MovieChat Forums > Beach Party (1963) Discussion > Kind of creepy line from Amsterdam

Kind of creepy line from Amsterdam

posted 10 years ago by sagaylo
3 replies | jump to latest

Seen this AIM beachboiler a few times since 1963, but watching it on TCM the other night, I caught something odd that had not noticed before. During the first scene in Kaplan's nightclub, Kaplan (Morey Amsterdam) delivers a beat-type poetic reading dedicated to Big Daddy, the first verse of which is, "D is for Dallas," then a pause and a darkly ominous follow-on, "I may not go there..." Since the Kennedy assassination took place a few months after this film was released, I now wonder what, if anything, Amsterdam (assuming he wrote his own material) was doing with that line. Could it have been inspired by some kind of presentiment as he was composing the poem? Or, maybe he just had some bad times there as a standup comic?

[–] jl-39962 7 years ago

I was thinking the same thing when I saw this last night.

On the other hand, it could just be that Dallas is/was a very conservative town, and a beatnik might therefore not want to go there.

[–] sagaylo 7 years ago

Right, but the south has many towns where a beatnik - or other unorthodox style of performer - would have encountered tough crowds in 1963. It just struck me as sort of creepy and menacing the way he delivered the line, as if he was not just acting as if in a trance, but was actually perceiving something in the near future.

[–] liscarkat (16515) 4 years ago

Yeah, Amsterdam knew, because he was in a conspiracy with Oswald and the CIA. Jeezuz.