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.

Ski Party

Ski Party
June (?) 30, 1965
AIP
Comedy, Musical
DVD
C

This may be the low for the AIP Beach Party and Spin-Offs series.  (It's been awhile since I've seen The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, and there are the "racing" movies with Fabian coming up, so I'm not going to commit myself just yet.)  Alan Rafkin has mostly directed for TV, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the script is by Robert Kaufman, who also wrote AIP's Dr. Goldfoot movies, which I've never cared for.  There are serious problems with this script, most notably the fact that Frankie*, and to some degree his sidekick Dwayne, won't take no for an answer when it comes to kissing+ (Yvonne's character laughs as she tells of Dwayne tying her up with hair ribbons on their first date!), dress in drag (in what Dwayne acknowledges onscreen is a Some Like It Hot rip-off) in order to spy on girls (oh, and to learn to ski on the bunny slope, not exactly on the level of having a Chicago mob chasing after you), and worst of all drive a mentally ill man further into insanity.  And then in the end, Deborah's character is the one who apologizes!  Deborah wonders what Yvonne did wrong and the future Batgirl replies, "Guilt by association."

There are really only two reasons to watch this movie, and they may not be enough for all but the completist.  One, there's more of the AIP fourth-wall-breaking than we usually get, by both Frankie and Dwayne.  (The latter had practice on Dobie Gillis.)  At one point, Frankie asks what the average age of the audience is, and Dwayne replies 15, so they have to leave the slumber party.  There's also one of the odder cameos at AIP, Annette Funicello playing a hot 35-year-old professor.  (A TILF?)  IMDB says this movie came out in June, but I'm not sure where it actually falls in the Series & Related chronology.  Since I'm reviewing Winter A-Go-Go later today, this seemed like the best place for it.  And, no, AIP never made Cruise Party, as the end credits promise/threaten.

The other good thing about this movie is the music, no, not those darn Hondells, who sing the forgettable title song, but Leslie Gore doing her hit "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows," and the fabulous James Brown and the Famous Flames.  The soul band shows up just before the hour-mark, Yvonne says she has all their albums (since she's cooler than the rest of the cast, I believe her), and then we get a poorly dubbed but wonderfully choreographed rendition of "I Got You (I Feel Good)."  Then they leave, unfortunately, taking most of the energy with them.  Even getting back to the beach at the end doesn't help.

The returning Beach Party crowd includes Patti Chandler, Jo Collins, Mickey Dora, Ed Garner, Mike Nader (given a couple lines), Luree Nicholson Holmes, Mary Hughes, Christopher Riordan, and Salli Sachse.  Bobbi Shaw is again Swedish but seems a bit more fluent than usual.  Aron Kincaid plays a blond stud like he did in Beach Ball, although he ends up falling for Dwayne's alter ego, "Nora."  (Since this is a feeble answer to Some LIH, he gives Nora his pin.  Dwayne/Nora seems to return his feelings, but later claims to have been kidding.  Uh huh.)  Mikki Jamison and Bill Sampson were in Beach Ball with Aron, as was Dick Miller, who this time plays the taxi driver.


*This time, none of the characters have the performers' names.  I just don't care enough to type them all out.  One girl is named "Indian" for inexplicable reasons.

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?"