Where the Boys Are
The main focus of Where the Boys Are is the "coming of age" of four girl students at a midwestern university during spring vacation. As the film opens, Merritt Andrews (Dolores Hart), the smart and assertive leader of the quartet, expresses the opinion in class that premarital sex might be something young women should experience. Her speech eventually inspires the insecure Melanie Tolman (Yvette Mimieux) to lose her virginity soon after the young women arrive in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Tuggle Carpenter (Paula Prentiss), on the other hand, seeks to be a "baby-making machine," lacking only the man to join her in marriage. Angie (Connie Francis) rounds out the group as an athletic girl who is clueless when it comes to romance.
The girls find their beliefs challenged throughout the film. Merritt, a freshman, meets the suave rich-boy Ivy Leaguer Ryder Smith (George Hamilton), a senior at Brown, and realizes she's not ready for sex. Melanie discovers that Franklin (Rory Harrity), a boy from Yale who she thought loved her was only using her for sex. Tuggle quickly fixes her attention on the goofy "TV" Thompson (Jim Hutton), a junior at Michigan State, but becomes disillusioned when he becomes enamored of the older woman Lola Fandango (Barbara Nichols), who works as a "mermaid" swimmer/dancer in a local bar. Angie stumbles into love with the eccentric jazz musician Basil (Frank Gorshin).
Merritt, Tuggle, and Angie's post-adolescent relationship angst quickly evaporates when they discover Melanie is in distress after going to meet Franklin at a motel and instead finding there another of the "Yalies", Dill, who rapes her. Franklin had moved on to another girl, but told Dill that Melanie was "easy" and set up the ambush. Melanie ends up walking into the nearby road looking distraught, her dress torn. Just as her friends arrive, she is hit by a car and ends up in the hospital.
Ultimately, it seems the group has learned the potentially serious consequences of their actions and resolve to act in a more responsible, mature manner. The film ends on a melancholy note, with Melanie recovering in the hospital while Merritt looks after her, and with Merritt's promises to Ryder to continue a long-distance relationship. He then offers to drive them back to their college.
romantic