Customer Reviews

Don't Make Waves [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This really is a pretty good little movie, it's just too bad it's been so overlooked. It's just plain FUN. Perfect 60's mind candy. The music's pretty good, the cinematography is A1, and the performances are all good. I'm no Tony Curtis fan, but he's really good here. Playing a self-serving opportunist you still can't help but like him. Ironically, he utters the film's best line"If you look at things realistically you'll never fall in love. You just eliminate everyone you can't stand, and see who's left-if anyone". Claudia Cardinale is magnifico as the accident-prone Laura. Not only is she beautiful, she's a fine comedienne too boot. Robert Webber and Joanna Barnes step into their roles of the bickering married couple as if they were written especially for them. They truly make these roles their own. David Draper is oddly appealing as the dim-witted muscleman Harry. He actually makes you care about him, giving a lot more depth than usual to such a throwaway part. But the film really belongs to Sharon Tate. She steals every scene she's in effortlessly, and she also looks pretty damn good in a bikini too. In the skydiving sequence when she tells Carlo(Curtis' character) to "hold on tight" he looks as if he's more than happy to oblige. He looks as if he's died and gone to heaven. Somehow I couldn't help wondering how much real acting he did in the scene. You'd have to be a eunuch not to react to her. I had trouble with the landslide sequence at first, but it makes perfect sense. All the plots loose threads are effectively tied up here. Rod and Diane(Webber and Barnes) are able to come to a new understanding of each other. Harry and Malibu(Draper and Tate) are reunited, their love stronger than ever. And after an hour and a half of fighting it Carlo and Laura(Cardinale) finally stop fighting it and realize they were really meant for each other. If you look at it, there's a real twinge of irony in the ending. In the beginning Carlo is effectively wiped out by the hapless Laura. Figuratively speaking. (He's also literally wiped out by Malibu. But that's another sequence)In the end he's still a pauper, with Laura at least partially to blame. Yet he doesn't seem to mind at all this time. You'll like this movie. I promise

Tony Curtis has obviously made some bad choices in film roles and has been pretty bad in most of them. BUT Not this one. While this film is dated it is still actually funny and would be a perfect companion with the upcoming video release of the Austin Powers sequel. Sharon Tate reveals a lot more than skin in this. She shows that while sexy you could be vunerable and the promise of what may have been had she not been stopped.

Alexander Mackendrick has one of the oddest film careers imaginable, lurching from brilliant satire (THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT), to smashing melodrama (SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS) to off-beat swashbuckler (A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA), and finally to this eccentric romantic comedy about a hustling drifter (Tony Curtis) adrift amidst various California oddballs. It never quite works, but there is so much offbeat charm, particularly in Sharon Tate's deadpan takeoff of a California beach bunny, that you finally don't care if it doesn't work. And Curtis is in there working, by the way, giving yet another of his deft, underrated comic performances. But so few people appreciated comedy--until it's too late . . .

What do you get when you mix a conniving Tony Curtis as a shady grifter with an accident on two legs like Claudia Cardinelli in a plot that involves beach front house along a gorgeous stretch of Malibu Beach? The kind of outrageous pandemonium that only a Hollywood screenwriter could imagine. Yet it is also an interesting character study of a number of individual minor characters, and it is this aspect of the film that makes its histrionics and dumb jokes somehow more palatable. Watch for the scenes with the late and beautiful Sharon Tate and big bodybuilder Dave Draper, who ignite on screen together in a sweet and almost innocent way in front of the camera. Big Dave never made a career in fims, but this movie shows he could act, and that he had a unique sort of charisma on-screen at that. I save this one for cold winter nights when my California dreaming is at a fever pitch. I always seem to enjoy it. I hope you will too.

Probably one of Tony Curtis's most enjoyable 60s vehicles,he's a wanderer who gets caught up in the sunsoaked lives of an Italian bombshell, a pool exec,a body builder and his sky diving girlfriend. Claudia Cardinale at her most radiant, Sharon Tate in one of her most mysterious performances.Good fun in the CA sun!

This is your typical empty-headed surfer dude/chick movie with Sharon Tate playing the part of a beach bunny who practically lives at the beach (along her other "job" - a skydiver). She looked absolutely fantastic (as always) but it was sad to see how few lines she had throughout the film (if she had two full pages of script, it would have been a miracle).

Tony Curtis played the part of a guy who was moving to California and winds up losing all his posessions in one fell swoop on his first day there and moves in with Claudia Cardinale's character (who lives high thanks to her sugar daddy). He winds up selling pools for a living.

Although the movie is cute, the plot isn't complicated at all. It seemed as though Curtis and Claudinale didn't have anything else to do at the time and Tate was contracted to perform here.

I enjoyed this but, when it comes to seeing Sharon's comedic ability shine, "The Wrecking Crew" is a whole lot better.

This is one movie that everyone can enjoy. It's very funny and well-acted. Tony Curtis is so over-looked, and this movie is just another example of what a talented performer he is. Comedy was always Curtis' greatest strength and he plays it well here. But the movie is an excellent vehicle for Sharon Tate. Cast in the perfect role as a stunning bikini-clad beach goddess, Tate shows she has a talent for comedy as she plays the foil to Curtis' well-honed chops. All and all, this one is a delightful romp and worthy of an audience.

One of Sharon's best films, she never looked better. They need to release this and Eye of the Devil on DVD.

very enjoyable, fast-paced feel-good flick from the mid sixties. The Mort Sahl scene is priceless! I don't understand why it's not out on dvd. Looking at the exorbitant amounts being asked for VHS versions, you'd think there would be a market for a dvd release with perhaps some extras like a Tony Curtis commentary.

Don't Make Waves is an enchanting oddity from the UK director Alexander Mackendrick who made THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and many previous British comedies with Alec Guinness and the like. And underneath its hip, mod clothing DON'T MAKE WAVES shares with the Ealing comedies many similar views towards the world and its neurotic inhabitants. What everyone looks at first, of course, is the talent, including Claudia Cardinale in an amazing array of outfits and sunglasses and more eye makeup than she had ever worn before. Then there was the card that says "Introducing Sharon Tate," who takes your breath away with her glamor and her exotic looks. She is rather like Bo Derek in "10" even wearing the same kind of bikini in her entrance. With Robert Webber in both movies, 10 and Don't Make Waves, the similarity is very striking. Here Webber plays the husband cheating on Joanna Barnes with a Malibu mistress (Cardinale, very kittenish and charming, and confused about what she wants out of life). Tony Curtis is all right, but for some reason you could watch the whole movie and never find out who he is and why he came to California. You keep expecting him to reveal something about his past and he never does.

The Byrds' title song isn't one of their strongest numbers but the twangy guitars and patented harmonies announce right away, as soon as the MGM lion has roared, that we are in Southern California and everything is just a dream away.

The climactic landslide reminds me of a later pair of California films that both try to sum everything up, Altman's SHORT CUTS and Anderson's MAGNOLIA. You'll see why!

Most of all the movie belongs to David Draper, the bodybuilder who was Mr. Universe, as many of the other reviewers here on Amazon have noted. Draper plays Harry, willing to give up sex to get better "glutes." He is a very sweet, amazingly good actor whom Mackendrick gives many of the movie's best moments. David Draper's own website has a contemporary article about his appearance in DON'T MAKE WAVES, with a staged photo of himself and Cardinale looking as though they were playing Rusty and Myra in MYRA BRECKINRIDGE.

All in all, it's a wonderful picture with a great performance by David Draper.