Back to the Beach (1987), 5

PG | 1h 32min | Comedy , Musical | 7 August 1987
Frankie and Annette, having grown up and put aside their beach-partying lifestyle, visit their daughter in Southern California and discover there's still some wild times left in them.
Director: Lyndall Hobbs
Stars: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Lori Loughlin, Connie Stevens;  Barbara Billingsley, Bob Denver, Tony Dow, Jerry Mathers, Paul Reubens.

Lori Eastside ... choreographer

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092608/

Watched online, miserable copy: framed to occupy 1/4th of the screen, blurry, sped up to distort voices (only 1hr 21 min).

27 songs in the Soundtracks, most in the score, many only partial. FA and AF each performed on 2 songs, but not together. CS only participated a bit in a FA song.

It's been 25 years since the Beach movies, and I didn't like any of them very much, gave them all a 5. So it's no surprise I wasn't impressed here... except... that this a Paramount production, and those were all from a non-major studio. But with such a poor print, it's hard to see any benefit of more $$.

The Harvey Lembeck character was reinvented as a younger leader of a punk surfer gang, complete with spiky hair, leather jackets and lots of chains and (I'm guessing) safety pins. I think they echoed the HL gang with the leader saying something, and responding Riiight to himself, or the gang did. The audio was so bad, that if they explained he was the son of HL, I missed it.

Absent was any sort of character like Buster Keaton played in some of the films.

Bob Denver had more than a cameo as a bartender, but was describing the 3 hour tour that went astray, and at the end of the film Alan Hale arrived to bring him on board for the next outing.

BB, TD and JM played announcer and judges, respectively, of a surf contest. Pee-Wee Herman had a production number singing the song with lyric "bird bird bird, bird is the word" over and over and over. I wonder how many takes that took.

Having FA & AF bicker as a married couple was no more fun than having them bicker as unmarried and she trying to land him. LL as the daughter was underused, and they also had a son who was maybe in hs and rebellious, but not to cause too much grief. I think this was mostly about AF being jealous of FA's attention to CS, and LL concealing her live-in bf from dad. <big shrug>

Paramount, dir. Hobbs; 5

Fireball 500 (1966), 5-

Stock car racer Dave Owens plays into the hands of whiskey runners by agreeing to drive in a cross-country road race. He is assisted by Jane Harris and Sonny Leander Fox. 
1h 32min | Action, Comedy, Drama | 7 June 1966 | Color, ws
Director: William Asher
Stars: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Fabian.
Christopher Riordan ... choreographer (as Ronnie Riordan)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060415/

Watched online, mediocre print.

6 songs in the Soundtracks.

This is heavy on the drama. Did people really want to see FA and Fabian fist-fighting? 

Harvey Lembeck is here, as is Michael Nader, briefly. HL plays a moonshine boss and race track manager/owner. MN is another driver who gets killed driving moonshine, and the contents are somehow stolen, even though the car crashed down a ravine. FA also crashes but survives, and his car's contents are also stolen down the same ravine. I wonder how prevalent moonshining was by '66. I remember the idea of a second tank for alcohol on cars like this, and not from this film. 

The race cars looked older than the poster shows. They were stock cars from the 50's. And they're just driving around a track, not cross-country. I think they also drive Daytona for the final race.

 AF is gf to Fabian. Another actress pursues and ends up with FA.

Really quite dull.

AIP, dir. Asher; 5-

How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), 5

Frankie, on naval-reserve duty in Tahiti, doesn't trust Dee Dee to stay faithful, so he hires Bwana, a witch doctor, to help. Bwana conjures up a floating bikini, "stuffs" it with Cassandra... 
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)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059287/
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

Ski Party (1965), 5

On a college ski weekend, Todd and Craig pretend to be Jane and Nora, a pair of English girls. Their reasons? To meet girls, and to learn to ski. 
1h 30min | Comedy, Musical | 30 June 1965 | Color, ws
Director: Alan Rafkin
Stars: Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Deborah Walley, Yvonne Craig.
Christopher Riordan ... assistant choreographer (uncredited)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059726/
Watched online, ok print.

7 songs in the Soundtracks.

Todd and Craig are FA and DH.

Annette Funicello makes an appearance, a couple of times, as the professor to this pair of guys. The book they're reading in the class is Fun without Sex.

We do manage to get a dance in bikinis. Just social dancing, indoors (at a pool?) at the ski lodge.

