Goin' Coconuts

I never saw this movie, didn't know it was a movie when I bought the album back in 1978. I loved the soundtrack album, I wish they would reissue it in CD. I have a Greatest Hits album that includes On the shelf, but I also liked the other songs, specially Falling In Love (it was great), the instrumental version of May Tomorrow Be a Perfect Day, and that cover they did that went like this "Baby, now that I found you I can't let you go, I built my world around you, I need you so, baby even though you don't need me..." One day I had that song playing and my older brother said "Wow, that's a very old song!". He remembered the original; for me it was new. Later I heard the original (I don't remember the title of the tune), but I still prefer Donny & Marie's version.I really enjoyed (and still do) their music and their TV show when I was a teenager. God bless them both!

This film essentially begins with both Donny Osmond and his sister Marie Osmond boarding a plane to Hawaii where they have a few performances booked for them. Just prior to their flight, a priest gives Marie a necklace he says the children at a local orphanage would want her to have. Although it is obviously not worth that much, Marie accepts the gift only because of the sentiment behind it. What she doesn't realize is that the priest who gave it to him is actually a thief named "Charlie" (Jack Collins) and it holds a secret which other sinister groups also desire. Not only that, but once they find out that Marie now has the necklace, they immediately set their sights on both Donny and Marie--and they are willing to commit murder to have what they want. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I remember watching this movie when it first came out and it didn't leave much of an impression on me at that time. Having now seen it again over 40 years later, my initial impression remains the same as this clearly isn't a first-rate film by any stretch of the imagination. It does, however, have a couple of cute scenes here and there with one particular song-and-dance performance by Donny and Marie in a native Hawaiian setting that I found to be rather entertaining. That being said, while this certainly isn't a great comedy by any means, I don't consider it to be that bad necessarily, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

I saw this movie when I was a kid and just watched it again for nostalgia's sake. My reaction on both occasions was to think "What happened here?" They couldn't have come up with a lazier, lamer vehicle for these kids if they'd tried. I mean, it was a theatrical feature film featuring a talented duo with a hit tv show ant hit records. And it's like they put almost no money--or, more importantly, zero effort--into the movie. It's not even as good as a TV movie from back in the day--the two part Brady Bunch Hawaiian episode was better quality. Howard Morris has directed good films before this, but Coconuts seems to have not been directed at all. SO many endless long shots, bad sound--like they just set up a camera in one spot and told the actors to do the best they could with no retakes. Kenneth Mars tries desperately to be funny--SO desperately. Donny and Marie are pleasant and natural, but they're so relaxed they seem to think that they're just doing a rehearsal. There's a happy, "Yeah, whatever...when's lunch?" attitude which could have been funny if played up on purpose. But I think they really just had no idea what was going on. This doesn't seem like it was directed by someone who doesn't know how to direct a movie, but by someone who has never even SEEN a movie before. The cheezy disney movies of the day like Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo put this film to shame. How could so many talented people produce something so LAME?

Ps-- I recently read that Donny and Marie passed up on roles in Grease in order to do this movie--Marie would have been Sandy and Donny cameoed as an angel. They supposedly chose this project because it was more "family friendly," which is kind of strange seeing as how it has murders and racial "humor."

Donny and Marie Osmond (playing themselves) and their tightly wound manager Sid (Herb Edelman ) are off to Hawaii for a concert, but when a stolen Jewel winds up in Marie's possession hi-jinks ensue.

Produced during the annual hiatus for Donny & Marie's variety and financed and distributed by The Osmonds, Goin' Coconuts was supposed be a test of of Donny and Marie Osmond's celebrity status by seeing if they could open and carry a feature film. A critical and commercial dud upon release, the movie has been mostly forgotten, and rightly so because it's a pathetic excuse for a movie that is ineptly directed and acted.

Despite allegedly being the focal point of the movie, Donny & Marie are often relegated to the background while we focus on an assorted of TV character actors engaging in pratfalls, double takes, or other limply played comic gags that don't raise so much as a snicker let alone a laugh. The movie is directed by veteran sitcom director Howard Morris and can't maintain comic momentum or edit scenes to give the gags any life or punch. None of the scenes involving the crooks are funny, but they are at least slightly more engaging than the Osmonds themselves. Donny and Marie have no stage presence when it comes to acting, they basically have one mode in this movie and it's wide eyed smiling niceness, while that can sometimes be used for comic effect here it isn't because more often than not Donny and Marie are blissfully unaware of most of the farcical scenes surrounding them so there's no comic friction played off their unnaturally smiley demeanor. The movie is rated PG for reasons I can't discern as I've seen G Rated Disney comedies from around the same time like No Deposit, No Return or Snowball Express that felt way edgier than this.

Goin' Coconuts is a failure. It's a failure to extend the Osmonds repertoire to feature films, it's a failure as comedy, it's even a failure as a travelogue to Hawaii because the movie has a very flat look to it that doesn't capture the state's natural beauty and is instead focuses on limp wristed attempts at comic caper cliches that are ineptly done with no drive or impact. It's just a waste of everyone's time for all concerned.

I saw this movie when it came out in the theaters and I was a fan of the Donnie & Marie Show...However, even though I was only 15 when I saw it, I was shocked and disappointed at how bad this film was. It was so bad, I was embarrassed for them and I walked out of the movie half way through.