I Wanna Hold Your Hand

I Wanna Hold Your Hand
April 21, 1978
Universal
Comedy, Musical, Historical
VHS
B-

This is an uneven but likable look at Beatlemania, covering roughly 24 hours, including the Fab Four's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.  Except for some vintage footage and their songs on the soundtrack, we never actually see or hear the Beatles, but just catch glimpses of them.  The movie is from the perspective of eight teens (four girls and four guys), who have various misadventures in New York as they attempt to see the live performance.

My favorite moments are with 19-year-old Wendie Jo Sperber (later of Bosom Buddies), as the biggest fan out of the group from Jersey.  She meets her match in 21-year-old Eddie Deezen, who was sort of the go-to nerd in comedy movie casting for about a decade and would shortly appear in Grease.  (He seems to be quite the Beatles fan in real life, judging from his website:  http://www.eddiedeezen.com/beatles/.)  The two of them have an insane, adorkable energy separately but especially together.  The other plots and subplots vary in quality, but it's surprising that this was such a flop for Robert Zemeckis.  It's a cute little movie, which has ironically aged better than many of its contemporaries.  (And, yes, I feel that the changes between '64 and '78 warrant the "historical" tag.)

Dick Miller plays a policeman, as he did in Beach Ball.  Nick Pellegrino, "Lou the Guard," was one of The Big Bus's passengers.  Marc McClure, who plays Larry, was Annabel's crush Boris in Freaky Friday.  Bartender Bob Maroff was in Annie Hall.

Ironically, Jeffrey Weissman, who's a Ringo fan here, would be a "brainwashed youth" in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Gene LeBell, who's "Theater Core RTTST" (whatever that means), would be the referee in Americathon.  Leslie Hoffman would be in The Nude Bomb.  Poppy Lagos, who's a reporter here, would be "Sister" in Going Ape!, while Luke Andreas, who's the bribable police officer in the alley, would be "Carter" in that movie.  Will Jordan was an Ed Sullivan impersonator for four decades, and he wouldn't look much different in Down with Love a quarter century after this movie.

Sperber, Deezen, and Paul Newman's daughter

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.

Beach Ball

Beach Ball
September 29, 1965
Paramount
Comedy, Musical
VHS
C-

While no one is going to argue that the AIP Beach Party movies are brilliant, they are to one degree or another fun, and they shine in comparison to this knock-off.  The leads, especially Edd Byrnes (32 and doing a bad job of passing for 20), are unsympathetic, and there aren't any minor characters to hold my interest.  However, except for some moderate (for its time) sexism, the movie is pretty innocuous, and some of the music is good or at least interesting, as when the Supremes sing not one but two surf songs, including the title track.  To balance that, the Hondells are again forgettable, and the songs that Edd allegedly writes for his friends, The Wigglers, have some of the most pathetic rhymes in pop music.  (I swear one was "day" & "day"!)  Oh, and the guys dress in drag at the end, with some of the ugliest wigs in recorded history.

Don Edmonds, who plays Bob, was Larry Neal in Gidget Goes Hawaiian.  Chris Noel (Susan) and Gail Gilmore (Deborah) were both in Girl Happy.  Aron Kincaid (Jack), Mikki Jamison (Augusta), Dick Miller (Cop #1), and Bill Sampson (no relation to the All About Eve character) all appear in Ski Party as well.  Sid Haig, who is the drummer for the Righteous Brothers here, would have a scene-stealing role as Daddy (not Big or Little) in It's a Bikini World, while Jack Bernardi, who plays Mr. Wilk, would be in IaBW as Harvey Pulp.  Larry Billman would dance in Live a Little, Love a Little as well as here.

For some definitions of "hits."