DH or FA does actually reference Some Like It Hot ('59) by name. This is a pale, anemic imitation of that.

This is very single-minded: the 2 guys want to learn how to get more action along sexual lines. That's it. The fact that a guy is attracted to DH as a girl just complicates things a bit.

The only things worthwhile in the whole film, saving it from being a 5-, are 2 songs:

• Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows, Performed by Lesley Gore 
• I Got You (I Feel Good), Performed by James Brown and the Famous Flames 

One more of these this year, one next year, and one in '87.

AIP, dir. Rafkin; 5

Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), 5

In the fourth of the highly successful Frankie and Annette beach party movies, a motorcycle gang led by Eric Von Zipper kidnaps singing star Sugar Kane managed by Bullets, who hires ... 
1h 38min | Comedy, Musical, Romance | 14 April 1965 | Color, ws
Director: William Asher
Stars: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley, Harvey Lembeck, Linda Evans, Timothy Carey, Don Rickles, Paul Lynde, Michael Nader, Buster Keaton.
Jack Baker ... choreographer

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058953/

Watched online, ok print.

9 songs in the Soundtracks.

LE plays new singer ("star" in synopsis; her singing is dubbed) pulls publicity stunt to get noticed: DW skydives for her and they switch in the water, then the surfers "save" her. PL is her manager/press agent.

HL spies LE from afar, and names her is idol (he is his own ideal), and sort of pursues her (it takes a long time for him to get there).

FA & AF decide they want to learn to skydive. FA objects to AF's diving, but she asserts her rights, and since DW is an instructor, she has support. DR runs the skydiving operation, and finally gives a taste of his stand-up style when he MC's some party.

We get less surfing footage than usual, but multiple people need ocean rescues, so we meet Lorelei the mermaid. She only reveals herself to the Jody McCrea character, and manages to grow legs for a night so he can take her to meet his friends.

TC is a pool hustler (I think he was in a prior Beach or Pajama film), and when HL kidnaps LE, TC is at the hideout. After a while of playing pool, TC decides to take LE to his abandoned sawmill, where he wants to play Perils of Pauline with her, tying her to a log and feeding the log to a saw. When FA and crew raid HL's hideout, HL reveals TC's sawmill, and the gang completes the rescue of LE.

Buster Keaton is on hand again, but I didn't catch why. He's partnered with the blonde bombshell from his last appearance, who appears to have learned some English, but wears the same fur-trimmed bikini. (I didn't check if it was the same actress.) Conspicuously absent, especially from the long end credits sequence, is fringe-costumed Candy Johnson. Neither she nor the fringes are there.

Unfortunately, these movies were released on dvd a while back, so I can probably expect to find all of them online. Ghh.

AIP, dir. Asher; 5

Pajama Party (1964), 5+

Gogo, a Martian teenager, is sent to Earth to prepare the way for an invasion. The first Earthling he meets, one Aunt Wendy, is a rich widow who runs a dress shop catering to teenagers. 
1h 22min | Comedy, Musical, Romance | 11 November 1964 | Color, WS
Director: Don Weis
Stars: Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, Elsa Lanchester, Harvey Lembeck, Jesse White, Buster Keaton.

David Winters ... choreographer

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058440/
Watched online, ok print.

7 songs in the Soundtracks.

Although it's not one of the Beach movies, many of the cast (and their characters) overlap with those 1st 3. Frankie Avalon and Don Rickles appear in as the administrators on Mars, although FA's identity isn't revealed until the end. We also get Dorothy Lamour singing a song at the fashion show as its host. We even get Candy Johnson doing her dance, but apparently the fringe costumes belong to the Beach producers.

EL and BK add plenty of their personas to the film, which is how this gets a plus.

Otherwise we have the usual plot ingredients: AF seeks romance, JW with BK, another man and a European blonde want EL's cash stored in her house, the Martians are coming, HL wants the teens gone because their footprints mess up his beach. The pajama party is JW's method for getting EL out of her house with lots of teens to chaperone, but the park her on the roof and brawl anyway. I think some of the brawler were Martians, but I didn't pay very close attention. (Martians look like earthlings.)

