Don't Make Waves (1967)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

good back-story, and good acting

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Everything looks good, especially the stars, in this wacky comedy, but it ultimately becomes muddled and fails to deliver. Curtis plays a transplant to California from the east coast who has barely set foot outside his car when fiery artist Cardinale manages to destroy practically everything he owns, including most of his clothes! She takes him back to her beach pad so that he'll have a place to sleep while she looks into the insurance matters, but for some reason her married sugar daddy Webber isn't too keen on the idea! Curtis decides to con Webber in order to get a job and make money while flirting with Cardinale, though he also has his eyes on (and who wouldn't?!) shapely, bikini-clad Tate who lives in a bus with some hippies on the nearby beach. Somehow it all winds up in a snazzy house, which is slowly sliding down the face of a mountain as the people inside sort out their romantic issues. Curtis is in great shape here (he's frequently shirtless or in blue shorts) and tries hard to make a strong comedic impression. Unfortunately, he is just, like the others in the cast, undone by a haphazard and rather aimless script. Cardinale is sexy and curvy and also looks terrific, but her character is uneven and she hasn't exactly mastered English completely. Webber is perfectly cast as a demanding and sneaky businessman. Barnes plays his rather brittle wife. She has bangs that cover the better part of her face and her character isn't very well developed. Draper plays a big, blonde lug of a bodybuilder. One real treat here is the unbelievably luscious Tate as a character called Malibu. Impossibly tan with golden hair, she actually was the inspiration of the later "Malibu Barbie" and it's one case in which the real thing outdid the questionably proportioned plastic one. Like many others in the film, her talent is squandered and she's mostly used for her looks, but tremendous looks they are. Backus and his real life wife enjoy themselves in a cameo while Bergen has a small role as spiritualist. The opening sequences of the film are engaging and promising. However, as the storyline begins to play out, it all becomes very tiresome and convoluted. By the time the big climax arrives, viewer interest is at a pretty low ebb. The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink disaster-style ending is sort of like some of Blake Edwards' more desperate cinematic products. The effects in it range from so-so to cruddy. The film piddles out as if everyone got tired and decided to end it on the spot.

SPOILER ALERT! By no means a masterpiece, but certainly a lot of fun. The director Alexander Mackendrick knows how to pace a comedy and though not as biting as his earlier collaboration with Tony Curtis (SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS), it has a lot of good things in it. Curtis moves and loses every material thing he owns thanks to hot-blooded Claudia Cardinale and her "patron" Robert Webber. He exacts his revenge in the most clever ways possible. The cast is at the top of their game: Curtis is suitably befuddled; Webber is suitably caddish; Cardinale is suitably sexy. The strange supporting cast includes Mort Sahl (who has at least one funny joke pointed at the Eisenhower administration!), Sharon Tate as a ski-diver, Jim Backus and Edgar Bergen as Madame Lavinia! Also featuring a great set piece (an entire house slipping from its stilts while most of the cast is carrying on inside). There's some real swingin' music on the soundtrack!

"Don't Make Waves" -- is it an attempt at an mature beach movie? A spoof of beach movies? A midlife crisis movie? A Tony Curtis-as-middle-aged-hustler movie?Tony Curtis plays a not-so-young man whose life is ruined and all his earthly belongings destroyed by an accident prone mistress (Cardinale) of an obnoxious pool magnate (Webber). Curtis worms his way into the pool company -- apparently not to wreak revenge (or is it) but just to get ahead. On the way he picks up a cute sky-diving obsessed young woman (Tate -- who unfortunately has become a curiosity piece in the few movies she lived to make) who was also being sought out by a good-hearted and dull-witted Muscle Beach type (Drake).The characters wind confusingly through each others lives until they come to a climax that needs better special effects than they had in 1967, and then the movie ends abruptly.The movie shows lots of potential trying to get out. There are many good ideas thrown out. Some lie flaccid after being thrown out, others are merely thrown out and left to die.The cast is full of surprises: Mort Sal as a wry house salesman, Edgar Bergen as a fortune teller, Jim Backus (as wife) as themselves, being hustled by Curtis into buying a pool! And this also proves how the movie went wrong. Edgar Bergen had a charming persona in his act, which (for those of you who don't remember) as a ventriloquist -- on the radio, no less. Instead of playing to his charming persona, they cast him as a waspish old man; and instead of playing on his ventriloquism to make the character wacky, they ignore it completely. They shoehorned a man with special talents into a part that could have been played by any competent actor, and which should have been played as a gift cameo part for someone who would pull out all the comedic stops (say,Paul Lynde?)Pluses include the Vic Mizzy sound, and the fact that, and the obvious fact that none of the actors take the material seriously, except for Robert Webber, whom no one seems to have told was in a comedy. It's a movie that one watches the way one eats sour cream and onion potato chips if one doesn't like sour cream. The taste both repels and attracts. It's movies like this that ensured the decline of Tony Curtis' career.

A very flaky comedy, a perplexing mix of moods involving Southern California hustler Tony Curtis with an accident prone actress, her married lover, and an assortment of beach bums and bunnies. A curiously lackadaisical pace, an almost dream-like non-focus, and the blithe, throwaway performances don't especially give the proceedings an edge, but they do help the movie stand out from other films in this genre. But what genre is it exactly? It isn't a laugh-out loud comedy, it isn't a character study, it isn't brainless but neither is it particularly witty. Just an occasional big laugh, and it certainly looks good. Sharon Tate gets an "introducing" credit, just as she did on "Eye Of The Devil" released the year before. Her role as "Malibu" is utterly undemanding, but still it's nice to see her having fun. ** from ****