La fiesta de los bikinis

This is probably the best of the "Beach Party" films. The series pretty much hit its peak here and after this it was all downhill. Annette Funicello is her level headed best and Frankie Avalon is still her lunkheaded boyfriend who only can think about surfing. The thing I think is a little ironic about this film is the fact that Avalon in his portrayal of Potato Bug takes a swipe at The Beatles. Many forget that Avalon was one of the hottest singers in America until the "Fab Four" arrived the same year this film was released. After that it was downhill from there. The other shining moment in this film has to belong to Harvey Lembeck as the perpetually dimwitted leader Eric Von Zipper. This was his defining role and this film was his funniest yet.

Annette Funicello is probably the most over-dressed beach bunny to ever hit the sands, but she's a stitch in her scenes with Frankie Avalon (as surfer Frankie) and pop-singer The Potato Bug (Avalon again, in a Beatle wig, funny teeth and English accent). Their repartee makes this a charming piece of Americana, but the thing is so stuck in a sterile time-capsule it's nearly impossible to believe that teenagers once got a charge from it. Drag-racing is the newest craze, and the beach gang gets shown up once Keenan Wynn puts a chimp successfully behind the wheel of a hot rod. For racing aficionados, we get a glimpse of the Mantra Ray, a $50,000 all-aluminum experimental "dream rod" with a King Cobra Ford engine. Annette poses prettily beside it... ** from ****

O.K., O.K., I must take some exception with the two prior reviews in this thread. Bikini Beach has a lot more going for it those pieces implied.

First, Frankie Avalon finally earned his AIP pay in this picture. While I really don't care for his 60s greaser college kid character in most of the other beach Party movies, here his dual roles (as "Frankie" the surfer who takes Dee Dee (Annette) for granted and as English invasion artist the "Potato Bug") are enjoyable to watch. He shows his reach as an actor far beyond what one would expect in a B movie like this.

Secondly, for anyone interested in the history of drag racing, the strip scenes are interesting; textbook mid 60s drag environment. Few if any other examples of that are available in American film.

Third, the music. Much better than what was in the movie that preceded it ("Muscle Beach Party" was one of the weakest of the series in terms of music) and many that followed. In Bikini Beach, you get to hear Annette sing a duet of a Styner-Hemrick ballad ("Because You're You") with Avalon that is good (if you have a copy of her Bikini Beach LP, her solo version of this song on it is arguably one of the most hauntingly beautiful recordings she ever made). The "house club band" at Big Daddy's in this film is the Pyramids, arguably one of the better now-forgotten west coast groups that played the role of the house band in these movies. Their instrumental version of "Fingertips" is classic early 60's surf instrumental. And a very young Stevie Wonder actually appears at the end.

Fourth, the infamous Candy Johnson (the fringe-wearing, wild blond go-go dancer character who, with the swish of her hips, could put a man in a daze and send him flying through the air) finally comes of age in this movie, the club fight scenes actually feature her. As do the closing credits, where she fractures the camera lens at the end.

Does all this make "Bikini Beach" a work of art? Heavens. no, but it's a heck of a lot better than Muscle Beach Party, Pajama Party, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini and the Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. In other words, out of the seven AIP Beach Party Movies, this is definitely in the top two or three (only bettered by Beach Blanket Bingo and arguably Beach Party).

More surfer wackiness from Frankie, Annette and the gang, with semi-regular Don Rickles and guest star Keenan Wynn showing up. Charming in its' way, it was cornball then and remains cornball now, though some of its' references fly over the heads of the youngsters who take the time to watch this today. Someone wrote this would be mediocre if released today. I beg to differ. This is a masterpiece compared to much of the dreck that is produced today.

This sequel to MUSCLE BEACH PARTY (1964) is only slightly better: much of the teen cast returns, as well as Don Rickles (but, having now forsaken muscle-men for drag-strip racing) and even Stevie Wonder. We do get a number of new faces – eminent publisher Keenan Wynn (with a practiced simian in tow, he's intent on demonstrating that the youth of today have regressed to pretty much its primitive state!) and schoolteacher Martha Hyer constituting more or less the normal people (they start out as opponents but gradually come to understand and love one another), Harvey Lembeck as the overage leader of a motorcycle gang called Eric Von Zipper (actually, this character had already featured in BEACH PARTY [1963]: here, he's prone to falling victim, by his own hand, of Peter Lorre's paralysis-by-touch technique seen at the end of the previous film) and Timothy Carey (appearing very briefly as a pool-playing eccentric who has a werewolf, fitted with a leather jacket, for a sidekick!).

There's even a second role for Frankie Avalon – doubling as a legendary mop-top and gap-toothed (essentially a cross between The Beatles and Terry-Thomas!) British singer/racer…and, then, there's that great final gag involving Boris Karloff (seen a couple of times from behind throughout but only revealed at the very end as an art dealer interested in Rickles' abstract collection, quipping that he ought to tell his pal Vincent Price – noted for his taste in fine art and at the time also contracted to AIP – about it!). It's these quasi-surreal elements – including the monkey driving Wynn's car (to the recurring consternation of two traffic cops) as well as a dragster, and even doing a bit of surf…but extending to the final credits as blonde-with-powerful-hips Candy Johnson is joined in her wild dance by an aged member of Wynn's old folks' home! – which render the film that much more enjoyable than its predecessor. Otherwise, we get a lot of the same shtick as before – though the beach scenes themselves are thankfully downplayed here; the climax, then, involves a Keystone Kops-type chase which culminates in yet another gratuitous bit of brawling slapstick (this time occurring at Rickles' pseudo-beatnik joint).

Again, the songs are far from classics but, all in all, the film retains some interest (not least in the contribution of cinematographer Floyd Crosby, production designer Daniel Haller and composer Les Baxter – all of them synonymous with Roger Corman's contemporaneous horror films based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe!) in particular for characterizing the transition between two trends in youth-oriented pictures i.e. the Juvenile Delinquent films of the 1950s and the Counter-Culture efforts (advocating drug use and Free Love) that would prevail soon after