Beach Blanket Bingo

Beach Blanket Bingo
April 14, 1965
AIP
Comedy, Musical, Fantasy
DVD
B-

This is a lot of people's favorite Beach Party movie and it's easy to see why.   The script is again by director William Asher and Leo Townsend, so the formula was fully worked out but not yet stale.  The guest stars are recognizable, especially in retrospect Linda Evans as Sugar Kane.  (Yes, the same spelling as Marilyn's character in Some Like It Hot.)  Frankie & Dee Dee get another nice duet, this one more uptempo and in a round.  (Annette's hair by the way finally looks its natural black, no visible red highlights.)  The title song is the catchiest in the series, and the first half of the movie is pretty solid.  The Bonehead (McCrea, no longer Deadhead, but close enough) & mermaid (Marta Kristen) romance is actually sweet and funny.  And, yes, my fave Mike Nader, now named Butch, gets a bunch of lines (including saying the word "groovy" at least three times, as in "Let's dig this groovy chick"), some stuntwork, and a bit of a romance himself.  (With either Patti Chandler as Patti or newbie Donna Michelle as the latest Animal, I think the latter.  Patti Chandler seems to be one of the end-credits dancers.)  Don Rickles, now Big Drop, gets a seemingly improvised scene where he insults Frankie and friends like he's in Vegas, while Paul Lynde goes through the entire movie powered by deserved snark.  (His sidekick is Earl Wilson as himself, not having aged much in the eighteen years since Copacabana.)

All that said, I find the movie in the middle range of the series, about equivalent to the first entry.  Part of the problem is that Donna Loren gets only one song, while Linda Evans gets two.  (And Linda's are dubbed!)  More seriously, the movie has two plot threads that just don't work.  One is the kidnapping of Sugar by Von Zipper and his Rat Pack, which leads to her rekidnapping by South Dakota Slim, again played by Timothy Carey.  The other is the Bonnie & Steve jealousy subplot.  The two skydiving instructors who work for Big Drop are played by then spouses Deborah Walley and John Ashley.  Now, I don't have a problem with Ashley playing someone outside the Beach Party crowd (especially since it means an expanded role for Mike Nader), and I find Walley a welcome addition to the AIP family.  They have good chemistry together, as do she and Frankie.  But this is my least favorite of her AIP roles because Bonnie not only tries to make Steve jealous with Frankie, she rips her blouse and tries to convince everyone that Frankie attacked her!  The only good thing to come out of this plotline is Annette's line "Don't you 'I love you' me!"

Returning members of the Beach Party crowd are Frank Alesia, Duane Ament, Ray Atkinson, Linda Benson,  Linda Opie Bent, Pam Colbert, Ronnie Dayton, Mickey Dora, Johnny Fain, Ed Garner, Guy Hemric, Luree Holmes, Mary Hughes, Darlene Lucht, Laura Nicholson, Salli Sachse, and Ned Wynn.  There's also newcomer Stephanie Nader, but I don't know if she's related to Mike.

Dark-haired, frowning Myrna Ross replaces auburn-haired, smiling Linda Rogers in the Rat Pack, and Von Zipper refers to her and Alberta as Puss 'n' Boots.  (Alberta is Puss, I guess because she has seniority.)  Jerry Brutsche (still Jeromey, and continuing the Duck Soup sidecar rip-off), Allen Fife, Bob Harvey, John Macchia, and of course Andy "J.D." Romano (still reading the newspaper to Von Zipper) are all back.  Buster Keaton is now playing "Buster" and dressing like he did in the silent days, while Bobbi Shaw, as "Bobbi," is still Swedish and spends the entire movie in the gold & mink bikini she bought at Aunt Wendy's dress shop.

The Hondells would do some other teen flicks I own, but they're not very memorable here or elsewhere.  Jackie Ward, who dubs Sugar's singing voice, would also sing in Charlotte's Web.  Paul Lynde would rock the house in that movie, as Templeton the rat, and in the meantime he would get a TV gig as Uncle Arthur on Asher's Bewitched.

