`The passing of plaintive songstress Connie Francis broughtme back to my teen years. Francis—whose early pop hits included “Stupid Cupid,”“Lipstick on Your Collar,” and a swoony rendition of the old “Who’s SorryNow?—played featured roles in movies and then segued into belting out standardsfor adult audiences. Hers was an eventful life: her father chased away an earlysuitor, the pre-fame Bobby Darin, and none of her four subsequent marriagesended well. In 1974, while staying post-concert at a Howard Johnson’s motel inupstate New York, she was raped at knifepoint, left naked and tied to a chairby an assailant who was never found. Other family tragedies and healthchallenges followed, but she eventually resumed her singing career, became avictims’ rights advocate, and survived until the ripe old age of 87.

 

I will always associate Connie Francis with Where theBoys Are, a 1960 film seen (sometimes more than once) by every junior highschool girl I knew. The film was in many ways a template for the beach partymovies that followed (as well as for aspects of Roger Corman’s New WorldPictures nurse flicks). We girls appreciated Where the Boys Are forzeroing in on the hopes and fears with which we regarded our own futures. Ourimpending college years—still far off but looming large in ourimaginations—seemed to promise so much in the way of freedom, self-fulfillment,romantic love. Still, we could sense that there were dangers to be skirted, andthe film makes these quite clear.

 

It starts with a group of diverse (but, of course, allwhite) college co-eds heading down from the snowy Midwest to enjoy spring breakin Fort Lauderdale, where vacationing collegians abound. Boys, of course, arevery much on the minds of the four. The sensible Merritt (Dolores Hart) isquickly attracted to Ivy Leaguer Ryder (George Hamilton). Madcap Tuggle (PaulaPrentiss) is delighted to find that TV Thompson (Jim Hutton) is even tallerthan she is, and shares her wry sense of humor. Pretty blonde Melanie (YvetteMimieux) falls hard for a Yalie named Franklin. Angie (Connie Francis) has a fewlaughs with the goofy Basil (Frank Gorshin), but is mostly alone, wistfullywarbling, “Where the boys are . . . someone waits for me.”  

 

All these plotlines play out in ways we can predict. The funand games that are part of this giant courtship dance give way to a more sombertone when Melanie, who has naively agreed to meet Franklin at a local motel,finds herself a rape victim. Dazed and disheveled, she wanders down the highwayand is sideswiped by a passing car. Her hospitalization quickly leads herfriends to step back from their own romantic adventures. Maturity, theyrealize, is something to be prized. At the film’s end they’re returning tocollege, sadder but wiser.

 

As they recuperate from their spring fling, lessons havebeen learned. (I’m sure our parents appreciated the film sending a cautionarymessage regarding pre-marital sex.) The light-hearted romance of Tuggle and herguy is quickly over (though Prentiss—making her first film—and Hutton had suchstrong on-screen chemistry that MGM quickly starred them in three romanticcomedies). It’s only Hart and Hamilton’s characters who seem to have a solidconnection that can make for future happiness.

 

The irony, of course, is that Dolores Hart was not destinedfor marriage. In 1963 she ended her engagement to an L.A. architect to enter aConnecticut convent as a Benedictine nun. Clearly, she was not heading wherethe boys are.