PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND: it's a white bread world out there

So this is how American teenagers celebrated Spring Break in the years before they developed a fully fledged culture of their own.
If PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND is to be believed America's youth in the early 1960s seized this long weekend away from the responsibilities of university and work to let rip and behave like a bunch of boisterous future accountants and housewives.
Some went so crazy they even loosened their tie before chugging their glass a milk.

Thankfully for the reputation of the babyboomers now nearing retirement PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND is less a documentary style snapshot of life in 1963 America and more an indicator of how out of touch Hollywood was with youth culture.
Directed by a 64 year old Norman Taurog, a veteran of almost 180 films dating back to 1926, the film was a break from his main task in the 1960s - that of emasculating Elvis Presley (he'd already directed 'GI Blues', 'Blue Hawaii', 'It Happened at the World's Fair' and 'Girls Girls Girls!' and there were another 5 titles still to come).
And what he did to Elvis with those flimsy travelogues and ridiculous musical comedies, he also did to the youth of America in PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND. Ostensibly a celebration of teenage hormones it's actually about as pheremonally charged as a white sliced loaf. Despite several daring uses of the word 'sex' no one comes anywhere close to indulging in any. Emotionally the characters are still trapped in pre-pubescence, convincing themselves they've fallen deeply in love after a brief first date and agonising about how they'll survive when he returns to Los Angeles and she goes back to her job in the Palm Springs record store.
Not only does writer Earl Hamner (who also created 'The Waltons') fail to grasp the reality of teenage sexuality but he also completely neuters that other trademark of 60s youth culture - the music. While real-life teenagers were sending Little Stevie Wonder, The Four Seasons, The Chiffons and Jan and Dean to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, the faux teens (all the wrong side of 20) on the Warners backlot were singing "Bye Bye Blackbird" and dancing the Twist to the vocal stylings of The Modern Folk Quartet. To be fair, they dance The Twist to every piece of music played in the film, whether it's a folk song or a popular standard of the 1920s.
This is youth culture as envisaged by a bunch of 60 year old corporate suits clinging to the values of 1950s Eisenhower America. Their white bread vision of the world extends to the cast, all of whom are interchangeable both in looks and talent. Troy Donahue, Ty Hardin and Robert Conrad display not an ounce of personality, while the girls - Connie Stevens and Stefanie Powers - are similarly one dimensional. And don't get me started on Jerry Van Dyke - Dick's younger brother - who provides the comic relief. Let's just say he less amusing than an exploding car full of circus clowns.
Not only is the cast and the world they inhabit white bread it's also resolutely white. The college basketball team that Donahue, Van Dyke and their chums play for includes not a single African American, nor is there a Black, Asian or Latino face to be seen anywhere in the film.
Not so much escapist as delusional, PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND paints a picture of a youth culture that never really existed and thankfully was about to be swept away by the British Invasion and the rise of 60s counter-culture.