BEACHED BLANKET BINGO............LOW TIDE FOR "DON'T MAKE WAVES"

Don't Make Waves (1967)    How could I, the self-confessed lover of all oddball 1960's movies, ever say a detrimental word against this one..........

              It'd be like kicking a puppy I just adopted........

             If you gaze hard enough at this movie, at the core of it, you can glimpse the blistering satire of Southern California lifestyles that it was meant to be.......maybe. Who knows.

             Unlike the more obvious, blatant attempts at this sub-genre ("The Loved One", "Lord Love A Duck"), "Don't Make Waves"  mostly drowns whatever wit it possesses in a sea of frantic slapstick farce.......

               The ever game Tony Curtis functions as a sort of 'Alice In Malibu-Land', wandering among beachside body builders, and a variety of self-absorbed SoCal eccentrics......including a hot-tempered, mercurial actress-artist (Claudia Cardinale) and a sky-diving bikini-babe named.....can ya dig it....Malibu (played by the tragically doomed Sharon Tate....leaving behind at least one lasting legacy - the inspiration for the Malibu Barbie doll....)

                Watching this unfold, you wish it were funnier and sharper, even as it mires itself in dumb physical comedy, stuff left over from other 60's rom-coms........but to its credit, it makes an all-out attempt to stand out in the crowd with its spectacular finish.

                The finale may be the only thing anyone vaguely remembers about "Don't Make Waves"..........the film traps its major cast members in a cliffside beach house perched on a mountain of mud......during a relentless rainstorm.

                In the immortal words of Scooby-Doo......ruh-roh......

                This sequence almost rivals "The Rains Of Ranchipur" in its sheer commitment to spectacle........ the mud gives way and the house goes tumbling end over end down the hill.........(and if you think this movie has enough smarts to use this scene as a metaphor for the un-moored, clueless lives of the Californians it depicts....you're being generous.(

                As promised, you won't hear BQ complain loudly.  How could I?   Come on......we're talkin'  Claudia, Sharon.....and the incredible whoopsie-daisy beach house........that's worth at the very least 2 & 1/2 stars(** 1/2) - .the satire's watered down, the comedy's desperate.......but it never bores.