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.

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.

Beach Party

Beach Party
August 7, 1963
American International Pictures
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B-

Not bad start to the most famous teen-movie series since Andy Hardy, this is meant to be taken a bit less seriously than the Gidget movies, if not so absurd as the later BP movies would get.  This one has Frankie talking to the audience, Annette (as auburn-haired Dolores) singing advice to herself, and a not fully worked out scheme of love and jealousy.  Is Dolores really just after Professor Bob Cummings to make Frankie jealous, or is she genuinely attracted?  Why does Frankie find it hard to tell Dee Dee (and no, I don't know why it's not Do Do with that spelling) he loves her but he can absent-mindedly say it to Ava (Eva Six)?  Why don't we get any duets with Frankie & Dee Dee, other than the title tune?  And who's the girl with the sexy eyes that has all that chemistry with Frankie in his "Don't Stop Now" number?

Meanwhile, Cummings and the witty Dorothy Malone play an appealing middle-aged couple.  Morey Amsterdam is the sort-of-beatnik running the local hangout, here called Big Daddy's, after the mysterious figure who's revealed to be Vincent Price, there to plug his AIP horror movies.  And of course there's Harvey Lembeck as a brainless Brando (a not so wild one), Eric Von Zipper.  Other than Andy Romano, who plays sidekick J.D., his motorcycle gang of Ratz & Mice are, in alphabetical order, Jerry Brutsche, Bob Harvey, John Macchia, Alberta Nelson (blonde Mouse), and Linda Rogers (auburn-haired Mouse).

John Ashley plays Ken here.  Jody McCrea, who plays Deadhead, is the son of actor Joel McCrea.  (Confusingly, Meredith MacRae is the daughter of Gordon and Sheila MacRae.  She's probably best known for the sitcom Petticoat Junction.)  Valora Noland, who plays Rhonda here (although I'm sure Annette calls her Wanda at first) would in Muscle Beach Party become the first of several actresses to play "Animal" in the series.  Candy Johnson is the fringe-wearing dancer Candy.  Dick Dale (of the Del Tones) plays Dick, and even has his name called out at the beginning of the fight scene (see below), so he can play bongo accompaniment.

Some of the rest of the "Beach Party crowd" in this movie includes musicians Roger Christian and Gary Usher, as well as, in alphabetical order, Duane Ament, Pam Colbert, Mickey Dora, John Fain, Ed Garner, Ashlyn Martin, Laura and Luree Nicholson (yes, the daughters of AIP co-producer James H. Nicholson), Bobby Payne (who would go on to The Muppet Movie, as Robert Payne), Lorie Summers, and Delores Wells.    My personal favorite is Mike Nader, not so much for this movie as his later appearances, especially in Beach Blanket Bingo.  Here he's the tall, thin brunet in a gray sweater in the first Big Daddy's scene.  Brunette yoga girl Sharon Garrett would be a go-go girl in Speedway.

William Asher would go on to direct the rest of the basic series of five.  (I'll discuss the matter of what counts and doesn't, as we go along.)  This first entry not only builds on what the Gidget movies brought to the table, but introduces what would soon be its own traditions, including the big silly fight at the end (this time with a seemingly endless supply of cream pies).  Later entries would get more sci-fi/fantasy, while this one has a moment or two of surprising early '60s realism.  (What kind of cigarette are Frankie and his besties Ken and Deadhead passing back and forth?)  I didn't like the sort of rape joke-- Dee Dee is calling for help from Von Zipper, so Rhonda says, "It's just Dee Dee and that man"-- but otherwise the movie is pretty inoffensive.

"As for their sex life...."  Nonexistent?  Limited to horizontal necking?  We'll never know for sure.