Elizabeth Montgomery is best known for her role as Samantha the suburban witch in the long-running 60s-era television series "Bewitched."
Her then-husband William Asher, who produced and directed many of that show's episodes, also directed most of the original "beach party" movies...
...hence Elizabeth Montgomery's amusing cameo in "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" (1965.)
Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Originally posted on 5/22/21
Currently rewatching: SKI PARTY (1965). By this time, American-International were starting to see the writing in the sand, and, even though they still had a couple of "beach party" movies left in them, started trying to branch out into other areas of interest for ticket-buying teens.
Hence, this weird hybrid of beach-pic elements but with sand and surfing replaced by snow and skiing. This time we start off with our fun-loving teens still in college, on the verge of winter break and just roiling with hormones looking for somewhere to go and something to do.
Frankie Avalon is no longer make-out king "Frankie", but instead plays strike-out king "Todd", who, along with equally inept Craig ("Dobie Gillis" star Dwayne Hickman), spends every waking hour frantically trying to get to first base with the most romance-averse girls in the universe, Linda (Deborah Walley) and Barbara (a pre-Batgirl Yvonne Craig).
I mean, these girls are pathologically repelled by anything even slightly resembling hugging and kissing, to such a degree that they make Annette Funicello's "Dee-Dee" look like a raving nymphomaniac. (Which, in her brief cameo as a teacher, she sorta is, since we find her smooching away with a student at the drive-in.)
In one scene, the girls get together in their room for cocoa, pillow-fighting, and other girl-type stuff while enjoying a spirited discussion of all the things they've done to boys who tried to get next to them (one guy ended up with one arm, and another with a parole officer). And through it all, Linda and Barbara remain in a constant state of fuming indignance toward the guys for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Lucky for them, Todd and Craig are so irrationally devoted to winning these resolutely platonic party poopers as steady girlfriends that they follow them on a ski club field trip to the snowy slopes, despite not being able to ski.
This results in the usual sight gags about flying out-of-control down steep mountains on skis or sleds, screaming for their lives, as we cringe at the memory of various real-life celebrities who have done the same thing but with fatal results.
But that's nothing compared to some of the film's more cartoony gags, such as Todd attempting to win a ski jump contest by donning a scuba suit under his clothes and filling it with bottled helium until he's bloated like a weather balloon and drifting helplessly over the stunned crowd. Helpful pal Craig shoots him down with a starter pistol and Todd goes spewing all over the place as the helium escapes.
I won't even try to explain why, but a major plotline involves the boys disguising themselves as girls, "Some Like It Hot" style, and pretending to be Jane and Nora from England while looking about as much like actual females as Aldo Ray in drag.
Originally posted on 6/8/19
I've always loved the American-International "Beach Party" series, and I always will. This gives you a good idea of the overall tenor of my assessment of HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI (Olive Films, 1965). As for WHY I love these movies so much, well...err...uhh...
To be honest, a lot of people will hate this movie and others like it, and, as far as they're concerned, rightfully so. It's a supremely silly slapstick sex farce with the lowest teen denominator in mind, and it was made to shower undiscerning audiences with brightly-colored pop culture confetti made up of whatever seemed like it might appeal to them, including girls in bikinis, bikes, surfing, jangly rock 'n' roll, cartoonish action, really corny jokes, and cameo appearances by faces familiar to both the younger and older generations.
All of which is why I find these movies to be such irresistible fun--because that's all they try to be, and in their own stupefying way, they succeed. It helps if you're a fan of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (I am), two of the most appealing young stars of the 60s, and enjoy occasionally turning off your mind, relaxing, and floating downstream. It is not dying, even though some might feel that way about it.
Originally posted on 5/19/21
Currently re-watching: MUSCLE BEACH PARTY (1964), the predictably meat-headed sequel to 1963's raucous romp BEACH PARTY. As the title suggests, it's the same frothy free-for-all only this time with muscles.
The muscles are supplied by a group of strongmen led by Jack Fanny (Don Rickles in a spoof of gym maven Vic Tanny), whose star beefcake, Flex Martian, is played by "Mission: Impossible" and "Police Squad!" regular Peter Lupus under the name "Rock Stevens."
