Pajama Party was released by American International Pictures on November 11, 1964
Director: Don Weis
Pajama Party cast: Annette Funicello, Tommy Kirk, Elsa Lanchester, Harvey Lembeck, Jesse White, and Buster Keaton
Musical guests: Donna Loren and the Nooney Rickett Four
Pajama Party was the first of AIP’s many beach party spin-offs, re-directing the action away from the beach, and re-shuffling cast members like a stage-bound reparatory company. In this retelling of the beach party saga, Don Rickles and Frankie Avalon (in cameo roles) send Tommy Kirk (Disney’s Son of Flubber) down to earth to singlehandedly pave the way for an invasion from Mars! Yes, you read right. Tommy Kirk (Annette’s new love interest) is a Martian! And that’s not all! The burglars next door are out to steal Aunt Wendy’s hidden fortune, and the Von Zipper posse is out to drive the surfers (who have taken up volleyball) from the beach (for environmental reasons!) As always, the plot is ultra-inane, but the production values, this time out, are greatly improved by Floyd Crosby’s (David’s dad) cinematography, Daniel Haller’s art direction, and David Winter’s (Arab in West Side Story) choreography, which featured real dancers Toni Basil (a 1981 chart-topper with Mickey), and Terri Garr (Tootsie). In the end, the thieves are foiled, the invasion is thwarted, Annette still takes up with the Martian, and everybody winds up in the pool. MUSH!
Featured Califormulants
The pool sequences were shot at the Virginia Robinson (Robinson’s department stores) mansion in Beverly Hills. Donna Loren’s performance scene was shot at Malibu’s Surfrider Beach with the pier in the background. There is also a chase scene, which runs all over the Malibu colony of 1964.
Persons of Interest
Most notable among the cast members were veteran oldsters Elsa Lanchester (Bride of Frankenstein), Jesse White (the lonely Maytag man), Dorothy Lamour (The Road to Morocco), and the clown prince of the silent era (second only to Chaplin’s King) Buster Keaton, whose illustrious, but sullied, career was briefly rejuvenated by AIP in the 1960s, starting with Pajama Party.
Pajama Party would also mark the last film appearance of hyper-kinetic twist dancer Candy Johnson.