"Into groups of two"?  Math isn't their strong point.

Bikini Beach

Bikini Beach
July 22, 1964
AIP
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B

This is one of the most enjoyable of the Beach Party movies, even if there's a bit too much drag-racing, and the older couple of Martha Hyer as pro-teen teacher Miss Clements and Keenan Wynn as publisher (of The Bikini Bugle) H. H. Honeywagon III don't have plausible chemistry in the way that Cummings and Malone did in Beach Party.  (A "honeywagon" is a mobile toilet unit near a film set.)  The music is generally better, not just Little Stevie Wonder making a brief return, but also the Pyramids, probably the only bald interracial band of the mid-'60s.  Donna Loren sings "Love's a Secret Weapon," which is the first of several songs in the series that seem inspired by dialogue in previous movies.  Frankie and Annette get their first romantic duet, "Because You're You," and it's very sweet.  Most memorably, Frankie, in his role as the British pop star the Potato Bug, a weak but likable Beatles parody, sings a couple songs, with "yeah, yeahs" and McCartneyesque oos.

Instead of Frankie trying to make Dee Dee jealous, Annette casually makes him jealous with, yes, the Potato Bug.  Partly for this reason, and partly for her relatively revealing and polka-dotted wardrobe, she seems to be having more fun than in previous entries, where she too often sat sulking at a table at the teen hangout as Frankie frolicked with other girls.  This time the hangout is Big Drag's Pit Stop, with Don Rickles as Big Drag.  ("I used to be in the fanny business, but that's all behind me now.")  He paints Jackson-Pollock-ish modern art, which catches the eye of an art dealer, played by this film's horror vet guest star, Boris Karloff.

This movie marks the return of Von Zipper and his gang, and we see that a year later (this is set in the summer, while Muscle BP was set over Easter vacation), he's still affected by the "Himalayan suspenders trick," able to accidentally give himself "the finger."  Frankie remarks that Von Zipper is stoned again, I think in the earlier sense of "drunk" or maybe "unconscious," although you can't be sure with these movies.  There are also cops (played by actors who've done a ton of TV although probably not any other of my movies) who are suspected of drinking on the job.  And there's the sound of a toilet flushing.  (Pajama Party would outdo this though.)  Also, there seem to be more shots than usual of the California coast, as well as a not too convincing small town that the chase scene goes through.  (One street is full of New-York-like brownstones.)

With a talking bird, a surfing "chimp" (Janos Prohaska in a costume, as he'd appear on Gilligan's Island, among other TV shows), and a "teenage werewolf monster," the movie verges on sci-fi/fantasy, but doesn't clearly cross over as later entries would.  Asher again cowrote the script with Robert Dillon, so I'm guessing that it's the addition of Leo Townsend that made the overall difference.  (Asher and Townsend would team up for Beach Blanket Bingo, without Dillon.)

Frank Alesia, Patti Chandler (the girl who keeps walking by the camera in a bikini and heels), and Keenan's 23-year-old son Ned join the Beach Party crowd, while John Ashley, Jody McCrea, Linda Benson, Roger Christian, Mickey Dora, Johnny Fain, Ed Garner, Guy Hemric, Luree Holmes, Mary Hughes, Duane King, Darlene Lucht, Meredith MacRae (as the new "Animal," and getting to utter one of the first onscreen uses of the word "groovy" since the '30s), Linda Opie, Salli Sachse, Gary Usher, Dolores Wells (still "Sniffles"), and of course Mike Nader return.  (Here, Nader really establishes his role as the guy who has mishaps happen to him.  You just know that he'll be the one whose chair is yanked right out from under him when he's smooching a girl, and it's of course his surfboard that Clyde borrows.)

