbids Sandy to come into the nightclub, because he foresees that she might begin drinking with men there. Such drinking might lead to Sandy becoming pregnant, which would prevent her from graduating from college.

The drinking problem is different for college women than for college men.

If Johnny and Penny both were binge drinkers, then the problem was different for Penny, because she might become pregnant.

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In the early 1960s, the legal drinking age was 21 almost everywhere in the USA. Although younger people managed to drink anyway, society applied a variety of measures to discourage and prevent them from drinking alcohol.

One positive measure was to encourage people to drink soft drinks instead of alcohol. For example, the Pepsi Cola company advertised Pepsi as a drink For those who think young. In other words, drinking Pepsi instead of alcohol was a characteristic of the younger, Baby-Boom generation.

This advertising slogan targeted especially women who had passed the age of 21. Since women generally try to appear younger than their actual ages, the slogan suggested that drinking soft drinks instead of alcoholic made them appear to be younger. To the extent that the slogan did influence women along those lines, the advertising was a profitable success.

Pepsi began advertising with the slogan For those who think young in 1961. The following sample of the advertisements show that they targeted primarily women.

The actor and character Woody Woodbury reported in an interview that the movie For Those Who Think Young was funded and controlled by Pepsi Cola company.

[The move] took its title directly from the current Pepsi slogan of the day. According to Woody, the reason came down to who was funding the picture. "That's where the money came from for the movie -- Pepsi Cola. Rosalind Russell, who was married to one of the head guys at Pepsi. She was in on the deal."

In addition to using the Pepsi slogan as the movie's title, the company placed its logo into various scenes. After Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody took over the nightclub, they installed a Pepsi dispenser at the bar and made all the bartenders and waitresses wear t-shirts displaying the Pepsi red-white-and-blue stripes.

A Pepsi dispenser on the nightclub bar

A bartender and waitress displaying the Pepsi stripes

More subtly than these product placements, the movie preached the messages that young people can have lots of fun without drinking alcohol and that young women especially should avoid drinking alcohol socially with men.

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I will continue this article in Part 5.

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For the last two of the following videos, you have to click on the image and then click on the link Watch this video on YouTube.

The 1964 Movie "For Those Who Think Young" -- Part 3

Following Part 1 and Part 2

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In June 1964, 18-year-old Baby Houseman and 20-year-old Lisa Houseman watched the new movie For Those Who Think Young.

Much of the movie deals with the issue of whether college students younger than 21 should be allowed to drink alcohol. The movie teaches a moral lesson that young women should limit their consumption of alcohol -- or not drink at all -- when they are socializing with men.

In this regard, For Those Who Think Young follows the lead of the first "beach movie" -- Where the Boys Are (1960). That earlier movie ends with the personal downfall of a young woman who has drunk too much alcohol with men, who then took sexual advantage of her.

The social context of this anti-alcohol message in both movies is that, in the early 1960s, a young woman who became pregnant outside of marriage was disgraced and perhaps even ruined. Abortion was illegal and so was not a convenient escape from the pregnancy.

Therefore, society took strong actions to prevent young people -- especially young women -- from drinking alcohol. Young women who drank were much more likely to get pregnant by accident.

Movie heroines -- such as Sandy Palmer in For Those Who Think Young -- who limited or avoided alcohol consumption were perceived to be good role models by the young women in the movie audience. I imagine that Baby and Lisa Houseman nodded in approval as they watched Sandy secretly pour out her glass of champagne while a playboy was trying to get her drunk in his apartment.

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The movie begins in media res. Gardner "Ding" Pruitt III is calling Sandy Palmer and asking her for a date that night. She refuses the date abruptly.

No. I told you I can't see you again this week. Now if you want a playmate for your awkward age, Ding Pruitt, I'm sure there are dozens of girls who would be more than happy to fill the job.

Then she calls him "irresponsible, incorrigible, intolerable, impossible and insane".

