Reviews

Expecting to enjoy a very cool train film, I wound up being greatly disappointed with this movie. For starters, the train in the title turns out to be a most unconvincing model which, after its christening, is little seen the rest of the film, save for brief shots of it speeding along. According to the script, it travels on a special monorail across the country, the construction of which presumably rivaled the laying of the transcontinental railroad tracks back in the day. At any rate, the film is shot in interior sets that could have been in any hotel, and a drab one at that.

On to the plot, of which there is little. In fact, I am convinced it is a leftover hash-up from some other project coupled with a super-train angle to give it some box office appeal. Previous reviewers have detailed the story, what there is of it, but there is not one interesting scene in the picture. The characters are cardboard, the dialog stilted and the pace tedious.

I give this film my lowest rating. Another record-setting-train film, "The Silver Streak" (1934) is "Citizen Kane" by comparison. I advise anyone who loves trains or good films to avoid this disappointing mess.

Written by a Scandinavian with the peculiar notion that calypso was about to overtake rock 'n'roll, "Bop Girl Goes Calypso" tells the tale of young club-hopper Bob Hilton (Bobby Troupe), an academic trying to find the singer who will launch the next wave of mass hysteria -- which, according to his applause meter, will be calypso.

The film is laced with musical acts, all obscure, chief among them The Goofers, whose members like to take their solos on the trapeze, and the Lord Flea band, who provide the only genuine calypso in the movie. The subject of the film, Jo Thomas (Judy Tyler), is a laughable "bop" singer, whose attempts at calypso are even more ludicrous. Mix in cornball dialogue and quirky performances -- and lots of bad songs -- and you've got a great movie, albeit for all the wrong reasons. A stand-out song is "Rovin' Gal," sung by Tyler with inept dance moves that are wet-your-pants funny.

Besides the film's awful original calypso compositions, look for cool old Plymouths and sharp performances by George O'Hanlon (voice of George Jetson) as the club owner and veteran character actor Lucien Littlefield as Hilton's screwy professor. I have turned countless people on to this film, and all agree it's a wonder "Bop Girl" is not a cult classic. Often the funniest films are ones that weren't supposed to be, and by my lights "Bop Girl Goes Calypso" is chief among them.

Charlie Bonaire