Bye Bye Birdie

Bye Bye Birdie is a musical comedy set in the early 1960s about Conrad Birdie, a rock and roll star whose draft notice sends his young fans into a frenzy. His songwriter and manager, Albert Peterson, sees his own livelihood and his long-delayed plans to marry his secretary Rosie slipping away, so he arranges a farewell publicity stunt: one lucky girl will give Conrad a goodbye kiss on The Ed Sullivan Show. The chosen girl is Kim McAfee, a high school student from a small Ohio town, and Conrad's entourage descends on her home, to the dismay of her exasperated father and her jealous boyfriend Hugo. The visit sets off a series of comic and romantic complications.

George Sidney directed and produced the film, which came near the end of a long run of musicals and period pictures he had made since the early 1940s, among them Anchors Aweigh, Show Boat, and Pal Joey; Viva Las Vegas followed it. The screenplay was written by Irving Brecher and Lee Adams, and the cast includes Janet Leigh as Rosie, Dick Van Dyke as Albert, and Ann-Margret as Kim. Made for about five million dollars, it took in roughly twice that amount worldwide. On IMDb it holds a 6.6 rating from around ten thousand votes, while on TMDB it sits at 5.9 from a much smaller number of votes.