Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)

Such a frustrating disappointment

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The fifth entry in the "Beach Party" series is universally acknowledged as the best of the lot. Having watched three such films in quick succession, I have to agree: it's not that those concerned made a concentrated effort at creating something more accomplished than before, but just that all the various elements (while others were dropped or altered) seemed to be more evenly balanced here to produce a generally more satisfying result. Incidentally, not only is the script wittier than usual – but even the songs are kinda pleasant this time around… Plotwise, we still get Frankie (Avalon) and Annette (Funicello) bickering – but, rather than because one of them is being 'preyed' upon by an interloper, both of them are in this case (and, coming via members of a skydiving troupe who're supposed to instruct the "Beach" gang in just that type of sport, creates a few welcome sparks of high-flying tension). As always, the manager of the exciting but potentially dangerous 'entertainment' is played by Don Rickles – whose character name, or moniker, has gone from Jack Fanny in MUSCLE BEACH PARTY to "Big Drag" in BIKINI BEACH (both 1964) to "Big Drop" in this one! Annette's fling, then, is John Ashley (usually seen as a surfer!) while Frankie's is spunky Deborah Walley (whom I recently watched in the Elvis Presley vehicle SPINOUT [1966]) – since Ashley and Walley were married to one another at the time, I guess this is why they made the former a rival to Frankie instead of a pal for this particular entry! Another important change in the nonsensically-titled BEACH BLANKET BINGO (by the way, exuberant dancing blonde Candy Johnson – easily the most resistible element in the two earlier films from the series that I watched, is nowhere to be seen in this one!) concerns the character played by Jody McCrea: while his nickname has unaccountably gone from "Deadhead" to "Bonehead", he's now given two separate romances (which means that his former grating comic relief persona has been considerably diluted). The first involves singing starlet Linda Evans (miles removed from her signature role in the 1980s TV series DYNASTY!), ostensibly engaged in a skydiving stunt to promote her current record but actually doubled by Walley, and the other with real mermaid Marta Kristen, who's really the one that saved McCrea from drowning but the feat is once again attributed to the naïve but spoilt Evans by her conniving and sardonic manager Paul Lynde! While we do get an appearance from another screen giant here – comic genius Buster Keaton, then going through a much-deserved renaissance – this is rightly credited at the very start instead of relegated to the end credits, since it's a relatively bigger role than either of Peter Lorre's or Boris Karloff's cameos (one in each of the previous "Beach Party" films I'd checked out). Even so, his character could have been better integrated into the plot – since, playing Rickles' girl-chasing assistant, he's not given anything particularly inspired to do: it's fitting, for instance, that Keaton be involved in the speeded-up chase towards the end (by now a typical component of the series intended to mimic the style of Silent comedies)…but the same can't be said of his cavorting with a trio of anonymous-looking girls during the final credit roll! Two welcome presences (actually both returns from previous entries in the series, though allowed greater stature than before) are those of Harvey Lembeck as Eric von Zipper – self-pitying leader of the motorcycle gang "The Rat Pack"(!), who idolizes Evans to the point of kidnapping her – and Timothy Carey as the nasty "South Dakota Slim" (though, regrettably, without his werewolf companion from BIKINI BEACH: it's strange how this actor brings such intensity to his portrayals that he seems to be permanently on acid or something…and this goes for mainstream fare as well, such as CRIME-WAVE [1954], which I watched just a few days prior to this one). By the way, both these actors are involved in the film's two biggest belly-laughs: engaged in a billiards game at a pool-hall – already featured in BIKINI BEACH, its walls are adorned by portraits of notorious dictators! – and, with Lembeck taking forever to make his next move, Carey acidly quips that he's shaved twice since von Zipper's last shot!; the latter, then, enters a trendy nightclub by smashing through the front door on his motorcycle (as is Lembeck's fashion) – only to land, in this particular case, head first in an aquarium! Besides, the element of surrealism which surprisingly entered the series with BIKINI BEACH is also present here in the form of the fanciful mermaid subplot as well as von Zipper's ghastly yet amusing fate during the climax at a sawmill (which, again, evokes the cliff-hanging serials from the Silent era).