Spoiled rich girl Julie (Italian beauty Luciana Paluzzi, later to play evil Fiona Volpe in the James Bond epic THUNDERBALL) spots Flex from her nearby yacht, is impulsively smitten, and orders her obsequious business manager S.Z. (Buddy Hackett) to purchase the entire strongman squad from Jack Fanny. Deals are made, contracts are signed, and then...
...fickle Julie falls in love with Frankie, breaking Flex's heart and igniting the usual jealous tiff between Frankie and girlfriend Annette that will have them at odds for the rest of the movie.
All of this is set against the same milieu as the previous film, with a bunch of vacationing teens living in ramshackle beach houses and springing into action with every fervent cry of "Surf's up!"
Returning are John Ashley as handsome smoothie Johnny, Jody McCrea as the brain-dead Deadhead, Candy Johnson as dancing dervish Candy, and various other somewhat familiar faces amongst the bikini-clad beach bums.
Cute blonde Valora Noland's character name has been changed here from "Rhonda" to "Animal" (she would later pop up in John Wayne's THE WAR WAGON and the "Patterns of Force" episode of "Star Trek"). Also on hand once again are guitar-twanging Dick Dale and his Del-Tones, and Morey Amsterdam as kooky club owner, Cappy.
Chipper pop singer Donna Loren makes her debut in the series along with burgeoning superstar Little Stevie Wonder singing "Happy Street." (He'll share the marathon closing credits with Candy.) Future "Grizzly Adams" star Dan Haggerty, sans beard and long hair, is unrecognizable as one of the strongmen, Biff.
Conspicuous by their absence this time are Harvey Lembeck's Eric Von Zipper and his cycle stupids, although one female member, Alberta Nelson, returns as part of the Jack Fanny camp.
Annette's hair-trigger jealousy and constant pressure on free-spirited Frankie to settle down and get married are just as tiresome as ever.
Still, the bickering lovebirds each get to croon a few pleasantly sappy love songs, with Frankie also delivering a real ear-bending banger in Cappy's club that gets the joint rocking.
Dick Dale proves that he and the Del-Tones are much better suited to cool surf-rock instrumentals when their attempts at lyrics about the surfing life evoke deep, rumbling groans.
There's no fast-paced, colorful chase sequence this time, but the cartoony action of a no-holds-barred brawl between surfers and strongmen in Cappy's club sorta makes up for it.
This is topped off by an appearance by none other than the great Peter Lorre, who, along with Vincent Price (BEACH PARTY) and Boris Karloff (BIKINI BEACH), was currently under contract with American-International.
Semi-serious scenes (the gang rejects Frankie when he announces he's hooking up with sugar-mama Julie) clash with the unabashedly cartoony and often surreal nonsense that makes up the bulk of the film, all leavened with heaps of bad rock and roll (some co-written by Brian Wilson) and numerous old school comics adding their seasoned silliness to the usual youthful antics to make MUSCLE BEACH PARTY a dizzyingly dumb distraction for the easily amused.
Originally posted on 5/16/21
Currently re-watching: The third film in the "Beach Party" series, 1964's BIKINI BEACH. This one begins as they usually do, with our fun-loving teens on another school break and hitting the beach and the girls sequestering themselves in separate sleeping quarters that the boys would love to move into themselves.
Naturally, good girl Annette Funicello serves as unofficial chaperone, making it even more difficult for horn-dogging hot-dogger Frankie Avalon to score with her. Both sides are caught up in constant ogling and lusting after each other, and must spend all that pent-up energy by frantic dancing and loads of surfing.
This time, however, a new wrinkle presents itself when new British singing sensation The Potato Bug sets up a lavish tent compound on the beach and gives the girls something to really scream and dream about.
Since this is 1964, and the movie was written by out-of-it old fogies (including director William Asher, who would go on to helm TV's "Bewitched"), the Potato Bug is used to ridicule current sensations The Beatles although the character looks and acts like a cross between Terry-Thomas and Jerry Lewis' "Nutty Professor."
Of course, Annette is on the outs with Frankie again (the guy just doesn't want to get married yet) and uses Potato Bug to make him jealous. This opens up a whole new angle on the "beach movie" premise when they end up challenging each other to a drag race presided over by local club owner/abstract painter/drag strip manager Big Drag, played by the great Don Rickles.
An additional subplot involves fuddy-duddy newspaper publisher Keenan Wynn, who wants to discredit the kids as dangerous delinquents in his papers while sympathetic teacher Martha Hyer runs interference for them.
