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Summer
vacation has finally arrived, so our
familiar gang of beachniks return to the
sand and surf for more fun in the sun and
corny hi-jinx. While
the others hit the surf, Frankie (Frankie
Avalon) and Dee Dee (Annette
Funicello), hang back and talk
about their future together. Dee Dee
thinks they need to start planning for
their future; like getting a job and
settling down. But Frankie isn’t ready
to be tied down just yet, leading to their
inevitable spat.
After
Donna Loren sings a peppy song, and Candy
Johnson go-gos -- much to Deadhead’s (Jody
McCrea) delight -- the gang
discovers the British have invaded their
beloved beach. All the girls swoon when
the Potato Bug (Avalon), a
mop-topped British hipster, emerges from
his tent. (Isn’t
potato bug another name for a beetle? Oh,
wait I get it.) The
Bug gives the girls a song and Dee Dee
falls for him. His jealousy getting the
better of him, Frankie challenges the
little English twit to a surf off; but The
Bug declines, saying it’s far too slow
for his tastes. Pointing over to his
dragster, the Bug says that’s the kind
of speed he’s into. He chides Frankie to
try that sometime, and the seeds of
the rivalry are planted deep.
Little
does anyone suspect, but, they’re facing
a second front as Harvey Huntington
Honeywagon (Keenan Wynn) and
his pet monkey, Clyde, spy on them. He and
Clyde make their way to the beach and
borrow a surfboard. The monkey hits the
surf, shoots the curl and hangs ten with
much skill. The other surfers are
impressed while The Bug laughs his hyena
laugh. Honeywagon takes a few snapshots,
gathers up Clyde, and then retreats off
the beach -- while Dee Dee retreats into
The Bug’s tent.
The
next day, the papers are filled with
headlines comparing the surfers behavior
to that of primitive monkeys. It’s all
part of Honeywagon’s moral campaign to
clear the beach of what he feels are a
pack of degenerates. This gets him a visit
from a Vivian Clement (Martha
Hyer). One of the kid’s teachers,
she is determined to convince him that the
kids are all right. Taking him
to Big Drag’s Bar to show where the kids
hang out, inside they find Big Drag (Don
Rickles) and his talking chicken
hawk working on his latest
painting. (They're in their
abstract phase, and I assume they
couldn’t get a parrot.) He welcomes
Vivian and Honeywagon and then chases
away a very familiar looking art critic. (We
can’t see his face.)
Big Drag also runs the local dragstrip,
and he thinks the kids are okay, too --
despite thinking they’re all a bunch of
nuts.
Outside
the bar, Eric Von Zipper (Harvey
Lembeck), along with his gang of
Ratz and Mice, roar up on their
motorcycles. They enter the bar and are
happy to find Honeywagon there. He is Von
Zipper’s new idol for ripping on the
surf bums -- the sworn enemies of the
cyclists. Vivian sticks it to Honeywagon
for badmouthing the nice kids and being
the hero of this band of miscreants. Big
Drag tries to kick them out, so Von Zipper
attempts to give him the Himalayan
Suspenders treatment. (Actually,
the Himalayan Suspension treatment.
Something he learned from Robert Cummings
in the original Beach
Party.
You find a certain pressure point on the
skull and it paralyzes the victim.) But
Von Zipper accidentally does it to
himself, and as the others carry him off,
vow he will return.
Later,
at the dragstrip, the Potato Bug sets a
new World Record with his rail (a
hot-rod to all you squares),
but it’s broken in the very next heat by
a mystery driver. Honeywagon appears and
reveals the driver to be none other than
Clyde. (He plans to
humiliate the kids by proving anything
they can do a monkey can do better.) Seeing
that Bug and Dee Dee are getting
awfully chummy, Frankie challenges him to
a drag race. The
only problem is Frankie doesn’t have a
dragster. Big Drag shows him the only rail
he can afford and it’s a pile of junk,
but Deadhead, Johnny (John Ashley)
and the others promise to help him fix it
up.
Later,
everybody congregates at Big Drag’s Bar
where
Big
Drag introduces The Pyramids who entreat
the crowd with some thunderous racing
songs. They also talk the Bug into doing
another number that he dedicates it to Dee
Dee, but the song turns into a singing
dual with Frankie. After the song, Frankie
asks to walk Annette home. She agrees, and
the couple take the opportunity to have a
heart to heart. They reconcile, by way of
a song, until Frankie refuses to back out
of the race. Dee Dee feels he’ll never
change his juvenile ways, and fears this
time it might get him killed. Back at the
bar, the band breaks into a watusi number
and Honeywagon instructs Clyde to join in.
Clyde tears up a rug with Candy -- who
proves his match. Taking more pictures for
his smear campaign, Honeywagon feels this
will put the final nail in the surfer's
coffin and get them off the beach.
The
next day, Vivian storms Honeywagon’s
office. She’s done a little digging and
found the real reason why he wants to
clear the beaches. He wants to expand his
retirement home and build the Siesta by
the Sea. Vivian gives him both barrels and
reads him the riot act. His stodgy
retirement home stifles the old folks and
he’s ruining the fun for the youngsters.
She storms out of his office and
apologizes for starting to like him.
Back
at the beach, Dee Dee decides to ask the
Bug to back out of the race. When Frankie
gets wind of this, he disguises himself as
The Bug. So Dee Dee asks the wrong Bug
to
cancel the race. The imposture refuses, so
Dee Dee turns on the feminine wiles -- but
is interrupted when the real Bug shows up.
Both refuse to back down. Now furious, she
dumps them both.
