Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Noelle The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 22 July 1964 by American International. New York opening at The Palace and other cinemas as a support to The Masque of The Red Death: 16 September 1964. U.S. release: 16 September 1964. U.K. release through Warner-Pathé/Anglo Amalgamated: 25 July 1965. Australian release through Paramount: 27 August 1965. 8,923 feet. 99 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Frankie, Dee Dee and their gang arrive at Bikini Beach for a surfing holiday. Next morning they find on the beach a large Oriental tent, headquarters of the Potato Bug, a British recording star, and his pretty bodyguard, Lady Bug, who is a specialist in French foot-fighting. Since the Potato Bug shows signs of wanting to compete with Frankie for the attentions of Dee Dee, Frankie determines to compete with the Potato Bug at the latter's sport of drag racing. NOTES: A box-office sequel to "Beach Party".COMMENT: "Bikini Beach" has four things going for it: Frankie Avalon's remarkable performance in a dual role in which he delightfully spoofs an English pop singer; Harvey Lembeck in a very amusing take-off at the expense of "The Wild One" and Marlon Brando; a smashing free-for-all at the climax; Boris Karloff in a guest spot with inside dialogue ("I must tell Vincent Price about this place!"). Incidentally, many magazines published tributes to Karloff after his death with extensive filmographies, but I don't recall this film being mentioned in any of them . The special effects work involving Frankie Avalon is so skilled I didn't notice it at all (in fact, I didn't even realize until the credits at the end of the film that Frankie was playing a dual role), but other work from that department including the clumsy back projection when Clyde is riding the surfboard has less to commend it. Some poorly matched stock shots and the use of a very obvious double when Frankie is in the surf also militate against the film. But worst of all is the gross and unfunny over-acting by some members of the cast, particularly Jody McCrea and Don Rickles, and the efficient, but tediously dull direction of William Asher to whom may also be sheeted home those laborious sections of the script dealing with the clean-living beach boys and the efforts of a misguided oldie to suppress them.

TedMichaelMor Foreshadowing Mike Nichol's "The Graduate", William Asher's "Bikini Beach" explores the angst of adolescent life in Southern California, though, perhaps, not quite as well as he already had in his outstanding "Muscle Beach Party" and "Beach Party". Written as a vehicle for the Beatles, this film also presages later classic Beatles films.I did not see these films on their initial release because of my aversion to such popular fare—at the time. I suppose it seemed one-dimensional, though that word is possibly an anachronism. However, Martha Hyer is beautiful here and that provides sufficient dimensionality to see the film. The music is the weakest element. Added later: I am not quite certain what to say about the Beach Party movies. I did not see them at the time of their release. I was quite serious about watching movies by that time and, for the most part, I would not have seen these movies; I am not certain that I would have even been particularly aware of them. During this time, I was exploring European modernist works. As for sex, my father had introduced me to Bardot movies around the time I was twelve, I think. Yet, these are not bad movies. They are much better than some Bob Hope comedies from that time, though without the witty dialogue one finds in the Hope films.These movies appear often on the "this" network. I have now seen all of them, a least, in a glancing way. They seem to have provided many gifted people with some income. I suppose a film scholar would find some way to reveal something profound about our society from reviews of the films. The camera work never seems to enter the scene. We are always somehow aware not our not being within the frame or involved in what is happening. The movies are not bad. They are trite in a way but not entirely mindless. The iconography might be the most important aspect of the films but that would require a long discourse I am not able to provide. They probably do not deserve a lot of attention but probably some attention. The frantic dancing in most of them is the most dated part. I know that Ms. Funicello was a gifted dancer but you would not know that from these works. I would not have appreciated them when they were released but I was in the wrong demographic at that time. No one was ever the way characters in the Beach Party films are. And I doubt anyone had fantasies that relate to these stories. But they seem to have done well and made money. They must have meant something so I think that the films were on the edge of something that the Beatles finally did. The Beatles and the movie "The Knack". I have upgraded my rating. I do love Ms. Funicello. I suspect she had a latent talent for romantic comedy that might have flowered in a better world.I agree with the positive train of reviews here.

