Star Spangled Girl

This rates high on my scale of lousiest movies, only slightly better than "Dudley-do-Right", which probably says it all.

Sandy Duncan wasted her bubbly talent playing Amy Cooper, southern Olympic swimmer, who comes to LA to work and train, and (unfortunately), becomes neighbors with two radical newspaper publishers (Tony Roberts and Todd Susman), whose liberal ideas clash with her traditional conservatism. This could have been a good movie if it had been just Amy and Andy Hobart (Roberts), as it could have turned into one of those love stories, where the couple are real opposites and clash a lot, but then fall in love.

Instead, they had to throw Norman Cornell (Susman) in, when he should have been thrown out! The whole character was ridiculous, like he O. D'd on uppers mixed with acid. He wasn't funny, he wasn't even silly, he was just plain ridiculous, so much so, that he's embarrassing to watch. He gets a case of love at first sight (or in his case, smell) for Amy, apparently addicted to the scent of her hair. He then proceeds to make a nuisance of himself, to the point of harrassment. (Today, he'd be arrested for stalking!) There was nothing funny about any of this, it was just plain annoying!

The rest of the movie fell flat, as the whole basis of what the newspaper stood for, Amy's own traditional standards, and some of the realities of life in the city in the early 70's were downplayed and a lot of nonsense (like a duck running wild in the YWCA) took center stage, instead.

It's hard to believe this was based on a Neil Simon play, unless someone put his name to it, as a (very bad) joke.

SKIP THIS ONE, LIKE I WISH I HAD!