He drives to her sorority and sneaks up to her room. She says she cannot go on a date, because she is studying for an exam. He persists, however, until she relents. They will meet at 8 o'clock that night.

Obviously, they had dated or at least socialized during the previous week. She says I can't see you again this week. She complains that he just wants a "playmate" -- perhaps a reference to the naked female models in Playboy magazine. She alludes to his "awkward age".

As the movie continues, the audience learns that ....

* Ding is 20 years old.

* Ding cannot drink legally until he is 21.

* Ding invites his dates to his apartment, where he serves them alcohol.

* Ding uses the alcohol to seduce his dates in his apartment.

It seems that, during the previous week, Ding tried this tactic on Sandy but she refused to go with him to his apartment. In refusing his proposed date, she mocks him for "wanting a playmate for your awkward age". Sandy is wise to Ding's too-young-to-drink-legally tactic to persuade his female date to drink alcohol alone with him in his apartment, where she will become his naked "playmate".

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Now that Sandy has relented to go on a date with Ding that night after all, she insists that he take her to a local nightclub called The Silver Palms. Unknown to Ding, Sandy has an ulterior motive for wanting him to take her to that nightclub.

Sandy has two uncles -- Sid and Woody -- who perform as entertainers in the Silver Palms, but they forbid her from going into the club. They forbid her because the nightclub features a burlesque-dancing act, which the two uncles do not want their niece to see.

By making Ding take her into the nightclub for their date, Sandy now has an excuse to go into the nightclub despite her uncles' prohibition. Sandy can tell her uncles that her date, Ding, took her into the nightclub and that she simply went along with him.

As Sandy and Ding enter the nightclub and settle down, the movie audience observes that people younger than 21 may sit and watch the show but may drink only non-alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic drinks are served only to people who are at least 21.

Ding shows the waiter a fake identification card with a legal age. However, Uncle Woody notices that Ding has brought his niece Sandy into the nightclub, so Uncle Woody comes to their table, declares that the identification card is fake, and then throws Ding, along with Sandy, out of the nightclub.

Getting throw out of the nightclub gives Ding an excuse to invite Sandy to his apartment. She foresees that he will serve her alcohol there and seduce her. She refuses to go to his apartment, and she terminates their date abruptly. Sandy makes Ding drive her back to her sorority.

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The movie returns immediately to the inside of the nightclub. The movie audience observes that the nightclub is failing as a business.

The nightclub features a burlesque dancer, Topaz McQueen. She does not strip to any nakedness. Rather, she does a sexy dance in which she undresses only to sexy underwear.

The end of Topaz's burlesque dance

The women in the nightclub audience -- along with the men -- obviously enjoy watching the burlesque act, which is not indecent. However, the nightclub audience is sparse, and the nightclub appears to be failing financially.

The nightclub features also Sid and Woody (Sandy's uncles), who perform old-fashioned songs. Whereas the nightclub audience enjoys the burlesque act, it is obviously bored by this singing act.

Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody performing in the nightclub

A day or two pass in the movie story, which then returns to the nightclub. The nightclub's owner informs Sid and Woody that this is their last night performing there. The owner is firing them.

The firing depresses Sid so much that he cannot perform, so Woody alone goes onto the stage. He takes a bottle of hard alcohol with him. On the stage, he proceeds to drink as he drunkenly tells jokes about drinking and sex. The nightclub audience laughs aloud at Woody's jokes.

Many more days pass in the movie story, which then returns again to the nightclub. The movie audience observes that Woody's comic act has become very popular, filling the nightclub with customers spending a lot of money.

The movie fails to explain that Woody's comic act has become so profitable that Woody and Sid have purchased the nightclub. As the new owners, they have changed the nightclub's name from The Silver Palms to Surf's Up. It seems that some key dialogue was eliminated when the movie was edited.