Keenan's assistant is a chimp named "Clyde" (Janos Prohaska, the Horta in the Star Trek episode "Devil in the Dark"), who proves how dumb the kids are by surfing, drag racing, and abstract-painting just as well or better than they do.
Motorcycle moron Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his "army of stupids" return to cause their usual trouble, helping Keenan in his efforts to thwart their mutual foes, the surfers.
Having learned how to administer "the finger" (a paralyzing move applied to the temple) from Bob Cummings in the first film, Von Zipper proceeds to accidentally use it on himself numerous times and must be carried away by his gang to sleep it off.
The film's fervent desire to entertain us results in a big chase scene through town involving dragsters, motorcycles, and go-carts, a combination brawl and pie fight at Big Drag's place, and much semi-hilarity involving the zany Potato Bug, who is in fact played by heavily made-up Frankie Avalon himself (although a stand-in is used in several shots) in a surprisingly comedic performance.
Perky singer Donna Loren returns to the series, and we also see the return of regulars Deadhead (Jody McCrea), hyper-kinetic go-go dancer Candy (Candy Johnson), and pretty boy John Ashley. Future "Petticoat Junction" co-star Meredith MacRae replaces Valora Noland as "Animal", and Timothy Carey is menacing as Von Zipper cohort "South Dakota Slim." As the previous films ended with cameos by horror stars Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, this one is graced by none other than the venerable Boris Karloff.
Rock and roll songs are provided by some bands you probably never heard of, including one group who cocks a snoot at those wacky mop-tops from Liverpool by taking the stage at Big Drag's club in shaggy Beatle wigs and then yanking them off to reveal shaved heads.
Frankie and Annette get their own crooning in amongst the other cacophony, of course (including one number Frankie sings as "Potato Bug"), while none other than Little Stevie Wonder (as he was known then) sings us into the marathon closing credits during which world-class shaker Candy Johnson and one of the ladies from the local old folks' home have a frenzied dance-off.
Having already established the basic premise of the series and many of its recurring tropes in the first film, BIKINI BEACH wastes no time diving into all of this colorful cinematic chaos with utter abandon and a total disregard for how incredibly dumb and groan-worthy it all is. But this serves not as a drawback but as a license to pile as much dumb fun into the whole thing as possible.
Originally posted on 5/20/21
Currently watching: BEACH BLANKET BINGO (1965), the fourth--and arguably one of the best--of American-International's "Beach Party" series.
Anyway, it has what is probably the catchiest theme song, sung with gusto by Frankie, Annette, and the gang over some bouncy opening titles.
All the usual ingredients are here: vacationing teens having a ball at the beach, lovebirds Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello having a tiff and making each other jealous by flirting with others, an opportunistic adult trying to make a buck off them all (and played by a well-known older actor), cycle stupes Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his gang, lots of mostly bad songs, and a whole lotta slapstick nonsense.
This time, legendary comedian Paul Lynde (with whom director William Asher would later work on the TV series "Bewitched" along with Asher's wife Elizabeth Montgomery) is the greedy manager of future "Big Valley" star Linda Evans as teen singing sensation Sugar Kane, who performs a couple of bland songs.
Deborah Walley hits the beach at last as Bonnie, Sugar's skydiving stand-in during a publicity stunt, with regular John Ashley's "Johnny" character rebooted as her jealous pilot, now named "Steve." (Deborah and John would later marry in real life.) This leads to a whole subplot about Frankie and Annette competing to see who can learn to be the better skydiver.
From this comes a surprisingly jarring bit of real-world intrigue when Deborah puts the moves on Frankie while airborne and then, upon his refusal to comply, rips her blouse and threatens to accuse him of attempted rape when they land.
Whoa, Nelly! Good thing Annette knows Frankie too well to fall for such a lowdown ruse, but yikes...this goes way beyond the usual teen hijinks and into genuine "fatal attraction" stuff.
The best subplot involves Jody McCrea, whose "Deadhead" character has been upgraded to "Bonehead." While helping to rescue Sugar after her pretend skydive into the ocean, he encounters a beautiful mermaid named Lorelei (played by future "Lost In Space" star Marta Kristen) and they fall in love.
Nobody will believe his claim to have met a mermaid, and their tentative romance proves both charming and genuinely heart-tugging, with Marta a winning mermaid and Jody getting to do something besides be a total blithering moron for a change.
