Pajama Party

Pajama Party

November 11, 1964
AIP
Comedy, Musical, Sci-Fi
VHS
B+

The first question is, is this a Beach Party movie?  The answer is yes and no.  On the yes side:

• It's from AIP.
• It shares much of its cast with performers who are in unquestionable BP movies.
• One of the portraits from Bikini Beach (I think of H. H. Honeywagon II) is on the wall.
• One of the guest stars, Elsa Lanchester, is a horror veteran (the Bride of Frankenstein herself).

But then consider this:

• Some of the recognizable cast who are named are not playing the characters they usually do-- notably Annette as "Connie," Jody McCrea as "Big Lunk," and Donna Loren as "Vikki."
• The relationships are not what they usually are, with Connie dating Big Lunk, who used to date Vikki.
• And what of Frankie?  Well, he's playing a Martian named Socum.  Wait, it gets weirder.
• Since Big Lunk cares about volleyball more than romance, Connie falls for Gogo/George, who's played by Annette's Disney pal Tommy Kirk.  He's a Martian, too.
• Oh, and there's no John Ashley.

Most importantly, the movie has a very different feel from its three predecessors.  This is not just due to the introduction of the sci-fi element but also to greater naughtiness than usual.  Not only do we hear a toilet flush, but when a motorcycle crashes, cartoony objects fly by, including a toilet seat!  And instead of Candy's relatively wholesome shimmying, we've got the slow undulations of a new character Jilda (who wears fringe on her bathing suit bottom, while Candy was formerly fringed all over).  When Jilda dances, flowers wilt, candles melt, punch bubbles, marshmallows burst into flame, volcanoes explode, and Dr. Pepper bottles lose their caps.  (I'm sure Donna Loren's sponsors were thrilled.)  You might think that Frank Tashlin had taken over, but actually the director is Don Weis, who would be back for the even more not-in-the-official-series The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, while writer Louis M. Heyward would do the equally offbeat Sergeant Dead Head.

The other thing about this movie is, well, it's crazy.  Not just because there are Martians-- Don Rickles plays one, too, with the sarcasm more natural to him than his Jack Fanny/ Big Drag wimps-- but because, well, it makes no sense and lots of random things happen in it.