If you watch the movie only once, you probably will not realize that Sid and Woody have become the nightclub's owners. You will recognize their ownership only by watching the movie several times, as I have done. After you recognize that, then the movie's story will make much more sense.

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Woody's drunken-comic act attracts many college students to the nightclub, which previously had attracted only middle-age couples and older men. Now a large portion of the nightclub's audience comprises students from the local Ocean Crest College.

Therefore, Sid and Woody improve the nightclub's procedures for controlling the sales of drinks to the customers. As the young people come into the nightclub, they all have to show identification cards to prove their ages. Then the young customer's hands are stamped with ink so that the waiters can determine whether they are old enough to order alcoholic drinks. Sid and Woody are doing their best to enforce the drinking laws in their nightclub.

As the nightclub's new owners, Sid and Woody intend to gradually eliminate the burlesque act and remake the nightclub into a comedy and folk-music club. They do not want to fire Topaz, so Sid begins teaching her to sing. The intention is that she eventually will become less of a burlesque dancer and more of a singer.

The transformation of the nightclub is an important subplot of the movie. The nightclub will attract more and more college students as customers. Many of those students are younger than 21, the legal drinking age, and they are welcome customers, but they may drink only non-alcoholic drinks there.

As the movie's story continues, the issue of whether young people should drink alcohol becomes a central conflict.

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Most people who watch the movie For People Who Think Young now -- more than five decades after the movie played in movie theaters -- do not understand why Woody's comic act was considered to be hilarious in 1964. Many of his jokes were about getting drunk, and they do not seem funny now.

During the many years after 1964, people increasingly thought that jokes about getting stoned on marijuana were hilarious. For example, movie audiences in 1978 laughed out loud as they watched the movie Up in Smoke.

In 1964, young Caucasians did not smoke marijuana. Rather, they drank alcohol. Adults largely preferred to drink martinis and other such sophisticated drinks. Prohibitions against under-age drinking were enforced much more strictly than they are now. You have to put yourself mentally back into 1964 society -- with its attitudes toward drinking -- in order to appreciate why audiences in 1964 thought that Woody's comic act was hilarious.

In the 1964 movie For Those Who Think Young, the entertainer Woody Woodbury essentially played himself self in this movie role. In his real life, he performed in nightclubs and on television, and his comedy albums were big sellers. Here is a YouTube video clip from his 1964 album Thru the Keyhole, which was recorded in a nightclub.

Click on the icon, and then click

on the link Watch This Movie on YouTube.

You can hear in this video that nightclub audiences in 1964 really did think that his jokes were hilarious.

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I will continue this article in Part 4.

The 1964 Movie "For Those Who Think Young" -- Part 2

Following Part 1

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In June 1964, 18-year-old Baby Houseman and 20-year-old Lisa Houseman watched the new movie For Those Who Think Young.

Lisa loved the movie. She admired the movie's 19-year-old heroine, Sandy Palmer, for earning a marriage proposal from the wealthy 20-year-old hero, Gardner "Ding" Pruitt III. He fell in love with Sandy because she did not submit to his sexual seduction. Furthermore, Ding agreed to Sandy's condition that she graduate from college before they married.

Lisa imagined that Sandy would not use her college diploma to begin a professional career immediately, but rather would settle down into married life with her rich husband and raise a family with him. Sandy would postpone her own career until after her children had grown up.

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Baby, on the other hand, looked forward to graduating from college and then working abroad in the Peace Corps for several years and then beginning her professional career. Getting married to a rich man who would enable her to be a stay-at-home mother was not an essential part of Baby's plans for her own life.

Also, Baby already had lost her virginity to Johnny Castle, and so she was rather cynical about a movie heroine who uses her virginity to lure a man into proposing marriage. Baby intended to enjoy some more extra-marital experiences before she married -- if she ever married at all.

