Bikini Beach was released by American International Pictures on July 22, 1964
Director: William Asher
Bikini Beach cast: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Martha Hyer, Keenan Wynn, Don Rickles, and Harvey Lembeck
Musical guests: Stevie Wonder, Donna Loren, the Pyramids, and the Exciters
Special cameo appearance by Boris Karloff
In Bikini Beach, the third offering in the Beach Party film series, the beach party gang is threatened by a developer (whose sidekick is an ape) who wants to build a retirement home on their beach! And that’s not all! The relationship between Frankie and Annette is threatened by an interloper (now where have we seen that before), and not just any interloper, but a British pop star known as the Potato Bug, who is also played (with great enthusiasm) by Avalon. To win back Annette’s affection, Frankie challenges the Potato Bug (who also happens to be an experienced drag racer) to a drag duel. The whole thing culminates in a classic car chase led by a go-cart followed by the usual slap-stick bar fight between the bikers (yeah, they’re back) and the surfers, assisted by the supernatural powers of manic go-go dancer Candy Johnson. Veteran actors Keenan Wynn and Martha Hyer, used mainly give some weight to these effervescent plots, seem a bit flummoxed by all the on-screen chicanery. And as for that ape, this has to be one of the worst performances by a man in monkey suit ever recorded on film. But hey, it’s a beach flick. Most of the players manage to hold it together, and for that alone, everyone gets an A for effort.
Featured Califormulants
This time, the gang make their usual credit-roll entry down the Pacific Coast Highway in a modified flatbed truck with a beach shack styled bed and a house trailer in tow. There are a few good shots of the regular Malibu surf stand-ins doing it like they did, but most of the extra-curricula action takes place at the Pomona Drag Strip where the racing scenes were filmed using some real, rail-type dragsters as well as a unique, four-engine concoction driven by TV actor Tommy Ivo. Potato Bug appears at the strip driving the MantaRay, built by notable California customizer Dean Jefferies. A very few moments of screen time are given over to Malibu’s Coral Beach Café.
FYI
Though it might have seemed like the parody of the Beatles was all in good fun, that was not entirely the case. Just six months before the release of Bikini Beach, the Beatles had completely upended the American music industry, instantly turning last year’s pop stars into has-beens, including Frankie Avalon, and to a lesser extent, Annette Funicello. There was a great deal of concern and confusion, at the time, among American’s entertainers, which was expressed in this droll representation of the chart-domineering Brits.
Or was it sour grapes? As strange as it may seem, AIP was in negotiations with the Beatles management to secure their services for Bikini Beach, but after their bravura performance on the Ed Sullivan show, the offer was declined.
I used to wake surf at the Salton Sea behind Grandpa Mac’s boat. I can’t recall seeing anyone else do this at the time, and in reviewing this film some 50 years later, I wonder if I didn’t get the idea from that brief, wake surfing, segment featured in Bikini Beach.