The best part of about this movie is trying to spot the extras- surf legend cum American Icon Miki Dora does the surf stunts and stunt doubles for Frankie Avalon. Odd because these movies put an end to his dominance of the Malibu surf as hordes of surfer wannabes flooded to the beach, inspired, in large part, by these movies. Another extra is Beach Boy supreme, Brian Wilson. Another oddity because the movie plugs the contrived band, the Hondells, while Wilson, hot off the number one song in the world in I Get Around and charting high with Help Me Rhonda, mulls in the background in crowd scenes. The non-casted girl extras were, in fact, the real surfer girls who roamed the SoCal beach scene at the time- including the original and "real" Gidget- and were featured more prominently in the shots than the male extras because- they looked great in bikinis. Mike Nader- primal surfer and buddy of Dora's- incredibly wound up co-starring with Linda Evans, 20 years later, in Dynasty. So, despite the thinness of storyline(s), Beach Blanket Bingo is very entertaining- though maybe not as the director intended.

I could never get into the sun and surf films of the Sixties because frankly, they looked kind of dumb. However in the interest of maintaining a well rounded view of cinematic achievement, I caught this today on Turner Classic Movies. Boy, was it dumb.The host on TCM stated that each of the Frankie and Annette beach party movies were shot completely in a few hours, and then took about forty minutes to edit. It didn't sound like he was kidding about that, and judging by "Beach Blanket Bingo", that formula is probably pretty close. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the film makers were working without a script too, because the situations and dialog at times appear to be completely at random, with no help from editing. For example, there's a scene where Bonehead (Jody McCrae) begins to pine after Lorelei (Marta Kristen) as she swims away in the moonlight, but instead of allowing the situation to build with emotion, the scene abruptly cuts to one of the skydiving sequences in bright daylight.It also would have helped if Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) and Frankie (Frankie Avalon) managed to stay in character from scene to scene. With Frankie scanning every babe to pass into view throughout the film, one minute Dee Dee is jealous, and the next the pair are lovey dovey. It doesn't help that Frankie epitomizes male chauvinism with his 'boys are different' philosophy, as much as stating that Dee Dee should concentrate on staying in the kitchen instead of learning to sky dive.It would be hard to come up with the movie's low point, but the leading contenders have to include Rickels' monologue when he tells Annette he never did like her anyway, and Zipper's (Harvey Lembeck) song lyric 'We'll give them the finger now". For me personally, it would be South Dakota Slim's (Timothy Carey) trip to the 'booby shack', by that time I felt like Jack Nicholson after the lobotomy in 'Cuckoo's Nest'. For my money, Slim is in the running for the most pathetic movie character ever.But hey, at least Linda Evans has that Lesley Gore thing going for her in a couple of singing numbers, which I would have bet were dubbed but weren't. And I did like the description of Von Zipper's 'Rats' as Carbon Monoxide Commandos; that was about the most thought put into this flick. But come on, you know you saw that 'fish out of water' line coming from a mile away.I know I'm in the minority here based on some of the other posters for this film, but nostalgia only goes so far. When the final scene came down blessed by that 'Fin-ee', I could only scratch my head and repeat one of Frankie Avalon's lines from the picture - "You know, I just don't know".Oh yeah, Buster Keaton is in the movie too, but I just don't believe it.

Fun in the sun doesn't get much better than this! After years of watching, I could never grow tired of Annette and Frankie doing their little girl-friend/boy-friend thing while frequently interrupted by infectious surf music.The actors deserve our respect for not only agreeing to work for peanuts, but also for filming during the chilly days of November so the film could be released the following spring, all so the American public could enjoy watching these kids' seemingly happy summer vacations. This was never meant to be a serious project to impress the Motion Picture Academy, just plain Summer fun with great 60s California Sound, just prior to the sudden impact of "Flower Power", Mama's & Papas, etc."Beach Blanket Bingo" also features the talented singer Donna Loren in a bit part as herself. Beach Blanket Bingo is the name of the game!