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Still, Baby did like the movie. The movie's character Ding was played by the actor James Darren. She had been a fan of Darren since her early teenage years. When she was 13, she had watched him star in Gidget (1959); when she was 15, she had watched him star in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961); when she was 17, she had watched him star in Gidget Goes to Rome (1963). Ever since she saw the first Gidget movie, Baby had been buying record albums of his singing.

 Baby liked the movie Gidget Goes Hawaiian so much that she copied Gidget's dress for her performance with Johnny Castle at the Kellerman's talent show.

Baby Houseman copied this dress from
a Gidget movie starring James Darren

 

Baby loved this dance lift
in James Darren's 1961 movie Gidget Goes Hawaiian

Baby hoped that she would be able -- during the summer between her sophomore and junior years at Mount Holyoke College -- to spend the summer studying in Italy. Baby had fantasized about such a summer ever since she had watched Darren's 1963 movie Gidget Goes to Rome.

So, even though Baby expected the movie For Those Who Think Young to be silly and irrelevant to her own life, she went to her local movie theater and watched it -- just because it starred James Darren.  She paid close and affectionate attention to the role that he played in the movie.

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Gardner "Ding" Pruitt III is a rich, handsome, charming playboy who enjoys much success in seducing young women. He (like Sandi) attends Ocean Crest College, located near the Pacific Ocean. He and many of his fellow students enjoy surfing and even own surf boards.

All of Sandy's sorority sisters have crushes on Ding. When he calls the sorority, they fight over the phone in order to talk with him. They cannot understand why Sandy plays hard-to-get with him.

Sandy's sorority sisters fighting for the phone when Ding calls

Ding spends little time or effort on his studies. He does not have to, because his rich grandfather is a major donor to Ocean Crest College, and so the teachers have to give Ding passing grades.

Ding is popular, fun-loving and the life of any party. He is a nice guy. Everyone knows and accepts that he is a playboy. After he graduates, he will live prosperously as a top manager in his family's successful business.

Ding loves young women, and they love him. Even after he breaks up with a girlfriend, she will continue to be friendly, grateful and affectionate toward him.

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Ding lives in a luxurious apartment and employs two servants.

One of Ding's servants is an elderly Chinese man, Clyde (played by the 62-year-old actor Sammee Tong), who mainly takes care of the apartment. Unknown to Ding, Clyde is being paid separately by Ding's grandfather to spy on Ding's romantic adventures with various young women. The purpose of this spying is to enable the grandfather to prevent Ding from becoming too involved with any young women who are not from high-society families.  

Ding's servant Clyde preparing Ding's apartment for Sandy's visit

The other of Ding's servants is Kelp (played by the 33-year-old actor Bob Denver). He is a personal assistant who accompanies Ding most of the time and does miscellaneous tasks for him.

Kelp serving drinks to Ding and Sandy during a beach date

In particular, Kelp maintains an alphabetized telephone index -- a so-called "Filly File" -- full of data, notes and photographs of Ding's past, current and prospective girlfriends.

A telephone index

For example, the page about Sandy Palmer reports her status as: Needs a hard sale. Keep trying.

The "Filly File" page about Sandy Palmer
Needs a hard sale. Keep trying.

The index pages about Ding's other former girlfriends indicate his successful sexual seductions, usually with the help of alcohol. For example, his page about Olive Olson reports that he succeeded After only four martinis.

The "Filly File" page about Olive Olson
After only four martinis

Ding's usual seduction tactic is to invite the young woman to his apartment, where she finds herself alone with him. He serves alcoholic drinks to her. Gradually intoxicated, she submits happily to his seduction.

Ding uses this seduction tactic with many women, and he gradually has perfected the tactic. As the movie begins, Ding is trying to use the tactic on Sandy.

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Ding pays Kelp very little -- or not at all. At one point, Ding remarks that Kelp serves him merely for the status of doing so.

Kelp is able to attract a girlfriend -- Karen Cross (played by the actress Nancy Sinatra) -- simply by being around Ding all the time.

