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.