The
next morning, Honeywagon inexplicably
prints a retraction on all the bad things
he’s been saying about the kids. Von
Zipper feels betrayed by this, and his
idol, and rallies his troops to give
Honeywagon the Ratz Revenge. They storm
his office but Honeywagon mops the floor
with them until Von Zipper gives himself
the finger again. Then Vivian arrives, and
Honeywagon apologizes to her. She's the
reason behind the retraction and they make
up with a kiss. Honeywagon soon announces
their engagement.
Back
at the dragstrip, Frankie and the gang
work on his jalopy. Taking pity on them,
Big Drag loans him one of his best rails. (He
also knows a grudge match will be a big
draw at the gate.) Frankie
starts waxing philosophically about racing
and taking control of something that
can’t be controlled. And that’s how he
wants to live life, by the seat of his
pants. Dee Dee is so moved by this that
they make up, and then she tells him to go
out and win the race.
The
night before the big race, Von Zipper
sends his Ratz to sabotage the Potato
Bug’s dragster. His logic being When the
Bug wrecks during the grudge race,
everyone will blame Frankie.
The
big race finally arrives. Frankie and the
Bug both wish each other luck and strap
themselves in. Big Drag drops the flag and
they’re off in a cloud of smoke. We
quickly realize that the Ratz hit the
wrong car as Frankie’s front wheel comes
off causing him to crash. The Bug pulls
him safely away from the burning wreck as
the
others catch up, including Von Zipper. (He
sent his gang on to Big Drag’s Bar so he
could watch the carnage in peace.) Cursing
at his gang in absentia for sabotaging the
wrong car, not realizing that everyone can
hear him, the chase is soon on. Von Zipper
commandeers a go-kart and leads a merry
chase back to Big Drag’s Bar where the
inevitable brawl erupts between the Ratz
and surfers with Honeywagon and the Bug
joining in.
Clyde
mans Big Drag’s paint tubes and begins
squirting everyone with acrylics before
turning his skill on an empty canvas. As
the fight rages on, the Pyramids
crank up some mood music to accompany the
brawl. The art critic returns and wants to
buy Clyde’s new masterpiece. (He
turns and confirms our suspicions that
it’s none other than Boris Karloff.) The
bar nearly destroyed, Clyde gives Von
Zipper the Himalayan Suspenders treatment
bringing the brawl to an end. The Ratz
gather him up and promise that Eric Von
Zipper will return, and the movie ends
when Big Drag introduces Little Stevie
Wonder who sings while everyone watusis
their way through the end credits.
The
End
The
origin of the American International
Picture’s series of Beach Party
movies was simple enough. Director William
Asher was called into a meeting with Jim
Nicholson and Sam Arkoff to discuss the
shooting of a new film. The script was
another in a long line of AIP kids in
trouble pictures like High
School Hellcats, The Cool and the
Crazy and Dragstrip Girl. Growing
tired of those stories, Asher suggested
they try a film where the kids aren’t in
any kind of trouble and just have fun.
Asher was a surfer and suggested a film
based on the life of the beach dwellers
whose only concerns were catching the
perfect wave and snuggling up with their
favorite beach-bunny.
They
gave him the green light, Beach
Party
was a smash hit, there was more money to
be made, and the rest is cinematic
history. (Several
films sprouted from the series including Pajama
Party
and Ski
Party.)
Asher went on with his wife Elizabeth
Montgomery and created Bewitched,
but he returned to direct the majority of
the Beach Party series.
Bikini
Beach
is the third in the series of seven. It
follows the same basic plot, only this
time, the scene shifts away from the beach
to the drag-strips. Frankie still wants to
go all the way with Annette but she
won’t until they’re married. And she
won’t marry him until he promises to
settle down, take some responsibility, and
get a job. This set the conflict for all
the films as each would try to make the
other jealous by taking up with someone
else until they inevitably made up in the
end.
Harvey
Lembeck’s Eric Von Zipper makes a
welcome return after his notable absence
in Muscle
Beach Party.
I’ve already stated my fondness for this
character. His combination of Brando’s
the Wild One and all Three
Stooges never fails to crack me up. Don
Rickles also returns and his characters
replaces Maury Amsterdam’s Cappy.
Rickles was in Muscle
Beach Party,
as Jack Fanny, and returns again in Beach
Blanket Bingo
as Big Drop. I like the way he always
insults Frankie, and I’m amazed at the
grief he took and humiliation he puts up
with in this film. (I
wonder how many times that bird crapped on
him?)
Avalon
does a good job with his dual role as The
Potato Bug, and his lambasting of the four
lads from Liverpool will have you
chuckling. I do like Frankie, but Annette
never appears to be more than window
dressing in these films. She
always gets stuck being the moral center
and there isn't a whole lot for her to do. (My
favorite Mouseketeer was always Darlene,
although I think she’s in jail now for
some kind of fraud scheme.) There
is the legendary story that AIP had
to promise Uncle Walt Disney that she
wouldn’t appear in a bikini before
she’d be allowed in the film. She’s
fine, really, but her wholesomeness makes
her stick out like a sore thumb. However,
they did take full advantage of this in Back
to the Beach
with hilarious results.
The
thing is -- it's everyone else besides
Frankie and Annette that I really enjoy in
these pictures. The secondary beach bums,
Von Zipper, and the Ratz and Mice are who
I find hilarious. Timothy Carey debuts his
South Dakota Slim character here as well.
The out of place werewolf in the pool room
scene is Val Warren who won a make-up
contest in Famous
Monsters of Filmland,
and the reward was a cameo in the film.
And Donna Loren, who everyone might
remember as the Dr. Pepper Girl, is
the victim of a childhood crush by this
particular reviewer. (Yes,
I still carry a torch for her today.)
I
wouldn’t say the films were totally
wholesome but they are pretty harmless.
It’s the same corny jokes and the same
corny characters but the infectious tunes
and the fun everyone appears to be having
will be bringing me back to the beach for
a long, long time.
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