Karen sharing one milkshake with Kelp,
who does not have enough money to buy two

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Ding epitomizes the lifestyle portrayed by Playboy magazine, which was extremely popular -- especially among college students -- in the early 1960s.

The Playboy cover for May 1964

Playboy strongly influenced young men and also young women. The magazine showed young men how -- by their lifestyle and behavior -- they could be admired by young women. The magazine showed young women how they could attract and enjoy an admirable young man.

Ding is living the Playboy lifestyle. He dresses well, furnishes his apartment tastefully, buys a fancy sports car and entertains young women seductively. For these reasons, he is admired by young women, who feel complimented by his attention and flirtations.

Young women understood that they should go along with a man like Ding. They should go to his apartment, should listen to his jazz music, should drink his martinis, should reveal their naked body to him, and should enjoy an adult sexual experience with him.

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Kelp epitomizes the ordinary young man who reads Playboy but who lacks the physique, looks, money, wit, charm and self-confidence to become an actual playboy who can seduce many women.

Kelp manages to get one girlfriend -- a mousy, silly nitwit -- for a while. She immediately wants to marry him, but he does not ever want to marry her or any other woman.

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Bob Denver, the actor who played the character Kelp, was famous in 1964 for the role of Maynard G. Krebs that he played in the television series The Many Loves of Doby Gillis, which had been broadcast during the years 1959-1963. The TV character Maynard was a beatnik, who was lazy, slovenly, dumb and unambitious.

Everyone who was watching the movie For Those Who Think Young in a movie theater in 1964 perceived the movie character Kelp to be essentially a somewhat older version of the TV character Maynard. This character is a nice, amusing young man, but he never would amount to anything more than being a sidekick to a successful man.

The following video clip shows Denver's television character Maynard.

Maynard was a popular character. One major reason why people -- including Baby and Lisa -- went to watch the movie For Those Who Think Young in 1964 was because they wanted to watch Denver play his comic stereotype.

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I will continue this series about the movie For Those Who Think Young in my Part 3.

Why is Baby scared of never feeling this way again? -- 6

Baby Houseman has come to Johnny Castle's cabin in the middle of the night. She tells him she has come to apologize for how he was treated by her father.

In fact, though, the primary reason why Baby has come is that she hopes for a sexual experience with Johnny. This has been her hope all day.

Johnny allows Baby to come into his cabin. He offers her a chair, and he sits in another chair. Johnny and Baby talk -- first about her father, then about his precarious financial situation and then about her apparent confidence.

Baby perceives that the conversation is going the wrong way. Johnny is not acting confidently and aggressively toward her. He is not flirting with her sexually. He is not moving closer toward her, is not touching her.

Baby is scared.

Baby is scared that Johnny will end the conversation. He will tell her that he has to get up early tomorrow for a long day of work. He will tell her that she should go back to her room now, because her father might check that she is there in bed.

Baby is scared that Johnny now will walk her to the door, will thank her again for replacing Penny at the Sheldrake, and will say goodbye.

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Baby is sexually aroused with an intensity that she never has felt before. Her sexual arousal has been growing gradually during the days when she has been learning to dance with Johnny. She has become obsessed with sexual fantasies for the first time in her life.

Baby does not masturbate, and so she has not been able to release her arousal so that she can think calmly and rationally for a while.

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Her fantasies involve the possibility of pregnancy. Penny Johnson's dramatic pregnancy has been on Baby's mind.

Baby fantasizes about having sexual intercourse with Johnny and about being impregnated by him. Maybe she will defy her family and society and will give birth to Johnny's baby. Then Johnny might fall in love with her and might marry her, and she will be able to have sex with Johnny all the time for her entire life.

Baby will disappoint her parents, especially her father. Baby will have to give up her plans to graduate from college and to join the Peace Corps and to work in a professional career that will help people and improve our society.

