Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Foreshadowing Mike Nichol's "The Graduate", William Asher's "Bikini Beach" explores the angst of adolescent life in Southern California, though, perhaps, not quite as well as he already had in his outstanding "Muscle Beach Party" and "Beach Party". Written as a vehicle for the Beatles, this film also presages later classic Beatles films.I did not see these films on their initial release because of my aversion to such popular fare—at the time. I suppose it seemed one-dimensional, though that word is possibly an anachronism. However, Martha Hyer is beautiful here and that provides sufficient dimensionality to see the film. The music is the weakest element. Added later: I am not quite certain what to say about the Beach Party movies. I did not see them at the time of their release. I was quite serious about watching movies by that time and, for the most part, I would not have seen these movies; I am not certain that I would have even been particularly aware of them. During this time, I was exploring European modernist works. As for sex, my father had introduced me to Bardot movies around the time I was twelve, I think. Yet, these are not bad movies. They are much better than some Bob Hope comedies from that time, though without the witty dialogue one finds in the Hope films.These movies appear often on the "this" network. I have now seen all of them, a least, in a glancing way. They seem to have provided many gifted people with some income. I suppose a film scholar would find some way to reveal something profound about our society from reviews of the films. The camera work never seems to enter the scene. We are always somehow aware not our not being within the frame or involved in what is happening. The movies are not bad. They are trite in a way but not entirely mindless. The iconography might be the most important aspect of the films but that would require a long discourse I am not able to provide. They probably do not deserve a lot of attention but probably some attention. The frantic dancing in most of them is the most dated part. I know that Ms. Funicello was a gifted dancer but you would not know that from these works. I would not have appreciated them when they were released but I was in the wrong demographic at that time. No one was ever the way characters in the Beach Party films are. And I doubt anyone had fantasies that relate to these stories. But they seem to have done well and made money. They must have meant something so I think that the films were on the edge of something that the Beatles finally did. The Beatles and the movie "The Knack". I have upgraded my rating. I do love Ms. Funicello. I suspect she had a latent talent for romantic comedy that might have flowered in a better world.I agree with the positive train of reviews here.

More of the same crapola from MUSCLE BEACH PARTY, with a lot of the same performers. Frankie and Annette are back, though I truthfully had no idea they were so inconsequential in these beach blanket bingo flicks. Don Rickles has given up working with muscle men, and now his character is into drag strip racing (he wears a shirt throughout the movie which pronounces "Big Drag", which sums everything up nicely). Yeah, drag racing and bikinis seem to go hand in hand in these things, though there is precious little of the latter on tap (don't let the title fool you). Things get dopier than ever as we see a prominent man-in-a-suit ape character driving race cars, surfing waves, and whatever else. There's a gang of leathernecks lead by one stupid Eric Von Zipper (a recurring character played by Harvey Lembeck), and ummm... what else? Oh yes, Candy Johnson again wearing her usual unrevealing outfit (was she afraid to show skin, or something?) , and a welcome return song and dance visit by the talented Little Stevie Wonder, who luckily couldn't see what kind of messy melange he was featured in. Last time we had Peter Lorre making a special appearance, so this time it's horror legend Boris Karloff with a brief walk-on. John Ashley's in here somewhere too. No more of these, please. *1/2 out of ****

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 ****

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.