Walt Disney refugees Annette Funicello and Tommy Kirk star in this Beach Party sequel where you can tell by the title, the action moves in doors. No, not that kind of action, we were still under the influence of the Code.
These plots almost defy description but Tommy Kirk is a Martian teenager named Gogo which seems like a perfectly good name to use in the California beach environment. Nevertheless when he teleports to Elsa Lanchester's house, she greets him with Gracie Allen type blasé and renames him George. She likes him better than her late husband's nephew Jody McCrea who cares about volleyball more than women and that's putting a crimp into a relationship with Annette.
Add to this a trio of con-men living next door who know Elsa keeps her money, not in banks played by Jesse White, Ben Lessy, and Buster Keaton in an Indian suit. And of course Harvey Lembeck and his brain dead motorcycle gang and you've got a Beach Party film.
Frankie Avalon appears here too, but only to communicate with Kirk with Don Rickles playing Avalon's assistant. Dorothy Lamour is here to, a women familiar enough with beach settings in her films as Lanchester's dress shop manager. Lanchester's only weakness is operating a dress shop where she sells the latest trendy teen styles at a loss.
It's kind of fun to laugh at how dumb the Beach Party films are, but their enduring popularity is proved out by Baywatch and its long run in the Eighties and Nineties. And I'm sure we'll see something similar in the next generation.
But this one will not tax the brain cells too much.
These plots almost defy description but Tommy Kirk is a Martian teenager named Gogo which seems like a perfectly good name to use in the California beach environment. Nevertheless when he teleports to Elsa Lanchester's house, she greets him with Gracie Allen type blasé and renames him George. She likes him better than her late husband's nephew Jody McCrea who cares about volleyball more than women and that's putting a crimp into a relationship with Annette.
Add to this a trio of con-men living next door who know Elsa keeps her money, not in banks played by Jesse White, Ben Lessy, and Buster Keaton in an Indian suit. And of course Harvey Lembeck and his brain dead motorcycle gang and you've got a Beach Party film.
Frankie Avalon appears here too, but only to communicate with Kirk with Don Rickles playing Avalon's assistant. Dorothy Lamour is here to, a women familiar enough with beach settings in her films as Lanchester's dress shop manager. Lanchester's only weakness is operating a dress shop where she sells the latest trendy teen styles at a loss.
It's kind of fun to laugh at how dumb the Beach Party films are, but their enduring popularity is proved out by Baywatch and its long run in the Eighties and Nineties. And I'm sure we'll see something similar in the next generation.
But this one will not tax the brain cells too much.