Bikini Beach
Bikini Beach
NR | 22 July 1964 (USA)
Bikini Beach Trailers

A millionaire sets out to prove his theory that his pet chimpanzee is as intelligent as the teenagers who hang out on the local beach, where he is intending to build a retirement home.

Reviews
Blucher

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

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ChicDragon

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

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Robert Joyner

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

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Winifred

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

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oliver church

I think Avalon's duel role was played nicely but Funicello could have been played better in her role to show to differences in their perception of each other.Someone said Avalon was one of the hottest singers in America but I think that's not the case as not many people have heard of him these days.Bikini Beach seems to be like a beach party turned into a film and is really one of the inspirations of future beach parties. I honestly believe this film made way for future generations. It's a shame they don't do classic entertainment and humour like this anymore.Ms. Funicello's solo was very entertaining though! I noticed that a lot of the bikinis in this film look familiar to that Talinda range I saw over at buybikini.org I wonder if they based their designs on this movie. I agree with another reviewer that Candy Johnson was past her prime here but I would still date her given the chance. Oh well I can keep dreaming, all in all I give this an eight and think it's worth watching if you have a couple of hours to burn.

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JoeKarlosi

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 ****

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MARIO GAUCI

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

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funkyfry

One of the funniest beach party movies made by AIP (or anybody), with a great cast and pretty funny script with no story involved. Such as it is involves the arrival of the Potato Bug (Avalon in a double role), a John Lennon-esque Britisher that all the beach girls swoon over. Annette seems to decide the endless summer might never end, and jumps ship to the Bug. Frankie and the Bug have to drag race it out at Don Ricle's aptly named "Big Drag" -- Rickles is anything but a drag, constantly mugging with the lines they throw him and everyone else's too. Frankie Avalon's double performance may not go down in history as the modern equivalent of John Barrymore, but it's all good fun worth a hundred minutes of my lifetime. Looks like Mike Myers might have been watching this one pretty closely too.

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