Screen legend Buster Keaton makes his first appearance in a beach movie, along with gorgeous sidekick Bobbie Shaw as Swedish knockout "Bobbi." Despite his advanced age, The Great Stone Face still proves game enough to provide a couple of his trademark pratfalls.
Don Rickles goes from "Big Drag" to "Big Drop" to reflect his new role as a skydiving instructor as well as owner of the club where the kids hang out and listen to The Hondells. Timothy Carey returns to up the creep factor (as only he can) as unsavory bad guy "South Dakota Slim."
Naturally, biker boob Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) eventually blows in with his army of stupids to disrupt everything by kidnapping Sugar and setting into motion an even more chaotic and cartoony chase scene than the last one, ending with Sugar tied to a log that's headed for a buzzsaw, "Perils of Pauline" style. He also manages to give himself "the finger" (a lingering holdover from the first film) a time or two as well.
By this time, the "beach party" series was on the verge of winding down and American-International would start putting its stars into different variations of it (such as "Ski Party" and "Fireball 500"). But with BEACH BLANKET BINGO we're still riding the crest of the wave along with Frankie, Annette, and the gang, and it's still just as much dumb fun as ever.
Originally posted on 5/16/21
Originally posted on 5/24/21
Currently rewatching: FIREBALL 500 (1966). I hadn't seen this one since a primetime TV showing back in the 60s and didn't remember much about it except that it had the same kind of production values, music, and other elements, along with stars Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, as the "beach party" movies from which it had evolved.
But despite an opening featuring stop-motion animated cavemen inventing the wheel (courtesy of Art "Gumby" Clokey) and a jokey introduction to Frankie's character as he outruns a pitchfork-wielding farmer defending his amorous daughter, any misconceptions I had about this being a lighthearted comedy farce were soon dispelled.
What "Beach Party" director William Asher and co-writer Leo Townsend have concocted here is about as serious and gritty as this kind of candy-coated thriller can be, with Frankie (now "Dave Owens") a California daredevil descending upon the American South for some of that stock car racing action. He's met with resistance by local racing hero Leander (fellow teen idol Fabian), an arrogant chick magnet who moonlights as a moonshiner.
Once the vehicular manslaughter mystery is cleared up, the film ends with a final championship race that offers car lovers roughly ten minutes of exciting actual footage (filmed, according to IMDb, "at the Ascot and Saugus Raceways near Los Angeles with local color shot in Charlotte, North Carolina") with added rear-projection inserts of Frankie and Fabian going at each other amidst the fiery, fender-bending action.
Thinking this to be simply a dead-end attempt to keep beach-party viewers interested, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed FIREBALL 500 on its own terms as a more serious and at times hardball action flick. Of course, the production values are just as flimsy and TV-movie-level as ever, and the dialogue just as corny, but somehow it all manages to deliver an hour and a half of pulpy fun.
Originally posted on 6/15/16
In the 60s, middle-aged comics like Bob Hope made what I like to refer to as "old fogey" comedies in which they and their same-generation viewers could commiserate about the wacky state of "these kids today."
The 1965 "so bad it's good" romp I'LL TAKE SWEDEN (Olive Films, Blu-ray and DVD) is a prime example of Bob not quite getting what was going on with the youngsters right after Beatlemania, still seeing them in a wacky 50s rock-and-roll sort of way--only more freaky and frenetic what with the twistin' and the fruggin' and whatnot.
Nat Perrin, who wrote for guys like the Marx Brothers and Eddie Cantor back in the day (DUCK SOUP, KID MILLIONS), and Groucho's own son Arthur, who would later give us the quintessential "old fogey" comedy THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS, pack the script with tired one-liners for Bob to throw away left and right without much enthusiasm or comic inspiration. (Don't get me wrong, though--I still love that Bob.)
Originally posted on 5/21/21
I've always loved the American-International "Beach Party" series, and I always will. This gives you a good idea of the overall tenor of my assessment of HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI (Olive Films, 1965). As for WHY I love these movies so much, well...err...uhh...
To be honest, a lot of people will hate this movie and others like it, and, as far as they're concerned, rightfully so. It's a supremely silly slapstick sex farce with the lowest teen denominator in mind, and it was made to shower undiscerning audiences with brightly-colored pop culture confetti made up of whatever seemed like it might appeal to them, including girls in bikinis, bikes, surfing, jangly rock 'n' roll, cartoonish action, really corny jokes, and cameo appearances by faces familiar to both the younger and older generations.
