Beach Blanket Bingo

source: Beach Blanket Bingo

I've hesitated to make any comments about this one of the beach movies. It's like commenting on Citizen Kane or 2001 - too daunting. First of all, along with the COMPLETELY regular cast, it's one of the ones with Don Rickles. People have said that he just doesn't come across well in anything that's SCRIPTED for him, but that's far from completely true. Just watch for the little moment with him, after Frankie does his skydiving - it's a "classic" Don Rickles moment. And Paul Lynde could always be funny, with or without a script (most recently, fans of Roger the alien on "American Dad" are interested in him). One of his best lines is when Earl Wilson - who looks like the most straight-laced person in the world - wants to visit the surfers' hangout a second time. Lynde says, "Which girl is it, Earl?" And then there are Jody MacCrea (sp.) and Marta Kristen in the "Lorelei" subplot. Anyone who's seen brooding movies like "Night Tide" might like this mainly COMICAL mermaid story (not that it's the first or last one, of course). And of course, Timothy Carey as South Dakota Slim, who steals Sugar Kane from Erich Von Zipper, after Von Zipper went to the trouble of kidnapping her himself! Anyway, these are just SOME of the things going for it. The only thing missing from this beach movie is the cameo - I've always wondered why that is.

Frankie, Annette and the the gang frolic on the beach--various plots include a beautiful girl singer Sugar Kane (Linda Evans!!!) being kidnapped by Eric von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and the gang trying to save her; a mermaid Lorelei (Marta Kristen) falling for Bonehead (Jody McCrea) and Annette proving to Frankie that girls can skydive as well as boys. As you can tell, this movie is not dealing with reality...but it's fast, funny, very colorful (if you see a good print like I did), very campy, and also has Paul Lynde (hilarious) and Don Rickles (pretty bad...but the material just isn't there for him). The songs are actually pretty good and the dialogue is (I assume) purposedly laughable. Frankie and Annette and the other teens can't act (or sing, or dance) but they all look great in bathing suits and there's buff guys and gorgeous girls for everybody to enjoy. The only low points: Lembeck is stupid and unfunny as von Zipper, the movie really falls apart at the end with a real speeded-up car chase and poor Buster Keaton is reduced to chasing girls around. Still it was a lot of fun! You have to see it on a wide screen and bright color to really enjoy it. Otherwise, it isn't worth it.

This is probably one of the best of the "Beach Party" flicks and also marks the beginning of the end. When this film was released, little did anyone know that this would be the next to last appearance for both Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello and that within a year the whole "Beach Party" genre would be finished. So this film can be seen as the last gasp before they waves died down.

Similar and earlier beach films such as the "Gidget" series do the genre more justice. This film is just plain silly and tiring. Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello once again ham it up in their overly familiar roles and the results are a major bummer.

William Asher's Beach Blanket Bingo is probably the best, and certainly the most entertaining, of the AIP beach party movies. For once, the script is actually funny, not just stupid, and the presence of Buster Keaton, Timothy Carey and, of course, Harvey Lembeck as Von Zipper, adds a lot to the camp value and a very young Linda Evans adds her own exotic beauty. Annette looks great, Frankie even seems to have a tan and the late, great, John Ashley adds to the fun. This isn't Shakespeare, but the script is clever, and this probably has the best songs in the series, with the great Les Baxter actually having a hand in the songs and their arrangements in addition to his usual scoring duties. By all means catch this one if you like the series, and if you aren't familiar with it, I would recommend starting here. You won't be bored!

I think that we can all agree that the beach movies from the mid '60s were at the bottom of the cinematic barrel ("Catalina Caper" even got shown on "Mystery Science Theater 3000"). "Beach Blanket Bingo" is an eye roll-inducing piece of swill about a gaggle of sexually inactive teenagers trying to protect a mermaid from a biker gang. How tragic that they wasted a potentially hilarious plot on something so stupid. If nothing else, couldn't they have waited a few years so that they could have thrown in some sex?! I mean, THEY HAD A MERMAID AND THEY COULDN'T DO IT WITH HER?!!!!!!!!! WHY?!!!!!!!!!! And isn't it more chic to portray biker gangs as cool? Anyway, the fact that Buster Keaton appears in this just goes to show how far he had gotten reduced. I don't doubt that the two people from "Bewitched" (director William Asher and co-star Paul Lynde) probably prefer to be associated with that show and not with this. It's no accident that Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello never became A-list stars (unless you count his appearance in "Grease"). Nowadays, I think that we only know her because she has multiple sclerosis, the same thing that afflicted Richard Pryor. "MST3K" really should have shown this flick; Mike, Servo and Crow could have made some great comments.

No one expects A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) from Frankie and Annette. So anyone catching this celebration of carefree hedonism should know what they're getting from the git-go. All in all, the movie's a time capsule of those pre-Vietnam years when jobs were plentiful, prosperity was on the rise, and the only thing white middle-class teens worried about was a date to the prom. The movie perfectly captures the silly innocence of those teen years. And what better place to celebrate than the land of eternal sunshine and surf: Malibu, California. But watch out for Timothy Carey's grotesque South Dakota Slim. In retrospect, he's like a forewarning of the Vietnam-Watergate calamities to come— a menacing figure crashing the beach party's beautiful bodies. It was an inspired piece of casting and happenstance. Now, I'm not about to mock the movie's silliness since my own preference runs toward The Three Stooges. At the same time, it looks to this drop-in like the film's probably as good as any of the Beach Party bashes of that long ago sunny era. For many, the movie's got to be a trip down carefree nostalgia lane.

Let's make one thing clear, "Beach Blanket Bingo" is certainly not the artistic high-point of this medium called cinema, but that doesn't mean it's not fun! Frankie and Annette are back with all their beach buddies, including one named Bonehead (Goo-Goo or Poo-Poo to his friends). In this one, Frankie decides that sky-diving is the way to Annette's heart. There's also a subplot involving a mermaid love interest for Bonehead. The best reason to watch this film is for Harvey Lembeck as Eric Von Zipper. He's the perfect comedy bad guy. He is my idol (Watch the movie and you'll understand that last line)! Don Rickles is also loads of fun, especially in one scene where it appears he was allowed to improvise.

BEACH BLANKET BINGO is woeful from beginning to end! This idiotic junk has the beach party gang involved in skydiving AND kidnapping with neither plot-thread even remotely bearable. The opening musical number features a typical non-song lip-synched by Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, both of whom had to be sick to death of these movies by 1965. Avalon is particularly annoying bickering with Paul Lynde, who plays the proverbial adult "square." The final chase scene, shot in fast motion as if the filmmakers wanted to stop this nonsense as quickly as possible, is moronic. With the usual assortment of Z-grade talent: Harvey Lembeck, Deborah Walley, Jody McCrae and, in one of his last and most thankless appearances, Buster Keaton.