Produced by Fred Kohlmar, the film stars Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Ann-Margret, Maureen Stapleton, Bobby Rydell, Jesse Pearson, and Ed Sullivan.

[5] In 1962, popular rock and roll superstar Conrad Birdie receives an Army draft notice, devastating his teenage fans nationwide.

After this succeeds, Albert will feel free to marry Rosie, despite his widowed, meddlesome mother Mae's long history of interfering with her son's life.

Sweet Apple becomes very popular, but some local adults are unhappy with the sudden celebrity, especially after Conrad's song "Honestly Sincere" and his hip-thrusting moves cause every woman, including the mayor's wife, to faint.

Pressured by the town's leading citizens, Kim's father Harry declines to allow her to kiss Conrad on television, until Albert placates him by promising that his "whole family" will be on Sullivan's TV show ("Hymn for a Sunday Evening").

Albert reveals to Harry that he is actually a biochemist who has developed a miracle supplement for domestic animals that will make a hen lay three eggs a day; they test it on the family's pet tortoise, which speeds out the door.

Albert's mother Mae shows up, distressed to find the pair together; Harry is also agitated about Conrad's monopoly of his house and Kim's behavioral changes.

She slips one of Albert's pills into the orchestra conductor's milk, which speeds up the ballet, amusing the audience, offending the Russians and placing Conrad back on the show to sing "One Last Kiss".

[13] Wanda Hale of the New York Daily News gave the comedy a full four-star rating and said it "bubbles over with the vitality of youth and the fun of farce as it creates a teenage furor over a hip-twisting, leering rock 'n' roll male singer.

"[2] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times said it "should repeat the success It scored on the stage and is in the smash class with 'West Side Story' and 'The Music Man.

"[19] A critic for the Buffalo Evening News called it a "hilarious song-and-dance show" that "exaggerates youth's exuberance and carries its infectious exhilaration to the audience.

"[20] Jay Carmody of The Evening Star in Washington said that "the picture, glowing with color and crazy camera tricks, flatters its natural audience no end.

[24] W. Ward Marsh of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote that "on occasion there is too much dredged up to stimulate laughter, but for the most part the film is eminently successful.

"[25] A more mixed review of the film was offered by David Cobb of the Toronto Daily Star, who liked Ann-Margret's and Leigh's performances, its humor and the musical numbers; as for everything else, he said "it is professionally, smoothly accomplished [but not] very engaging or dramatically interesting".

"[1] Les Wedman of the Vancouver Sun was more negative in his remarks, saying that the musical "as served up In the movie version, is a bit of a turkey, well-dressed but flavored with chestnuts and overdone to the point where it fell apart to reveal a pretty flimsy skeleton.

"[28] Dickson Terry of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said it "starts out to be a hilarious satire on the Elvis-type rock and roll singers and their swooning teen-age audiences but somewhere along the way it loses its bearings and turns into just another musical.

"[29] Stanley Eichelbaum of the San Francisco Examiner wrote that "producer Fred Kohlmar has clumsily transformed 'Bye Bye Birdie' from a clever musical satire on American teenagers into a comic-strip movie for adolescents.

On the other hand, the children in the audience, who understand the attraction of rock and roll singers, and seek an idol in every guitar-playing yokel they can find, seemed to love 'Birdie,' and yelled and hollered and screamed as tho he were real.

[33] In addition, the film was given a Royal Charity Premiere when released in the U.K. on 7 November 1963, at the Odeon Marble Arch, in the presence of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.