• Socum (which is pronounced "Sucum," making it "mucus" backwards) and Big Bang (Rickles) send Gogo to Earth because he's too stupid to be threatening.
• So the first thing Gogo does when he meets an Earthling, Aunt Wendy (Lanchester), is tell her he's a Martian.  (Shades of Chicolini blithely announcing he's a spy in Fredonia.)
• She, and later Connie, have to be told this repeatedly though, because they're skeptical and/or poor listeners.
• Gogo's "raygun" looks more like a wand but is able to freeze/stun people, yet when it's time to confront the bad guys (not the Martians, there are three sets of bad guys), he leaves it behind and instead uses a sword, which gets stuck in the floor.
• He has a transporting device that conveniently attaches to a freestanding wardrobe (ironically not unlike the one Mork slept in before moving up to the attic), so when things need to disappear, he closes the door and presto!
• One of the Earth greats Gogo has studied is Frankie Avalon.
• When Gogo first arrives he's dressed as a movie usher, yet later he wears Big Lunk's clothes "from last year" (ascot and everything, perfect fit).  
• He borrows Big Lunk's "goofy broad-billed red baseball cap," which leads to farce and makeouts for him, Big Lunk, and Eric Von Zipper.
• Oh yeah, the Ratz & Mice are back (I just had to narrow down my tags, so I couldn't tag Lembeck this time), and they resent this beach crowd as much as Frankie's bunch, for putting footprints all over the beach, "except where they've been sitting."  Late in the movie, they pass as "typical cleancut American youts" (influencing My Cousin Vinny?), and go to a pajama party in red p.j.s.
• A more definite Duck Soup reference, Von Zipper, instead of having his own "sickle," now rides in a sidecar, which of course gets left behind.
• The other set of bad guys (besides the Martians and the Rat Pack) are made up of Jesse "Maytag" White, his idiotic sidekick Ben Lessy, Buster Keaton as a cowardly "Red Indian" who says "cowabunga" a lot (sort of an in-joke, for anyone who remembered Howdy Doody, which in '64 would've been a lot of people, especially the target audience of Baby Boomers), and what I still remember the 1964 or '65 Esquire article (which I read in college more than 20 years later) described as "a bosomy blonde Swedish girl who doesn't speak any English."  She's played by Bobbi Shaw, who would become such a fixture in the second half of the series that she would write a fan letter to MAD Magazine when they satirized the films.  
• White, as J. Sinister Hulk, is supposed to be the king of the conmen, and he's trying to steal from Aunt Wendy by the following schemes:
• Getting Helga to seduce Wendy's nephew Big Lunk into telling her where his aunt hides her money;
• Throwing a pajama party with Wendy as chaperone, to get everyone out of her house.
• Wendy owns a very expensive dress shop for teens but is losing $2500/month.  (Too expensive? high overhead?  After all, does it really need a volcano?)  She keeps her money in a wall safe with a very elaborate code.
• The dress shop is run by Dorothy Lamour, who sings as her models, including Toni "Oh, Mickey" Basil and Teri Hope (later Garr), twist, frug, swim, etc.  Her song is "Where Did I Go Wrong?", another of those AIP songs inspired by dialogue.
• Annette serenades a winking stuffed animal.
• After the Rat Pack ends up in the pool and then Wendy throws a potted plant at Von Zipper's head (no "the Finger" this time), Gogo senses that Helga wants to tell him something through mental telepathy, i.e. Sinister's sinister scheme.
• Did I mention that Gogo chooses Connie's love over the conquest of the Earth?
• Sinister, Lessy, and Chief Rotten Eagle (but not Helga, who's reformed through love of Big Lunk) get teleported to Mars, much to Big Bang's annoyance.
• All the Mars scenes are shot with a red filter.
• Frankie's face isn't shown till the end, when he wonders where he went wrong.
• He and Rickles are "special guest stars" who would soon be in Beach Blanket Bingo, which would be relatively sane.  Oh, except for the mermaid falling in love with Deadhead.
• Uncredited is Dorothy Kilgallen, the What's My Line panelist who would die mysteriously a year later.  She was the mother of Kerry Kollmar, the little boy who shows up everywhere (even in the dress shop) to protest all the "mush."  Dorothy (playing "Dorothy") has a brief ride on a motorcycle.

Luree Nicholson Holmes is featured prominently this time, as the perfume girl, and her three-year-old daughter Joi is the "Topless Baby Model."  If that isn't enough nepotism, James H. Nicholson's new wife Susan Hart plays the sultry Jilda.

Members of the Beach Party crowd include Frank Alesia, Roger Bacon, Linda Benson, Patti Chandler, Ronnie Dayton, Johnny Fain, Ed Garner, Guy Hemric, Mary Hughes, Mike Nader (not given much to do this time), Laura Nicholson, Linda Opie, Salli Sachse, and Ned Wynn.  And there are a few new "teens" on the beach: Ray Atkinson; Carey Foster, who'd appear in Winter A-Go-Go; and Ronnie Rondell, Jr., who was Dannie/Donnie Kettle in a few of the Ma and Pa movies.  (He was 27 at this point.)

This time, besides Von Zipper of course, some of the Ratz & Mice are addressed by name, mostly their real-life names: Bob Harvey, the slightly craggy-faced one, here called Robert; Jerry Brutsche (the young blond who has Von Zipper's sidecar), referred to as both Jeromey and Jerome; and Alberta (Nelson of course).  Allen Fife, Linda Rogers, and as always Andy Romano (still called J.D.) also return.

Renie Riano, here a maid, dances with Candy Johnson a bit, though not in the credits as they did in Bikini Beach.  (The credit-dancers are Hart, Keaton, and Lanchester, to an instrumental version of Donna/Vikki's "Among the Young.")  This was Candy's last appearance, in any movie, AIP or not, although she'd live till 2012.  The Nooney Rickett 4, who must be one of the more obscure bands in these movies, somehow manage to show up in both Beach Ball and  Winter A-Go-Go.

"This is a pajama party?"