It's no wonder that no one wanted to attend musical films, given the films like Elvis's bad stuff, and this vein.

distr. AIP, dir. Weis; 5+

Bikini Beach (1964), 5

A millionaire sets out to prove his theory that his pet chimpanzee is as intelligent as the teenagers who hang out on the local beach, where he is intending to build a retirement home.
1h 39min | Comedy, Musical, Romance | 22 July 1964 | Color, WS
Director: William Asher
Stars: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Martha Hyer, Don Rickles, Harvey Lembeck, Keenan Wynn.
Tom Mahoney ... choreographer

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057887/

Watched online, ok print.

10 songs in the Soundtracks.

The plot is the problem: too much breadth, not enough depth. The characters who are repeated from the prior 2 movies are the same, and don't change at all. AF still wants FA to settle down, both in terms of his own lifestyle, and to marry her. Instead, he picks up another dangerous sport: drag racing.

Drag racing is introduced by way of the British mop-top singer Potato Bug, also played by FA in a dark blonde wig.

DR returns as the same person with a new name and new job: proprietor of the drag race strip (on the beach??? An unlikely use of real estate.) But he admits to being the body building proprietor we met before.

Then we also get KW as the millionaire who's trying to get rid of the surfers, and has invested time in teaching a "chimp" (man in chimp suit) to drive a car and surf, just to prove how low the teen culture has become, and therefore they should be institutionalized, or something. MH is a school teacher who tries to defend the teens, but just heckles KW.

And HL is back as Eric von Zipper, repeatedly giving himself "the finger" (the Himalayan zen suspension of motion and thought introduced by Bob Cummings in the first film), and bringing along his gang so the surfers would have someone to brawl with.

There's little to make sense of here, and that makes it tedious.

The big innovation is the skimpiness of the bikini bottoms: they're MUCH smaller than in the last film. Didn't notice the cleavage being more ample, though.

We got another song from (Little) Stevie Wonder, but the lengthy end credits featured some other song, again with Candy Johnson shaking her fringes. (The irony of her "power" to knock over men by aiming her hip-swing at them is that she has the most covered costumes of any young female in the film. No bikinis for her; not enough space for the fringe. And her costumes look identical to the past 2 films, both in design and color.)

AIP, dir. Asher; 5

Muscle Beach Party (1964), 5+

Local beach-goers find that their beach has been taken over by a businessman training a stable of body builders.
1h 35min | Comedy, Musical | 25 March 1964 | Color, WS
Director: William Asher
Stars: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Luciana Paluzzi, Don Rickles, Peter Lupus (as Rock Stevens), Buddy Hackett.
John Monte ... choreographer

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058384/
Watched online, mediocre print.

9 songs in the Soundtracks. The song by (Little) Stevie Wonder was repeated as the lengthy backdrop to the end credits, with Candy Johnson again dancing in a fringe outfit. This is only the 2nd time I remember long end credits. (I should have noted the other. It was a big roadshow film.) 1st of 4 film (actor/self) credits for SW. 

1st film credit for PL. He has 5 credits as Rock Stevens, 19 total. Strange that his TV credits for the same time period do not show the pseudonym.

I can't tell if I'm just getting used to these dull teen films, or if this was better than the last one. I was tempted to shrug this to a 6.

No Eric von Zipper this time. Instead we get Buddy Hackett as the Italian rich girl's business manager, and Don Rickles as the trainer to the body builders. Peter Lorre is the surprise silent partner of DR, instead of Vincent Price being the surprise cameo in the first film.

I was struck by one of AF's bikini tops, that maybe it was more revealing than usual, with fishnet covering the exposed cleavage.

This is totally skippable. Other than the stock footage of surfing, and the lineup of bodybuilders (wearing either hot pink or dark lavender swim trunks), the music is standard for the time, and the choreography is unimpressive.

BTW, Asher is already married ('63) to E.Montgomery, and Bewitched doesn't start until '64.

AIP, dir. Asher; 5+

Beach Party (1963), 5

"Beach Party" was the first of of a series of seven related AIP beach party films. The others are Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party, Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.
1h 41min | Comedy, Musical, Romance | 7 August 1963 | Color, ws
Director: William Asher
Stars: Robert Cummings, Dorothy Malone, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Morey Amsterdam, Harvey Lembeck.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056860/

Watched online, good print.

6 songs in the Soundtracks.

Surfing, jealousy, bikers, meditation, pie fight. Boring. It might be that Harvey Lembeck was the most interesting thing about this, and that is very sad. At least the songs had some melody, but I just want to knock the sand off and move on.

Alta Vista Prod., distr. American International Pictures, dir. Asher; 5