Allen Fife joins the Rat Pack of Andy "J.D." Romano (who we learn has to read to Von Zipper, who never went past the 3rd grade), Jerry Brutsche, Bob Harvey, John Macchia, Alberta Nelson, and Linda Rogers.  Ronnie Dayton, who plays the Potato in the shots he shares with Frankie, would become one the Beach Party crowd in subsequent films (and had done stunts in the earlier two entries).

Old Lady #2 Renie Riano would play a maid in Pajama Party.  Timothy Carey would reprise his role as South Dakota Slim in Beach Blanket Bingo.  Meredith MacRae's mother Sheila plays a secretary here, as she would in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.  Elizabeth Montgomery, whose Bewitched would premiere that fall, was Asher's new wife and she does the French-accented voice for the Lady Bug.  She would have a cameo in a later entry.

Muscle Beach Party

Muscle Beach Party
March 25, 1964
AIP
Comedy, Musical
DVD
C+

Released the same day as Merlin Jones, this shows Annette's hair looking closer to its usual black, although still with strong red highlights, in some scenes more than others.  It also shows Annette/Dee Dee surfing with Frankie, which is a rarity in these films.  (Annette hated the beach in real life.)  And we see Frankie smoking again, including right after he surfed and as he's singing.  (The Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health came out in January of that year, and we will see a gradual decrease in onscreen smoking, but not yet.)

The songs, including the very weak retread of "Don't Stop Now," "Running Wild," as a tribute to Cappy's Place, are for the most part less memorable in this entry, except for "Happy Street" sung twice by 13-year-old Little Stevie Wonder, who'd had a hit with "Fingertips" but was not yet the star he'd become.  If I could use more tags on these posts, I'd tag him, since he'd appear in the follow-up, Bikini Beach.  And I'd tag Morey Amsterdam, who's back as Cappy, although given less to do this time.  Instead of Vincent Price as Big Daddy, we've got Peter Lorre as Mr. Strangdour, one of his last roles, although the credits promise him in Bikini Beach.

Instead of Bob Cummings and Dorothy Malone, we've got Luciana Paluzzi as an Italian contessa and Buddy Hackett seriously miscast as her sarcastic business manager S. Z.  I can't help wondering if the movie might've been improved if Hackett had swapped roles with Don Rickles, who plays wimpy Jack Fanny, manager of a group of musclemen.  This is a parody of Vic Tanny, although everyone calls the character by his full name, so that they can say, "Fanny."  (This naughtiness seems mild compared to the scene where one of the beach guys says either "Let's bug out of here" or "Let's get the f*** out of here.")

This time William Asher not only directed the movie, but he cowrote the script with Robert Dillon, and they'd team up for Bikini Beach as well.  There's some de ja vu here, with jokes being recycled (some not for the last time, as with "You can say that again"), not to mention redone situations like a fight scene at the local teen hangout, but the movie is most notable for what's missing: Eric Von Zipper.  The musclemen just aren't as interesting as the "carbon monoxide commandos."  I'm still using the "Ratz & Mice" tag though, because Alberta Nelson appears as a muscle girl and Bob Harvey (the slightly craggy-faced guy) as a sound-man.

Jody McCrea is still Deadhead, but John Ashley is now known as Johnny instead of Ken.  Candy returns as Candy, now a "secret weapon" who knocks men off their feet and/or surfboards with her fringed go-going.  Donna Loren is introduced as Donna, helping to make the last third of the movie better than the first hour.

Other new additions to the Beach Party crowd include Linda Benson, Guy Hemric, Mary Hughes, Duane King, Darlene Lucht, Linda Opie, and Salli Sachse.  Duane Ament, Roger Christian, Mickey Dora, John Fain, Ed Garner, Ashlyn Martin, Valora Noland (changing from "Rhonda" to "Animal"), Luree Nicholson (now using her married name of Holmes), Lorrie Summers, Gary Usher, Delores Wells (with her character's name changed from "Sue" to "Sniffles"!), and my fave Mike Nader (he this time with a few slangy lines) return.

Future Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty plays muscleman Biff, and he'd show up in Girl Happy the next year.