Monday with Hayley Mills: CANDY

Young and successful Hayley Mills is the subject of the May 1965 issue of the sensationalizing gossip magazine Whisper. Within the article the magazine asks the question if Hayley will be chosen to star in the film adaptation of the satirical psychedelic sex romp Candy, based on the 1958 novel  by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. I can't tell if this is Hayley Mills' representatives planting a story for the publicity, producers doing the same and pushing for her to be considered for the role or if this article is just using her name to create wagging tongues because of her fresh-faced innocent image. Personally, I'm glad Hayley never appeared in the film that resulted. Many films of the 1960s and 1970s suffered from the excesses and egos of the makers, resulting in movies which appeared to have been created in sputtering fits of drug-fueled mania.

The article itself has a few nice publicity shots that I have not seen elsewhere and even with the inexpensive black and white reproduction values of the era are still nice to look at.

I'm not familiar how straight the book told a story but the film was bonkers and all over the place. Candy is now one of those productions that is considered a "cult classic" though I am in the camp of those who think the term is applied too broadly for many bad efforts. Fresh off several dramas and comedies, Hayley Mills was undoubtedly searching for a more adult role at the time as a year later in 1966 she appeared as a newlywed experiencing marital problems in The Family Way.

 

Admittedly, at the time audiences had a hard time accepting the grown up actress in a dramatic role with a mature theme. People were too used to Hayley as a star of Disney and being cast in other roles as the adorable cute one, forgetting her earlier strong work in Tiger Bay and Whistle Down the Wind. Yet as an inoffensive comedy/drama about a troubled couple the choice of The Family Way was superior than if she appeared in a disjointed bizarre sex farce like Candy. Experiencing the trailer for Candy I cringe to think what that movie as it was made would have done to her career.

 Yes, it was definitely for the best someone else got the role.

Hayley Mills tells how she feels

From Inside Movie (January 1963) comes an article in all likelihood generated by whatever PR machine was gearing up to push the new film Summer Magic, which was about to be released into theaters. This article features Hayley Mills candidly relating how she is handling growing up and becoming an adult. At this point in her life Hayley was facing one of the greatest obstacles of any actors' career, that of growing up.

The article tip-toes around the subject of puberty pretty deftly as Hayley describes her casual meeting with a wolf (from the description, probably a drunken Mickey Rooney) while she is out shopping. While the text attempts to appear as an innocent, embarrassing though thrilling encounter about a young girl approaching womanhood, the magazine really comes off as kind of sleazy. The vivid descriptions of Hayley in a pair of high heels and being fitted for a brassiere made me woozy. Hayley Mills is not Lolita even though the article really tried to sell her as an object of desire without coming right out and saying it. There was a lot invested in keeping her sweet, but various markets had to addressed and courted. Still, once past the Hollywood PR hack attempts to make Hayley sexy without being overtly sexual the piece tries to be positive and is superior in tone to those finger-wagging articles that would be published ad nauseum in just a few years to come.

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