For the first time in her life, Baby feels like a silly, subordinate, submissive woman. She no longer feels superior to the ordinary teenage girls who are boy-crazy, who want to use their sexual charms to excite a handsome adult male, who want to get pregnant and so get a marriage proposal from him, and who want to give birth and to stay home, raising the cute babies of the man she loves.

For the first time in her life, Baby now feels belatedly her own femininity. Baby is scared about her feminine future and fate. She too will submit sexually to a man and will become just one more of the World's inferior females -- doomed to the dangers of giving birth and to the tedium of raising babies.

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Baby's lust has taken over her mind. Baby loves Johnny passionately. She has come to Johnny's cabin, hoping that he will perceive that she wants him to seduce her and that he will do so.

Baby knows already that never again in her life will she ever again feel such an intense sexual arousal and never again will enjoy an opportunity to engage in a sexual experience with such a handsome, powerful, sexually skillful man with whom she has become comfortable and affectionate.

Such an opportunity for such a fantastic sexual experience surely will never happen again in her life.

It seems now, however, that the sexual experience will not happen. Johnny is about to end their conversation and about to send her back to her hotel room.

To make her sexual fantasy come true after all, Baby herself now must take the initiative to prompt him. She must express her vulnerability, so that he will take her sexually. She says to him:

I'm scared of everything! I'm scared of what I saw. I'm scared of what I did, of who I am.

But most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling for the rest of my life ... the way I feel when I'm with you!

Baby is scared that Johnny will respond:

No, it's late, I have to work tomorrow. You have to go back to your hotel room.

Baby is so scared that she ultimately is compelled to conquer her fear of his rejection. She gets up and says:

Dance with me.

Why is Baby scared of never feeling this way again? -- 5

https://gramha.net/media/2085899277147673802

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Why is Baby scared of never feeling this way again? -- 4

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Why is Baby scared of never feeling this way again? -- 3

https://gramha.net/media/2085348208623869651

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Why is Baby scared of never feeling this way again? -- 2

Click on the image to enlarge it

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Why is Baby scared of never feeling this way again? -- 1

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Miscellaneous Videos - 122

Dancing "Time of My Life" in a Mini-Dress -- 23

The 1964 Movie "For Those Who Think Young" -- Part 1

Filming began on the movie For Those Who Think Young on August 14, 1963 -- four days before the Houseman family arrived at Kellerman's Mountain House for their three-week vacation. Filming lasted for 18 days, until August 31 -- one day before the Housman departed.

Since the filming and the vacation coincided almost perfectly, the movie For Those Who Think Young authentically depicts many elements -- clothing, hairstyles, music, dancing, social relationships, etc. -- that should be depicted in the movie Dirty Dancing. 

The movie began playing in movie theaters in June 1964 -- about ten months after their Dirty Dancing vacation. Certainly, Lisa and Bay Houseman watched the movie while it was playing in the theaters.

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The two main characters of For Those Who Think Young are two college students -- 20-year-old Gardner 'Ding' Pruitt III (played by the actor James Darren) and 19-year-old Sandy Palmer (played by the actress Pamela Tiffin).

"Ding" Pruitt and Sandy Palmer

The movie shows Ding and Sandy fighting the classic battle of the sexes. He is trying to seduce her into a brief sexual relationship, while she is resisting his seduction until he proposes marriage.

Sandy and "Ding"

In the Dirty Dancing movie, which takes place in the summer of 1963, Baby Houseman was 17 years old and about to begin her freshman year, and Lisa Houseman was 19 years old and (I assume) about to begin her junior year of college. So, when For Those Who Think Young was playing in the movie theaters, Baby was 18 years old, right after her freshman year, and Lisa was 20 years old, right after her junior year.

Baby and Lisa -- and their college friends -- enjoyed watching the movie's depiction of the battle of the sexes that was an important circumstance of their own, personal lives. The young women watching in the movie theaters watched and learned from the tricks and tactics that Sandy employed against Ding. Sandy wins the battle, because Ding has to propose marriage before Sandy allows any genital contact. When Ding puts an engagement ring on Sandy's finger, he still has not seen her naked and has only kissed her mouth-to-mouth.

