3 Movies | January 28, beginning 8 p.m.
Who doesn’t enjoy leaping into freefall from a plane thousands of feet in the air? Well, a lot of us probably prefer to experience it from the comfort and safety of our couches, and this night of programming provides all the thrills with none of the spills.
The first two movies are comedies with a Southern California beach setting. Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) has a young Linda Evans (TV’s Dynasty and The Big Valley) as a pop singer pretending to skydive for a publicity stunt, a feat actually performed by another character played by beach movie staple Deborah Walley (Gidget Goes Hawaiian, 1961). Soon, everyone is jumping out of planes, including the Hepburn and Tracy of 1960s beach movies, Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.
Don’t Make Waves (1967) is what used to be called a “sex comedy” (mostly romantic entanglements and leering suggestiveness), with tourist Tony Curtis pursuing Italian artist Claudia Cardinale in Malibu. That’s also the name of a surfer character played by Sharon Tate, and it has long been an unconfirmed rumor that she inspired Mattel’s Malibu Barbie doll. The film includes a skydiving sequence that sadly proved tragic. Bob Buquor, an experienced “camera flyer” (i.e., photographer who would jump with stunt performers to film their descent), encountered some unexpected gusts of wind that carried him out to sea. When he hit the water, the weight of his camera equipment dragged him under and he drowned.
A few years after his successes with the 1962 releases Birdman of Alcatraz and The Manchurian Candidate, John Frankenheimer directed The Gypsy Moths (1969), the tale of a trio of skydivers who linger in a small Kansas town after putting on a Fourth of July show. Romantic entanglements and intrigue threaten to turn the quiet community upside down, a plot point given far more screen time than the actual skydiving sequences. Those were filmed by two aerial photographers with 35mm cameras mounted on their helmets to shoot half a dozen stunt divers, thankfully without any accidents.
