MonsterVision’s Joe Bob Briggs reviews

Beach Party (1963)

(From Joe Bob's Ultimate B Movie Guide

Robert Cummings is a professor studying the primitive habits of the American teenager, in the one that started the three-year genre of beach movies: clean-cut partying teens who thought the Beatles were too weird. These films were reactions to the wild-youth, beatnik and rock-and-roll movies of the late fifties and early sixties, so a kiss is the raciest thing found here. Still, the bland production numbers are full of wiggling bikini bottoms, and Walt Disney expressed his stern disapproval of Annette Funicello, a former "Mousketeer," revealing her belly button, so she’s the only one on the beach in a one-piece instead of a bikini. First of many sequels was "Muscle Beach Party". Annette had previously appeared in Walt Disney's first-ever non-animated feature film, The Shaggy Dog (a 1959 fantasy). With Frankie Avalon, Dorothy Malone.  4 stars for the girls
© 2000 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved.

Bikini Beach (1964)

In Frankie & Annette's 3rd beach movie, a millionaire (Keenan Wynn) sets out to prove that his pet monkey is as smart as the teenagers(?!) One of the two all-time favorites among fans, it includes a song by little Stevie Wonder, Frankie Avalon in a duel role as a British singing star called The Potato Bug (is that a beatle?), plus Don Rickles, Meredith MacRae, Martha Hyer, and of course Harvey Lembeck as the goofy leather-jacket biker gang leader Von Zipper

Pajama Party (1964)

Odd mixture of sci-fi, comedy, and beach theme has a Martian (Tommy Kirk) guest starring in the 4th Annette Funicello “Beach Party” movie (Frankie Avalon only has a cameo in this and the following sequels), as an alien arriving to prepare for an invasion but instead getting caught up in an all-night pajama party in-doors.
Buster Keaton (star of the only silent Twilight Zone episode) and Don Rickles (Kelly’s Heroes) also guest star, and Teri Garr (Close Encounters) has a bit role as a dancer buried in sand.
Cast also includes Elsa Lanchester (the Bride of Frankenstein herself). Followed by Beach Blanket Bingo (with Paul Lynde & Buster Keaton), How To Stuff A Wild Bikini (with Buster Keaton & Mickey Rooney) and then Ghost In The Invisible Bikini (final of series, with Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Jesse White, Tommy Kirk & Nancy Sinatra). Tommy Kirk had previously appeared in the Disney film The Shaggy Dog with Annette.
85 minutes, sometimes seen on American Movie Classics or Turner Classic Movies
Frankie and Annette even befriended a mermaid in Beach Blanket Bingo (1965, with Paul Lynde & Don Rickles)

Back To The Beach (1987)

(From Joe Bob's Ultimate B Movie Guide

Horrific beach party movie made 25 years after the original (yikes!) in which Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello spray-paint their hairdos, put on three million bucks of pancake makeup, and, most frightening of all, do the limbo. Frankie and Annette have been married for 25 years, with Frankie running the largest Ford dealership in Ohio and Annette mooning around the house all day eating peanut butter. They decide to go visit their little dimple-face beach-bunny daughter, who's hanging out on the exact same beach where Annette used to pout a lot and do the pony and try to manipulate Frankie into marrying her. Annette puts on a death-by-polka-dots swimsuit with double-projectile ribbed bodice, reggaes around, and resumes pouting.

The suspense mounts as they discover their daughter is living with a wimpola Southern California beach dumpling. Then the creature from the gold neck-chain store starts putting the moves on Annette. Then Connie Stevens runs up to Frankie and demonstrates goldfish-feeding on his face, so Annette gets P.O.ed. Then Frankie whips off his coat and goes shiny-pants Sansabelt on us so he can allegedly sing a song. Then Gilligan gets Frankie drunk. Then, with their marriage falling apart, Annette goes over the edge. She holds a pajama party, puts on a chartreuse teddy with fuzzies hanging off it, and DOES THE BUNNY HOP! One of the most frightening special effects ever seen on the screen, and after that, NOTHING can ever make you barf again, not even the cameo by O.J. Simpson.
Zero breasts. (Wha'd you expect?)
Ten dead bodies, all of them in starring roles.
Great fake surfer footage.
Mass barf-bag scene.
Overweight Dick Dale and two of the Del Tones.
Gratuitous Mousketeers.
Gratuitous "Wipe Out" drum solo.
Gratutious "Woolly Bully."
Bunny Hop Fu.
With Tommy Hinkley as the boyfriend in a pink skin-tight wetsuit ("Trust me, it's a little pick-me-up, Keith Richards lives on these"),
Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Don Adams, The Skipper,
Demian Slade as the obnoxious little 14-year-old kid who wears a chest tattoo called "Bloody Surf Demon on the Beach of Despair,"
Fishbone as the Jamaican mohawk sax player in a zoot suit.
Connie has the best line: "Honey, I'm an amusement park."
Produced by Frank Mancuso, Jr.
Two stars (two off for not bringing back Rickles). 2 stars
© 2000 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved.

For this and other movie reviews by the artist formerly known as the host of MonsterVision, go to Joe Bob Briggs.com

Mars Needs Women (1964)

Tommy Kirk, who played a Martian in the fourth “Beach” movie (Pajama Party) the same year, not to mention that Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite, “Village Of The Giants,” was hired by writer/director Larry Buchanan to film this one in Texas.
Four Martians arrive to capture Earth women in order to repopulate Mars. The actors, including Yvonne Craig of Batman, try their sincere best to rise above the silly and distended script. Unreleased until 1968.

And then there was Psycho Beach Party ...

Trailer: How To Stuff A Wild Bikini

Cameo by Buster Keaton

Related links: Robinson Crusoe On Mars

My Favorite Martian

MonsterVision host segments for Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks

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© Bill Laidlaw. All Rights Reserved. Plagerized stuff clearly indicated.
You know something? A kiss is worth more than a thousand words. Then why don't you stop talking?
Frankie Avalon & Annette Funicello, Beach Blanket Bingo
I'll be the only boy in my block that knows a real live mermaid Jody McCrea (Bonehead)