Where the Boys Are is a 1960 American CinemaScope comedy film directed by Henry Levin and starring Connie Francis, Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Hutton, and Frank Gorshin.

The screenplay concerns four female college students who spend spring break in Fort Lauderdale.

Aimed at the teen market, it inspired many American college students to head to Fort Lauderdale for their annual spring break.

[4] The film mainly focuses on the "coming of age" of four girl students at a midwestern university during spring vacation.

In a class discussion, smart, down-to-earth Merritt Andrews suggests that premarital sex might be something young women should experience.

Merritt, a freshman, meets suave, darkly handsome Ryder Smith, a senior at Brown University, and realizes she is not ready for sex.

Tuggle quickly fixes her attention on goofy "TV" Thompson, a junior at Michigan State University, but becomes disillusioned when he becomes infatuated with performer Lola Fandango, a "mermaid" swimmer/dancer in a local nightclub.

The relationship angst of Merritt, Tuggle, and Angie evaporates when they discover Melanie is distraught after going to meet Franklin at a motel and instead finding there another of the "Yalies", Dill, who raped her.

We'll use our young contract players, such as George Hamilton, Joe Cronin, Denny Miller, Alfredo Sadel, Bill Smith, Russ Tamblyn, Luana Patten, Maggie Pierce, Carmen Phillips, and Nancy Walters; then get one star to head the cast.

[8] MGM eventually persuaded the book's author to change the title from Unholy Spring to Where the Boys Are.

[15] The novel contained a section where the students help raise money to ship arms to Fidel Castro for his revolution in Cuba.

The film also featured the screen debut, in an unaccredited role, by former Miss Ohio and Elvis Presley consort Kathy Gabriel.

", sung by co-star Barbara Nichols, with music by Victor Young and lyrics by Stella Unger.

American humanities professor Camille Paglia[26] has praised Where the Boys Are for its accurate depiction of courtship and sexuality, illustrating once-common wisdom that she contends has been obscured by second-wave feminism:The theatrics of public rage over date rape are feminists way of restoring the old sexual rules that were shattered by my generation.

It shows smart, lively women skillfully anticipating and fending off the dozens of strategies with which horny men try to get them into bed.

[29][30] Pasternak also announced plans to reunite Hamilton, Prentiss, Hutton and Mimieux in a romantic comedy titled Only a Paper Moon from a story by George Bradshaw, "Image of a Starlet".

MGM liked Paula Prentiss and Jim Hutton as a team so much they put them together in three more movies: Bachelor in Paradise, The Honeymoon Machine and The Horizontal Lieutenant.

It also inspired a number of imitations from other studios, including the Beach Party series and Palm Springs Weekend.