How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

You would have had to have grown up with these incredibility corny movies to find them even mildly interesting. I did. But the one take-away was when the native girl says to Frankie " here on the island, we have a saying 'if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with". Now, did I hear that correctly? Sure enough, next scene, 'Cassandra" says the exact same line at the beach party. Now did Stephen Stills really get this line from Billy Preston for his first solo hit single? "Love the One You're With" Or did he watch this movie five years earlier and forget where he first heard this line?

Frankie Avalon, on naval-reserve duty in Tahiti, does not trust Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) to stay faithful, so he hires Bwana (Buster Keaton), a witch doctor, to help. Bwana conjures up a floating bikini, "stuffs" it with Cassandra, and sends her to distract advertising executive Ricky from Dee Dee.What to make of this beach movie from American International... it has Mickey Rooney, which is good... and Buster Keaton, which is very good (how AIP convinced him to play these roles is beyond me). And most interestingly, we have the Kingsmen performing.I liked the running gag with the pelican, but was just confused by the "Healthy Girl" song. And why they even cast a pregnant Funicello is a mystery. I am not knocking her for being pregnant, but it is weird to cast someone pregnant in a beach movie -- she is sitting on the sand in baggy clothes, quite in contrast with everyone else.

I was very sad because after seeing the ending of Beach Blanket Bingo for so many years where it lists this film as an upcoming sequel I had High hopes for it! It started sucking right when John Ashley starting singing "Healthy Girl". What the hell John Ashley is not supposed to be singing!!. (Healthy Girl is actually one of the better cast songs in this film.) This film stopped sucking for 3 minutes while The Kingsmen sang "Give Her Loving" and then afterwards pretty much started sucking right up again. What ever gave the people who made this film the idea that Harvey Lembeck and Micky Rooney should sing a bunch of tunes? God Awful! I do like Dwane Hickman but I think he did a much better and funnier performance in Ski Party. I'd like to know who came up with the idea (and why) to add musical style numbers. Awful, awful, awful! Annette really stinks in this movie and she really aged quick from Beach Party (where she was super sexy, innocent, young, and hot!) to this movie where she looks like a mother of a 5 year old who bakes cookies and shops at Kmart.OK so that's the bad now I'd like to talk about the good. The good Erik Von Zipper when he's not singing. The very hot Casandra, who needs Annette when you have Casandra! The Beach girls singing "How About me" because they are so yummy looking. The kingsmen of course is always good. And maybe The race at the end because it's goofy.Over the years I have how ever grown to somewhat like this movie and I'll watch I'll sit through it now and then. I mean it's the worst AIP beach party movie but it still beats watching Murder She Wrote, plus Casandra is Hot. Maybe if Bone Head would of had more parts in this film it would of been better.

My 12 year old watched this with me this morning (it was raining) and she was laughing at the old fashionedness of the movie. I would have rather watched a better example of the "beach movie" but we still had fun.At one point Mickey Rooney tells one of the bikini clad girls how cute she is and goes to chuck her on her chin, and on the way to her chin, his hand clips her right breast. My daughter said, "Hey, did he just touch her boob?" Well, we have TIVO and rewound the movie. Yes he did. How'd that get by the censors?But the musical scenes were hysterical for her, and we both agreed that Annette looked way too old to be hanging out with all of the bikini girls! And why wasn't she screaming when she took that motorcycle ride?