Get Yourself a College Girl (1964)

(On Cable TV, September 2021) If there’s one defining feature to the wave of 1960s movie musicals, it’s the growing acceptance that pop music was fundamentally changing into a teen-driven, hits driven form of entertainment. Never mind sheet music or songs from bandleaders — pop was clearly going for billboard charts and groups singing to the teenagers. You can see this shift being particularly pronounced in such non-prestige pictures as Get Yourself a College Girl, which was as much a musical revue show as any of the classic musicals, but aimed at the new teenage set. Strong similarities with the Bikini Beach series abound — silly plots, young women in bikinis, a slight anti-establishment edge (in this case, dealing with ambitious politicians), many musical performances by artists of the day, and a cheeky approach to courtship and sex that now feels tame despite pushing limits back then. It’s not an unpleasant watch — even if the plot is nothing interesting, there are enough musical acts in varied genres (including The Animals, a young Nancy Sinatra and Astrud Gilberto crooning, “The Girl From Ipanema”) to keep things astonishing throughout. Not cinematically good but almost invaluable from a pop-anthropology viewpoint, Get Yourself a College Girl is a trip back in time that’s worth taking at least once.