Thursday, October 20, 2022

The Ghost In the Invisible Bikini

American International Pictures, 1966
Starring Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, Patsy Kelly, and Basil Rathbone
Directed by Don Weiss
Music and Lyrics by Guy Hemric and Jerry Styner

We get a little spookier with our next film, the last in the Beach Party series. By this point, Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon had bailed out. Avalon wanted to get into more serious acting; Funicello wanted to spend time with her family. AIP threw the rest of their Beach Partiers into another genre teens were into this era. Horror, which had been replaced by more serious sci-fi for much of the 50's, made a comeback in the late 50's and early 60's as older films began to play on the late-late movie and in revival houses. How do the Beach Party semi-regulars somehow get mixed up with a ghost trying to help his descendants gain his fortune look today? Let's begin with those ghosts, Hiram Stokey (Boris Karloff) and his long-dead lover Cecily (Susan Hart) as they try to decide how to get him into heaven, and find out...

The Story: Hiram can only gain access to Heaven and regain his youth if he does one good deed in 24 hours. He sends Cecily to help his remaining family members, Chuck (Kirk), Lili (Walley), and Myrtle (Kelly) inherit his estate, before his smarmy lawyer Reginald Ripper (Rathbone) can get his hands on it. Myrtle even invites her huge son Bobby (Aron Kincaid) for a pool party and sleepover. Bobby brings along a bus filled with all his friends, including his girlfriend Vicki (Nancy Sinatra). Ripper retaliates by sending his gorgeous daughter Sinestra (Quinn O'Hara) to seduce Bobby. 

Meanwhile, Ripper's goon J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White) tries his hardest to scare or kill Chuck, Lili, and Myrtle, but Cecily's ghostly magic keeps him from succeeding. He's joined by Princess Yolanda (Bobbi Shaw) and her inept Native friend Chicken Feather (Benny Rubin). They're supposed to be terrorizing the kids, but they mainly just unleash their gorilla Monstro (George Barrows) on the group. Harry Von Zipper (Harvey Lembek) and his biker gang follow the comely Yolanda and end up sticking around the mansion to find their own share of Stokey's fortune.

The Song and Dance: This is really strange, even by Beach Party standards. Some of the cast did throw themselves whole-heartedly into the lunacy. Hart has a wonderful time in her black velvet bikini, causing unearthly antics among the flesh-and-blood party-goers. Patsy Kelly has the most fun of the adults as eccentric Myrtle, who holds a seance the first night there and insists on joining the kids when they go after the treasure. Rathbone makes a decent sleazy lawyer, and O'Hara gets some mildly amusing bits when she takes off her glasses and attempts to seduce inanimate objects. Lembeck and his crew also have some good moments, especially in the second half, when they're trying to find that treasure. 

Favorite Number: Nancy Sinatra gyrates her way through "Geronimo" with the Bobby Fuller Four after the kids arrive and the pool party gets underway. Italian exchange student Piccola Pupa (a real-life discovery of Danny Thomas) insists that the girls "Stand Up and Fight" for their men when Vicki is clearly upset over Sinsestra's attention to Bobby. 

Speaking of Sinestra, the best number goes to O'Hara. Blind as a bat without her glasses, she ends up trying to put the moves on a suit of armor. Her wriggling and breathy baby voice somehow manages to work. "Don't Try to Fight It, Baby" gets to the armor so badly, it's steaming by the end of the song!

Trivia: This is the only official Beach Party movie to not actually be set on a beach, and the only one to not feature Frankie Avalon or Annette Funicello. 

Buster Keaton originally signed to play Chicken Feather, but he declined due to illness; he passed away in February 1966.

What I Don't Like: It's obvious this movie kind of got thrown together piecemeal. Hart and Karloff's scenes were filmed and added later; they, Yolanda and Chicken Feather, and Lembeck and his gang all feel like they came from three different movies. Walley and Kirk have nothing to play other than some mild flirting and barely interact with the rest of the cast besides Kelly and Rathbone. They're bland and useless until the end, when Kirk does manage to help save Walley from another buzzsaw. Sinatra and Kincaid have even less to do; Sinatra is barely in the film, and Kincaid is a dull block of wood with little personality. There's also Chicken Feather being a goofy Indian stereotype that may offend a few folks nowadays.

The Big Finale: As with the other Beach Party movies, you know what to expect here. If you're a fan of horror from this era or liked the other movies in this franchise, you'll probably enjoy this one, too. If you didn't enjoy the others, this one won't change your mind. 

Home Media: The original double-DVD release with fellow 60's horror spoof Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow is out of print and incredibly expensive at the moment. You're better off looking for this on streaming.

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