zardoz-13 Evil Harvey Huntington Honeywagon III (Keenan Wynn of "The Mechanic") does not want teenage surfers cavorting around on the beach near his retirement home for oldsters and sets out to write a smear campaign against them until high school teacher Vivian Clements (Martha Hyer of Some Came Running") comes to their rescue. Honeywagon complains that the girls run around half naked with boys in bathing suits and no chaperons in sight. Furthermore, Honeywagon plans to make them look bad with his talented chimpanzee Clyde (Janos Prohanska of "Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You"), who can not only ride a surf board but also serves as a chauffeur for his wealthy but prudish boss. Incidentally, before his tragic death in 1972, Prohanska made a career out of dressing up in an obviously ersatz simian outfit on "Gilligan's Island," "Star Trek," and other shows. The wholesome teens in question are Frankie (Frankie Avalon of "The Alamo") and Dee Dee (Annette Funicello of "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones") and their gang, including Deadhead (Jody McCrea of "Gunsight Ridge")who are out of school for the summer. Meanwhile, a new arrival on the beach is the fabulous British rocker Potato Bug (Frankie Avalon in a dual role) and he turns Dee Dee on so she flirts with him. Of course, Frankie turns green-eyed and tries to figure out a way to get his gal back."Bikini Beach" was the third entry in the BEACH movies that co-starred Frankie and Annette. No "Beach Party" movie would be complete with their nemesis, the infamous Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck of "Stalag 17") and his black-leather clad motorcycle gang the Rats and the Mice trying to thwart the antics of our heroes and heroines. The Potato Bug challenges Frankie to a drag race and Von Zipper and his cretins set out to sabotage the race. None of this sets too well with the raceway owner Big Drag (Don Rickles of "Kelly's Heroes") who dabbles in art. Basically, the plots for these sand, sun, and surf sagas revolved around Frankie and Dee Dee making each other jealous and their lame-brained pal Deadhead making a fool out of himself in his hillbilly hat. Believe it or not, it took three scribes to scrawl this hilarious nonsense. One of them was William Asher who directed over 100 episode of the classic Lucille Ball television comedy "I Love Lucy." The bikini-clad babes are visual eye-candy and there is a cameo appearance by a famous horror movie star at the end.Mind you, "Bikini Beach" has all the depth of a bed pan, but the antics are so silly and stupid that you may wet yourself laughing. Perennial villain Timothy Carey of "One-Eyed Jacks" makes another appearance as pool hustler South Dakota Slim and Stevie Wonder does a sing-on as Little Stevie Wonder. Ironically enough, the Beatles were supposed to appear in "Bikini Beach," but they hit it so big that their fee skyrocketed and Asher replaced them with a character that spoofed them. Indeed, "Bikini Beach" is an acquired taste like all the 1960 era teenage "Beach" party movies from American International Pictures. Incredibly, the Frankie & Annette beach party movies were a spin-off of the "Gidget" movies with the parents taken out of the mix. Despite the prominence of surfing in most of these movies, only Clyde the Ape surfs in this movie. Clearly, the name of the Keenan Wynn character was an movie inside joke because a honeywagon in Hollywood parlance is a toilet trailer.

moonspinner55 Annette Funicello is probably the most over-dressed beach bunny to ever hit the sands, but she's a stitch in her scenes with Frankie Avalon (as surfer Frankie) and pop-singer The Potato Bug (Avalon again, in a Beatle wig, funny teeth and English accent). Their repartee makes this a charming piece of Americana, but the thing is so stuck in a sterile time-capsule it's nearly impossible to believe that teenagers once got a charge from it. Drag-racing is the newest craze, and the beach gang gets shown up once Keenan Wynn puts a chimp successfully behind the wheel of a hot rod. For racing aficionados, we get a glimpse of the Mantra Ray, a $50,000 all-aluminum experimental "dream rod" with a King Cobra Ford engine. Annette poses prettily beside it... *** from ****