All of which is why I find these movies to be such irresistible fun--because that's all they try to be, and in their own stupefying way, they succeed. It helps if you're a fan of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (I am), two of the most appealing young stars of the 60s, and enjoy occasionally turning off your mind, relaxing, and floating downstream. It is not dying, even though some might feel that way about it.
This time, Frankie's serving six weeks of naval reserve duty in Tahiti, separating him from Annette and tempting him to indulge in the local "social scene." Even so, he expects Annette (as "Dee Dee") to be faithful to him back there in Malibu, so he enlists the help of witch doctor Bwana Chicky Baby (none other than the venerable Buster Keaton, whose assistants include the beautiful Irene Tsu and Bobbi Shaw) to help him keep an eye on her with the help of a magical pelican.
Bwana Chicky Baby also plans to divert the beach boys' attention away from Annette by creating the perfect woman, who appears to everyone first as an empty leopard skin bikini. The great John Ashley (HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER, FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER), an American-International mainstay doing beach duty for the studio, then gets to croon the title song before the bikini is suddenly filled by the gorgeous Cassandra (Beverly Adams).
In short order, a nattily-dressed Mickey Rooney and Dwayne Hickman show up as big business types looking for the "girl next door" to accompany Dwayne in a motorcycle race which Mickey hopes will improve the image of cyclists (an image that Eric Von Zipper and his bumbling biker gang do their best to sully when they show up and Eric falls in love with Cassandra).
Dwayne, against Mickey's wishes, falls for Annette, who plays hard to get as usual while the magic pelican keeps watch over their activities for the absent Frankie. And thus the film's main action is established with lots of romantic complications and slapstick nonsense until the big bike race, which turns the final quarter of the film into a live-action cartoon that's like a cross between "Wacky Races" and "Road Runner."
This is the seventh film in A-I's "Beach Party" series (if you count "Pajama Party" and "Ski Party") and by this time the concept was starting to wind down. The next related films would be SERGEANT DEADHEAD and DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE, then one more "bikini" movie, the financial flop THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI. After that, the emphasis would be on stock car racing with FIREBALL 500 and THUNDER ALLEY.
But there's still fun to be had with this formula if it strikes your fancy as it does mine. Annette is just as appealing a fantasy girlfriend as ever, and gets to sing a couple of songs (one with The Kingsmen as her backup band) while fending off Dwayne Hickman's romantic overtures.
Rooney seems to be having a good time spoofing HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (his character's name, J. Peachmont Keane, is a variation of that play's J. Pierpont Finch). He even participates in some of the many musical numbers that keep cropping up at the darndest times.
Most of the silliness comes from Harvey Lembeck's familiar Eric Von Zipper and his gang of "stupids", with "Seinfeld" regular Len "Uncle Leo" Lesser turning up as their cohort in crime, the evil North Dakota Pete. The bike race finale throws any semblance of coherence or sanity to the winds, making the old Looney Tunes cartoons look like models of adult sophistication in comparison.
In addition to the great Keaton and Rooney, the film offers supporting roles and cameos from the likes of Brian Donlevy as Rooney's boss B.D. "Big Deal" McPherson and director William Asher's wife at the time, "Bewitched" star Elizabeth Montgomery, as (what else?) a witch. Frankie, by this time, was demanding more money and is relegated to just a few "Tahiti" scenes. Annette, bless her heart, is just as wonderful as ever.
Will Dwayne and Annette win the big race instead of the devious Von Zipper and Cassandra? Will Annette finally forget her vow to stay faithful to the unfaithful Frankie and give in to Dwayne's advances? Will the rest of the boys (including Jody McCrea's "Bonehead") forget hypnotic Cassandra and return their attention to the rest of the jealousy-inflamed girls? Will John Ashley sing another awful song? Will Mickey Rooney finish doing whatever it is that he's doing?
If you couldn't care less, there are probably a lot of other people who feel exactly the same way you do. I don't care that much myself, but as a lifelong beach movie lover, I sure do have a great time watching movies like HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI anyway. It's the ultimate in light entertainment, and if you take it lightly enough, the rational part of your brain will enjoy the vacation.