It's a Bikini World

It's a Bikini World
April 14, 1967
Trans American
Comedy, Musical, Romance
VHS
B-

Although this was made a year and a half before it was released, it doesn't feel as dated as The Cool Ones.  I attribute this to some degree to writer/director Stephanie Rothman.  She must be at least partially responsible for the more feminist than usual take on the "battle of the sexes," with Deborah Walley allowed to not only combine her usually alternating tomboy and glamorous personae but also holding her own in the athletic contests against the partially cast against type Tommy Kirk as a conceited jock.  They're named Delilah Dawes and Mike Samson respectively.  Get it, Delilah and Samson?  She doesn't emasculate him, or cut his hair.  Instead, he tricks her into thinking he's his nerdy brother Herbert.  (It's a geekier character than Kirk's Merlin Jones, although still within his usual range.  One of his outfits clearly looks like it inspired Peewee Herman's gray suit.)

Another notable thing about the movie is its cartoony style, visual and otherwise.  Not only are there moments that become cartoons-- either changed to drawings and/or featuring speech bubbles-- but there are times when the action is sped up.  When a glass pane is run through without shattering and then rematerializes and breaks, it could be an AIP moment, but Rothman does it with a different feel.  And, while I said I don't like racing movies, I meant stock-car racing.  I enjoy the wackiness of the "cross-country race" that includes not just skateboarding, speed-boating, and swimming (22 miles!), but camel-riding, hitchhiking, and of course dresser-pushing.

There are also some offbeat lines, most notably those of Sid Haig as promoter Daddy.  (Another take on Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.)  My favorites are "Greetings, surfers, hodads, gremmies, and independents," "Fuschia #1, Fuschia #2, or Fuschia #3?  Also known as Groovy Grape," and, after Delilah is unimpressed to have won decals, "And of course the admiration of us all."  Jack Bernardi, who plays the publisher Harvey Pulp (ha ha) was also in Beach Ball.  I don't think I've seen William O'Connell in anything else, but I like how he plays McSnigg the photographer likes he's Dick York's less inhibited brother.  Suzie Kaye, who's Pebbles here, would be Sally in Clambake.  And, yes, that's Bobby "Monster Mash" Pickett as Woody.  Jim Begg again doesn't have much to do, but he does wear his "Crayola hat" from Catalina Caper.  (I'll get to that when I do MST3K on my TV blog someday.)  Russell Johnson appears briefly in an Attack of the Crab Monsters clip.

And, finally, there are the musical acts, ranging from the Animals doing "We Gotta Get out of This Place" to another band singing such juvenile lines as "Liar, liar, pants on fire, your nose is longer than a telephone wire," while yet another band manages the "Yummy Yummy Yummy, I've got love in my tummy" trick of bringing out suggestiveness in a song that compares love to peanut butter and jam.

I have a soft spot for this movie, but I must admit it's not as much sheer fun as The Cool Ones.  (With this one, you can catch your breath between the WTF moments.)  Still, I'd put it on a level with Beach Party and Beach Blanket Bingo.  Some say that this was the last gasp for the '60s beach movies, but I say that in some ways it remained a bikini world.

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."