Speedway

Speedway
June 12, 1968
MGM
Musical, Comedy
VHS
D+

Not only doesn't this match the fun of Spinout, I actually enjoyed this movie less than Fireball 500 and Thunder Alley.  Yes, part of the problem is there's way too much time spent on the races.  (As always, Sandy Reed is the announcer.  You could probably make a drinking game out of every time he remarks that a driver emerging from a car looks like he's OK.)  But a much bigger problem is the way that two of the characters are treated by Elvis and by the script: the one played by Bixby and the one played by Sinatra (both blonde this time).

Bixby's character is Elvis's best friend and manager, enabling him to steal Elvis's money and lose it gambling.  He also "seduces" girls, including partially tearing the clothes off one, who turns out to be waiting for Elvis to come home.  "No wonder you kept fighting me!"  Bixby is presented comedically (although there are no actual laughs), and he's never punished or even scolded.  Elvis looks at most mildly annoyed.

Meanwhile, Sinatra plays a tax collector, working for Gale Gordon.  The poor woman is just doing her job, but she gets called an "iceberg" and is later bullied by Elvis (in a hotel, not while working) because she won't listen to his excuses.  This leads to him kissing her and then them falling in love.  Ick!

I'm not sure if it's cute or icky that Elvis sings a song to a little girl of about seven (she's got four younger sisters) explaining that he can't marry her because it "isn't her time yet."  (And, yes, in real life Elvis had recently married Priscilla, who was 14 when they fell in love.)  The little girl's father is played by William Schallert, who for once doesn't seem like the smartest guy in the room.

The two songs you should actually listen to-- the reason why this isn't graded lower than Meet Me in St. Louis-- are Nancy's "Your Groovy Self," which is as silly as it sounds, but has that "Boots Are Made" touch, and "He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad," which is actually sillier than it sounds.  It's set in an IRS office and it shows that Taurog must've learned something at AIP, since it would've fit in just fine in Sgt. Deadhead.  (The "uncle" is Uncle Sam.)  Both numbers are easy to spot, so fast-forwarding or scene-selecting should be no problem.  Otherwise, stay away, Joe.

Claude Stroud, who plays a drunk here, was the pianist in All About Eve.  Go-go dancer Sharon Garrett was a yoga girl in Beach Party.  Gari Hardy, who plays "Dumb Blonde," was a harem girl in John Goldfarb.  "Miss Beverly Hills" was in I'll Take Sweden.  Courtney Brown was in Birds Do It.  Charlotte Considine, who plays Lori the crying waitress, was Miss Reynolds in Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!

Sheryl Ullman was in Spinout.  Elvis's buddy Charlie Hodge, who was a barber in Clambake, is a guitarist here.  Arlene Charles was also in Clambake.  George Cisar, who's "Portly Bald-Headed Man," would be Charlie the Doorman in Skidoo.

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini
April 6, 1966
AIP
Comedy, Horror, Musical
VHS
C

Although this has the director, Don Weis, of Pajama Party, and the writer, Louis M. Heyward, of Pajama Party and Sgt. Deadhead, it never reaches the delightful outrageousness of either movie.  It's not for lack of throwing a very eclectic cast and plot elements together, since we get:

• As primary heroes Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, and Patsy Kelly
• As secondary heroes, what's passing for the teen crowd these days, headed by a no longer studly but now scaredy-cat Aron Kincaid and a supposed to be mousy Nancy Sinatra, who gets only one song
• A musical number, with dancing on beds and bad rhymes, by petite Italian singer Piccola Pupa sort of as herself
• As primary villains, Basil Rathbone, his sexy but nearsighted daughter named Sinistra, a now bitchy and American Bobbi Shaw in a harem outfit, an Indian named Chicken Feather, Jesse White again as J. Sinister Hulk, and of course Mr. Robot Monster himself, George Barrows, as Monstro the gorilla  (I used to own Robot Monster, but lost it long ago and never got around to replacing it.)
• As secondary villains (and the only carryovers from Beach Party, which now seems a long three years ago), Von Zipper and his gang, who spend most of the movie hardly interacting with the rest of the cast
• Boris Karloff, in a somewhat larger role than his cameo in Bikini Beach, as The Corpse, whose will and hidden fortune bring everyone to his decrepit but stately mansion
• The thirty-years-dead title character, played by Susan Hart in an unflattering blonde wig and a non-'30s-compliant bikini (not invisible in any suggestive way), and given annoying mannerisms and unexplained changes in size (the special effects are unimpressive)
• The Bobby Fuller Four performing "Swing A-Ma Thing" in what looks like a Wham-O commercial
• A torture chamber populated by robots
• A muddied theology, where if you're bad you go to Heaven as an angel, while if you're bad but reform you become a child

I can't decide which is more or less appealing, the sloppiness of this movie or the relative slickness of Ski Party.  Both movies come across as misogynist, especially towards poor Deborah Walley, who in this one is repeatedly dragged to and from a buzz saw while tied to a log and wearing a skimpy nightie.  It's not funny and is at best irritating, since no one bothers to untie her for several minutes.  (At least Puss 'n' Boots rescued Sugar Kane when they had the chance, and they didn't even like her.)  Deborah is sort of paired up with Tommy, but they're much more fun, separately and together, in It's a Bikini World.  I guess if you're an AIP Beach Party completist, you may as well watch this, at least to see how much damage adding horror (rather than just cameos by horror stars) to the mix and taking out Frankie and Annette can do.  Not that F & A are any guarantee of entertainment, but I'll get to Fireball 500 tomorrow....

The surviving Beach Party crowd include Frank Alesia, Patti Chandler, Ed Garner, Luree Nicholson Holmes, Mary Hughes, and Salli Sachse, as well as relative newcomers Christopher Riordan and Sue Hamilton Williams.  They're given very little to do, other than dance by the pool that the D but S mansion has.  Besides Von Zipper, all the Ratz & Mice return:  Brutsche, Fife, Harvey, Macchia, Nelson, Romano, and Ross.  The part of the gardener was the last role for silent star Francis X. Bushman.  Benny Rubin, the forgettable Buster Keaton substitute, would play a waiter in The Shaggy D.A.