"It's a mad, mad, mad, mad cola!" - Nancy Sinatra in an RC Cola jingle
Movin' with Nancy DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
From 1965 through 1968, crooner Frank Sinatra's daughter Nancy scored several pop hits of her own for her father's Reprise label. Her style was pure sex kitten kitsch, but a little classier than standard bubblegum pop, with hits like "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" and "Sugar Town." At the height of her popularity, she starred in several television variety specials, including NBC's Movin' With Nancy.
Movin' With Nancy is a surprisingly fun and vibrant time capsule. It is closer in spirit to a long form music video than a variety show, consisting mostly of filmed footage of Sinatra lip syncing her songs at various outdoor locations (thus the "movin'" theme). "I Gotta Get Out of This Town" is performed while Nancy literally drives away, "Up, Up and Away" is performed - you guessed it - in a beautiful balloon while dancers cavort madly below, "Sugar Town" is set in an idyllic forest, "Friday's Child" is inexplicably sung at an oil field, and "See the Little Children" and "Who Will Buy?" are set at an abandoned amusement park.
There are also several special guest stars. Songwriter, producer, and frequent duet partner Lee Hazlewood shows up to sing "Some Velvet Morning" and "Jackson" with Sinatra. Sammy Davis, Jr. dances around a fashion photographer shooting Nancy while she sings "What'd I Say?"
Movin' With Nancy often achieves an odd poetry in its pairing of seemingly incongruous imagery with Sinatra's songs, as in the aforementioned "Friday's Child." Another striking sequence is "This Town," in which the singer wanders around an eerie San Francisco in which everyone has been turned into mannequins. At the end of the song, a distraught Nancy is left crumpled on a bench. Dean Martin then sings "Just Bummin' Around" while turning the mannequins back into humans by using his "magic stick." At the end of his song, "Great God Uncle" Dean comforts Nancy, and they sing "Things."
Of course Old Blue Eyes also shows up. Nancy sings "Wait Till You See Him" while surrounded by large blowup pictures of her father. This segues into a sequence in which Frank records "Younger Than Springtime" in a large studio while Nancy watches misty-eyed from the sidelines.
Noticeably missing from the special is perhaps Nancy Sinatra's most famous song, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'." That is a letdown, but the show is such fun that it is hard to complain.
Adding to the retro feel is the fact that the special is presented with its original commercials (and NBC logos) intact. Royal Crown Cola sponsored the show, and at the start, Art Linkletter introduces the special on behalf of RC. He also shows up at the end of the show in an odd commercial that shows how RC is made - from the harvesting of cola nuts in Africa to the special manufacturing process (apparently involving lots of vibrantly colored liquids in beakers and test tubes) at local bottlers. During the show we are treated to RC commercials featuring Robie Porter in Spain, Dino, Desi, and Billy at the Hollywood Bowl, and Nancy herself.
The special is divided into chapters, allowing the viewer to jump to specific songs and commercials.
