Back to the Beach

Back to the Beach
August 7, 1987
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
VHS
B-

I have a soft spot for this then-modern-day follow-up to the Beach Party series but I will admit that it can't sustain the wonderful pre-title sequence.  It's never boring, but some of the jokes are a bit clunky and the energy feels off much of the time.  It's certainly one of the most amiable B-s I own and I would recommend it, but let me talk about some of the issues I have with it.

Number one is that at this point, more years have passed since BttB was released than there had been in the gap between this and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and the '80sness has definitely not aged well.  You wouldn't think buxom young blondes could look bad, but see a number of them in the most horrendous of late '80s neon/fluorescent colors and you'll be wishing that Annette's fondness for polka dots had become a trend.  The modern and modernized-'60s music generally does not work, although Annette's revamped "Jamaican Ska" understandably enchants the entire beach.

Number two is the misguided nostalgia.  Now, I know you're saying, Wait, this is a movie starring Frankie and Annette as Frankie and Annette.  But that's kind of the problem.  Frankie was "Frankie" but he was never "The Big Kahuna."  And Annette, as any real Beach Party fan knows, was "Dee Dee" (short for "Dolores").  As welcome as Connie Stevens is (like F & A she looks great in this), she was never part of the series, so setting her up as both Annette's rival and future in-law seems wrong.  I realize this movie was marketed at the mainstream (and did quite well commercially and critically as I recall), but it would've been nice to bring in Deborah Walley, John Ashley, and some more of the gang (Mike Nader! Donna Loren!), rather than make us grateful for "Dick Dale and at least two of the Del-Tones."  (Two of Frankie's real-life sons are part of the band, a nice touch.)

Expanding on point number two, the movie has an odd assortment of mostly television cameos, and not ones from The Mickey Mouse Club.  June, Wally, and Beaver Cleaver show up (with a little Siskel & Ebert parody that I presume Gene & Roger liked, since they gave two thumbs up), and I'll admit it's good to see Gilligan and the Skipper (Bob Denver has some of the best lines in the film), and Don Adams is kinda sorta Maxwell-Smart, but what does this have to do with the original low-budget movie series?  O.J. Simpson (in a gag that probably no one under thirty will get now without Googling) and Peewee Herman have even more random cameos.

There are a whole bunch of characters who aren't given much to do (including F & A's daughter), yet we're supposed to care when some girl (I think her name was Robin) who can't swim might have to face the leader of the rival surfer gang.  It's like a lot got lost in the editing, or among the drafts of the no less than six writers.  (Does this, dare I say it, need a director's cut?)

But Frankie & Annette are themselves as delightful as ever, good-naturedly parodying themselves and having fun with the usually deliberately hokey script.  Demian Slade as their 12-year-old son has most of the great lines that Bob Denver doesn't have.  I think they should've had him continue to narrate throughout the film, because, unlike Woody Allen in Radio Days, he adds a whole other great layer to the proceedings.  Overall, I'd put this on a level with the average Beach Party movie, which is impressive considering how different it is and how much time had passed.  I wish it was more than it is, but what it is is good summer fun, even in the winter.

Note, Connie's beach date, Scott L. Treger, was a basketball player in Soul Man.