Has anybody seen the Affairs Of Dobie Gillis movie

[gilligan fanatic]

before the series in 1956 they made a movie called The Afairs of Dobie Gillis. I have never seen it and I don't think the charater of Maynard is in it. Has anyone seen it or herd of it

[GingerGilligan]

Yes! It was made in 1953 and the only character from the series in it was Dobie, played by Bobby Van. It also had Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse. I ordered it from a "hard-to-find" video cataloge 11 years ago (before I had the Internet!). The script was written by Max Shulman, so even though it had totally different actors than from the TV show, you could tell it had a similar feel. Dobie starts college (I watched it the summer before I started college!) and does a whole bunch of funny stuff. When I watched it a few years later while I was [I]in[I/] college, a lot of it felt too real.

Hans Conreid (Wrongway Feldman) is also in it as an evil professor. ("And I was so looking forward to failing you. . .")

I usually see at least one copy of this movie floating around on eBay when I search for "Dobie Gillis".

[miltk]

Originally Posted by gilligan fanatic

before the series in 1956 they made a movie called The Afairs of Dobie Gillis. I have never seen it and I don't think the charater of Maynard is in it. Has anyone seen it or herd of it

i just saw it a week or two ago. O,,,M,,,G. you DON'T want to see this. how they ever thought this pathetic movie would make a great tv series is beyond me. i turned away after 20 minutes. no zelda, no thalia, no milton, no herbert T.

it had a sense of a mickey rooney "let's put together a show and have a really good time" cheezy amatuerish feel. AND NOT FUNNY.

if you really lone the tv series, i can guarantee, you'll be horrified of the movie.......and i'll never see a bobby van movie. this was my first and last.

[GingerGilligan]

I thought TAODG was better than what miltk thinks, but I'll let you watch for yourself and make up your own mind.

Dobie Gillis was originially a character made up by Max Shulman whom he used in various short stories (including "Love Is a Fallacy"). Around 1950 these were published in a volume as "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". Of course the only character from the TV series in it was Dobie, and even he was not exactly like Dwayne Hickman's "Dobie". The movie was similar to that. So if you were expecting it to be like the TV show, well yeah, you would be disappointed. I still thought it was witty and clever though, granted it's been a while since I've seen it. I'll watch it again tonight and see if I still think the same way.

What I did watch last night was "Help!" with the Beatles. I loved it when I was in the 8th grade but now. . .well the Beatles were better singers/musicians than actors, let's put it that way.

[Sal]

I watched the movie on TCM this morning and it was more like the Max Shulman novels than the TV show. The only character in the movie who appeared in the TV series was the venerable Charles Lane who played a science teacher in the episode "Love Is A Science". The movie itself did have a bright, cheery mood to it unlike the series. What got me while watching the movie was how some of the roles seemed to be reversed once the series started. For example, and this could be just me that feels this way:


Bobby Van's Dobie reminded me of Maynard
Bob Fosse reminded me of the TV Dobie
Debbie Reynolds' parents in the movie acted just like Herbert and Winnie

So in effect the Dobie Gillis TV series is really an improved version of both the books and the movie.

[comedyfreak]

I'd like to see the movie, love Debbie Reynolds.