How to Stuff a Wild Bikini was released by American International Pictures on July 14, 1965
Director: William Asher
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini cast: Annette Funicello, Dwayne Hickman, Brian Donlevy, Mickey Rooney, Frankie Avalon, Harvey Lembeck, Beverly Adams,
John Ashley, Jody McCrea, Buster Keaton, and Irene Tsu
Musical guests: The Kingsmen
The film starts out strong with a Claymation title sequence by Gumby creator Art Clokey, and then tumbles right off into the cinematic abyss in a case of real life intruding on the fiction in this, the seventh and last of the true beach party films. Frankie demanded more money and was abruptly demoted to featured cameo status (app. Six minutes of screen time), and Annette was now married with a baby on the way. To hide the new development, she shunned her bikini for a series of oversized, pant-suit type ensembles. Although the beach crew carried on as if this were still a beach party movie, there wasn’t a single surfing scene included in the film. Instead, the grownups organize a motorcycle race (with passengers!) designed to improve the public’s opinion of motorcycles and motorcyclists. Movies are often based on real events, but this is the only one I know of based on a commercial ad campaign. Honda (you meet the nicest people on a Honda) was actually running a very successful campaign to convince the public that their “groovy little motorbikes” were just hip, fashionable, leisure accessories for the young, swinging set. Honda’s program worked, AIP’s did not. The original beach party crew (already fracturing) would have one last run with a stock car racing scenario, before closing up shop for good.
Featured Califormulants
Hickman and Funicello take a brief, but picaresque motorcycle ride around Malibu Lake. The backcountry race sequence was filmed at the paramount ranch, and the beach scenes were done at Paradise Cove.
FYI
Mickey Rooney and Dwayne Hickman make their entrances riding the same mid-sixties Yamaha YG1-K motorbikes that I was riding at the time.
Persons of interest
Bewitching Elizabeth Montgomery (wife of the film’s director) made a cameo appearance as, what else, a witch.