1h 33min | Comedy, Musical | 14 July 1965 | Color, ws
Director: William Asher
Stars: Annette Funicello, Dwayne Hickman, Brian Donlevy, Harvey Lembeck, Beverly Adams, Buster Keaton, Michael Nader, Mickey Rooney, Frankie Avalon, Elizabeth Montgomery.
Jack Baker ... choreographer
Christopher Riordan ... assistant choreographer (uncredited)
Watched online, ok print.
12 songs in the Soundtracks, but some are Very brief.
Most of the Beach movies have an IMDb rating 5.n; this is 4.4 with almost 1k votes. I don't see the difference.
This time BK is the witch doctor (with non-speaking cameo as more powerful daughter by EM, dir. Asher's wife and current star of Bewitched ('64-'72, TV)). FA appears very little. He and BK are on/near the Navy base.
HL and his gang are here. HL goes for the stuffed bikini, namely BA (future Beverly Sassoon).
MR and DH are ad men (with BD as their boss), except DH lives at/near the beach, and he goes for AF, who is separated from FA by his reserve duty, and she intends to stay true. The ad men want BA for some campaign.
BK has sent a large pelican to track AF's activity for FA. Since it's magic, the pelican has access anywhere, not just outdoors.
There's a motorcycle race to "select" the boy&girl "next door". Something about enhancing the image of motorcycling? The brother of the creep who tried to saw Linda Evans in a prior film is on hand to try to rig the race, but HL can't remember the traps and tells BA to shut up when he gets reminders via the radio in his helmet.
When AF & DH win the race, she expects marriage before they go on the promo tour, but he refuses. So when FA returns (by magic to speed things up), they reunite.
Maybe this is a little worse than others. Still not annoying enough for 4.
AIP, dir. Ascher; 5
