Das Mädchen vom anderen Strand

Frankie Avalon off doing his Naval Reserve training in those innocent days before Vietnam is wondering whether Annette is being true to him back at the beach with all those other hunks around. He's stationed on a tropical Pacific Isle with lots of other curvaceous cuties around. He asks one of them to bring him to the local witch doctor for help. The witch doctor sends a pelican out to spy on Annette back at the beach.

So help me this is the beginning of the story. But it's not a half bad film, in fact it gets down right satirical at times. In addition to Frankie, Annette and the rest of the beach crew, some Hollywood old timers got some work in this film and they get a chance to overact outrageously. They include Brian Donlevy and Mickey Rooney as a pair of scheming advertising executives along with Dwayne Hickman who's their schemer in training, Harvey Lembeck as a Marlon Brando type motorcycle gang leader and Buster Keaton as the witch doctor.

I'd try to see How to Stuff a Wild Bikini if for no other reason than to see all these players ham it up. Though in some spots the pelican gives the best performance in the film.

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?

The second to last Beach Party movie. In this one Frankie Avalon is separated from Annette Funicello by being in the Naval Reserve. While on an island he gets a witch doctor (Buster Keaton!) to see if Annette is being faithful to him. Keaton sends a pelican (???) to spy on Annette. Meanwhile handsome, attractive Ricky (Dwayne Hickman) is hitting on her. Then there's Mickey Rooney looking for the boy next door and girl next door for an ad campaign.

Even for a beach party movie this is pretty desperate. Funicello looks way too old to be hanging out at the beach (and her pregnancy is clearly visible); the dialogue is more inane than usual; the songs are (to be nice) terrible; the jokes are stubbornly unfunny; Hickman is as bland as they come (even worse than Chris O'Donnell); Harvey Lembeck returns as the incredibly unfunny Eric von Zipper; the "comical" motorcycle race at the end is incredibly stupid; and it's kind of sad seeing Keaton and Rooney reduced to this. Still, this is kind of fun in a silly sort of way. It's not even remotely good but I kept watching. The Claymation opening is fun and I did laugh out loud at the "Bewitched" joke at the end. Also this is perfect for young kids. So it's not good but it's harmless. It's certainly better than the next (and last) beach party movie "Ghost in the Invisible Bikini"!

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.

This is the final film to feature Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello as Frankie and Dee Dee, and it is also the worst. Avalon had grown weary of playing an over-aged teen-ager and wanted to do something more with his career and at the same time Annette Funicello had recently married and was starting a family. In fact, Ms. Funicello was very pregnant at the time the film was released. Also, Avalon was in the middle of filming Sgt. Deadhead and couldn't appear in the entire film. The solution, bring in Dwayne Hickman as Rick, an advertising executive, to keep Dee Dee busy while Frankie was off on military duty. This was a big mistake. These best thing about the "Beach Party" films was the chemistry between Avalon and Funicello and this film falls flat on its face because the two are on screen together for only a minute (not counting the duet they sang via split screen). After this film was completed, the two retired from the genre, Avalon to attempt more serious roles and Funicello to raise her family. However, Samuel Z. Arkoff tried to keep the series rolling a couple of more years before he finally gave up the ghost, and not the one in the invisible bikini.