High Time Blu-ray Review
Bing goes back to college.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, August 16, 2012
Many major film stars of the thirties and forties had seen the writing on the wall and had moved over at least some of
the time to television by the time the fifties and sixties came along. Some of Bing's former Paramount colleagues like
Fred MacMurray crafted a whole new way of working where they filmed their scenes for their series in one fell swoop,
leaving lots of time for what really interested them, like golf. Bing Crosby was still a holdout in 1960, even though it
was clear he was no longer the top box office draw he had been a couple of decades previously. While Der Bingle
would ultimately give in to the siren call of the sitcom in 1964 (rather unsuccessfully, it should be added), his
forays into television in the early sixties were either relegated to his own guest appearances on variety shows or
hosting his own specials, while his production company offered sizable hits like
Ben Casey and
Hogan's
Heroes. Still, there's a whiff of sitcom pilotry about
High Time, a genial enough little comedy that is best
remembered today, if it's remembered at all, as having introduced the Cahn – Van Heusen standard "The Second Time
Around". (It's indicative of Bing's falling star that the song, while sung quite amiably by the iconic crooner in the film,
actually became a hit for the songwriting team's preferred vocalist, Frank Sinatra.) Rather incredibly,
High Time
was based on a story by the usually incredibly witty Garson Kanin, but the film is more like a quaint early sixties version
of
Animal House,
sans togas and beer but with Bing in drag dancing at a big society ball where everyone
is dressed up in Civil War regalia. This was Blake Edwards' directorial follow up to his vastly more successful (and
better remembered)
Operation Petticoat, and while it offers a certain workmanlike affability, it's a rather mild
mannered comedy in the overall Edwards
oeuvre, one without the manic slapstick offerings of the
Pink
Panther movies or even the scabrous verbal humor of some of Edwards' later efforts like
S.O.B.
Crosby portrays 51 year old Harvey Howard, a restaurant magnate who has decided to finally get his college degree
after
having made his fortune in hamburgers. (It should be noted that Crosby was in fact 57 when the film was made, and it
seems like an odd piece of vanity to shave a few years off the obviously long in the tooth actor's age.) Howard's
children
are aghast that their father is doing something so unheard of, but Howard is a "cool cat", relatively speaking, and soon
ingratiates himself into the student body, including a coterie of kids with whom he's boarding, as well as a couple of
hangers-on. These include jocks like Gil (Fabian) and Bob (Richard Beymer,
West Side Story), as well as a comely lass
named Joy
(Tuesday
Weld) who is always with the boys. Just for a dash of ethnic color, there's also an Indian (as in the far off land of the
Taj
Mahal) named T.J. Padmanagham (Patrick Adiarte), who walks around campus in a variety of colorful turbans.
Also on hand are a couple of adults, including a dorm supervisor who's also a chemistry teacher, a natty fellow named
Professor Thayer (Gavin MacLeod of
Mary Tyler Moore Show and
Love Boat fame). And Howard soon is
falling for the local French teacher, Helene Gauthier (Nicole Maurey), a romance that rather incredibly creates a central
conflict late in the film where the relationship between teacher and student (albeit both middle aged) is deemed of
questionable propriety. (Television trivia aficionados will also recognize future Batgirl Yvonne Craig as the college's star
reporter, who wants to interview Howard, a celebrity elder and an unusual sight on the campus.)
The film ambles through some proto-Edwardsian sight gags, including some sped up footage as the guys get ready for
class one morning. And there are a series of pranks in one of the film's many montage sequences that won't exactly
put Bluto and his buddies to shame, but which were probably quite amusing for an early sixties audience. One of the
film's most bizarre moments comes at the close of the film. We've seen Howard make it through all four years of his
college career (each year introduced by a brief interstitial announcing that year), and he is of course the valedictorian of
his graduating class, giving a rather sweet little speech about what his return to school has meant to him. I won't spoil
what happens next, but will only say it may bring to mind one of the weirder sitcoms of the (latter) sixties, a certain
show featuring Sally Field as one Sister Bertrille.
High Time probably is best enjoyed today as a sort of prescient, albeit pretty tame, look at what was then a still
nascent "generation gap". Undercutting this idea somewhat is just how "with it" Howard is; he has absolutely no
problem interacting with the kids, and the kids accept Howard with apparent ease. The film is bright and breezy, but it
doesn't aim for anything other than being a pleasant time killer, much like, in fact, most sitcoms of that era. There's
nothing really very deep or indeed even laugh out loud funny about
High Time, but it's a sweet little time
capsule offering a window on a long bygone world.
High Time Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Every month when Twilight Time announces their upcoming slate, there are reactions that run the gamut from "Huzzah!" to
"Why in heaven's name would they want to release
that?" My hunch is most people are probably going to be in the
second camp with regard to
High Time, for the film doesn't seem to have a lot to offer contemporary audiences.
Bing
was frankly getting to be past his prime by the time this film came out, and there probably aren't scads of people
demanding to see Fabian, Tuesday Weld and Richard Beymer waiting in the wings to snatch up copies of the film. But
High Time, while unprepossessing, is charming and congenial, if seldom really the laugh fest that it aims to be. Bing
wouldn't go the sitcom route for another four years after
High Time came out in 1960, but this film shows Der Bingle
in a comfortably relaxed setting and plays much like a long form sitcom, replete with zany supporting characters. Even
though this release has a slightly faded looking transfer, for those
wanting a little peek into what filmmakers thought kids were like in 1960 (whether or not that was actually the case),
High Time comes
Recommended.