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Neither Ding nor Sandy have fathers when the story takes place. It seems that both fathers have died.

* Ding's mother is in the story and encourages his romances with various young women, expecting him to fall in love and settle down eventually. Ding's grandfather (his mother's father) is extremely rich and is trying to prevent Ding from getting involved with any young woman from a poor family (like Sandy).

* Sandy's father and mother have (I assume) died, and so she is being raised by two uncles (her father's brothers). Her uncles earn their livings as show-business performers. When Sandy's father was alive, he too had performed together with his two brothers (Sandy's two uncles). Since Sandy's two uncles are struggling to earn their livings in show-business, they want her to graduate from college so that she can enter a reliable professional career. The two uncles worry that Sandy might fall in love and become pregnant too young (perhaps like Sandy's mother) before she graduates.

Neither Ding nor Sandy are controlled by parental guidance, advice or disapproval. Ding's mother does not criticize his sexual promiscuity; she simply expects his promiscuity to end well for him.

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Sandy's two uncles -- Uncle Sid (played by the actor Paul Lynde) and Uncle Woody (played by the actor Woody Woodbury) -- are unmarried and live nomadic, show-business lives. Uncle Sid seems to be homosexual. Uncle Woody tells jokes that mock romance and marriage. Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody live together in an apartment near the college that Sandy is attending.

Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody

Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody are failing professionally, because the kind of music that they perform is no longer popular. They feel compelled to continue their act, however, in order to continue to support Sandy at least until she graduates from college. Just as they are about to be fired from the nightclub where they perform, Uncle Woody develops a comic act that soon attracts many customers to the nightclub, thus extending their employment at the nightclub.

The career struggles of her two aging, show-business uncles demonstrate to Sandy that she needs to get a good college education and then begin a reliable professional career.

(It seems that Uncle Sid and Uncle Woody eventually purchase the nightclub, changing its name from The Silver Palms to Surf's Up. However, this purchase is not explained. I think some key dialogue about the purchase was eliminated when the movie was edited.)

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On the other hand, the romantic struggles of two professional women in the story demonstrate to Sandy that she needs to find and marry a financially comfortable man while she still is in a marriageable age.

1) Dr. Pauline Swenson (played by the actress Ellen Burstyn) teaches sociology at the Ocean Crest College, which Sandy attends. Even though Dr. Swenson is rather beautiful, she seems destined to end up as an old maid. She is prudish and rejects Uncle Woody's flirting toward her. She volunteers to investigate whether the nightclub is serving alcohol to college students who are younger than the legal drinking age of 21.

Dr. Swenson and Ding's grandfather
at a meeting of the college's Board of Directors

2) Topaz McQueen (played by the actress Tina Louise) has earned a college degree in mathematics. Because she is a woman, however, the only mathematics employment she can get is giving private tutoring lessons to college students who are struggling in their math courses. However, Topaz earns most of her living by performing burlesque dances in the nightclub.

Topaz getting ready to tutor a college student for his math course

Topaz and Uncle Sid between acts at the nightclub

Topaz doing a burlesque dance
at the nightclub

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Therefore, Sandy's dilemma is that she must ...

* graduate from college so that she does not end up like her uncles

* get married young so that she does not end up like Swenson or Topaz

The movie shows the young women in the movie theaters -- such as Baby and Lisa Houseman -- how Sandy cleverly manages to avoid all those sad fates. Sandy succeeds in her life by winning the battle of the sexes against Ding. Even though she frustrates his seduction attempts, he proposes marriage to her and agrees to her condition that they will not marry until after she graduates from college. Because he is extremely rich, she will be able to raise a family at home instead of beginning a professional career right away.

I will continue this article in Part 2.

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