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.
No comments:
Post a Comment