Starring Tommy Kirk, Del Moore, Peter Duyrea, and Robert Donner
Directed by Lee Sholem
Music and Lyrics by various
We move offshore to Southern California's Santa Catalina Island for our next summer party adventure. The Beach Party movies proved to be such a sensation, almost every studio in town tried to toss their own contracted teens into beach-bound drive-in fodder. Like American International, Crown International specialized in foreign releases, thrillers, and exploitation films made for outdoor and older theaters. How does their mystery beach party compare to the ones AIP released? To find out, let's start at a museum in Los Angeles where a robbery is in progress and find out...
The Story: Don Pringle (Kirk) finds himself in the middle of several wild adventures when he and his friends take the ferry to Santa Catalina Island for the summer. The thief, portly and brightly-dressed Larry (Jim Begg), brings the scroll to con-artists Arthur (Moore) and Anne (Sue Casey) Duval. They intend to exchange the Chinese scroll he stole for a fake and sell it to Greek art collector Dino Lakopolos (Lee Deane). Lakopolis, however, picks up on what's going on pretty quickly and sends his own man Borman (Peter Mamakos) to retrieve the scroll. Duval's son Tad (Duryea), Don, and their friends are determined to find the scroll themselves and return it to its rightful place in the museum.
Meanwhile, Don falls for a frigid European beauty (Ulla Stromstedt) who already has a hunk of a boyfriend (Lyle Waggoner), his friend Charlie Moss (Brian Draper) attracts every girl from miles around, Charlie's sister Tina (Venita Wolf) develops a crush on Don, and an agent named Fingers (Donner) who is also after the scroll keeps ending up on his face or in the water.
The Song and Dance: Mystery Science Theater 3000 covered this early in their second season. Even they had a hard time arguing with some aspects of this. Little Richard may have looked stoned, but his random appearance brought genuine talent and excitement to the first half. I do give them credit for attempting some originality. Even AIP never had Frankie and Annette dealing with art thieves and heist capers. It does make for an action-packed second half as everyone, from the kids to Duval and Larry to Lakopolos' goon Borman, goes after the scroll. I also toss out kudos to the creative animated opening credits that are pretty darn cute.
Favorite Number: Little Richard seems a little too laid-back as he comes down to the kids on the ferry to announce it's time for a "Scuba Party," to the point where Joel and the robots wonder if he ingested a few slightly less-than-legal substances before filming began. Rock group the Cascades were on the verge of breaking up when they announced "There's a New World" while the kids gyrate wildly on the boat. Carol Connors joins the Cascades to tell the kids about "The Book of Love" during a concert at the docks. Mary Wells sings the ballad "Never Steal Anything Wet" over the beginning and end credits.
Trivia: The ferry boat the kids partied on was, indeed, the real S.S Catalina that took people from LA to Santa Catalina Island from 1924 to 1975. It transported more passengers than any ship in history before being retired in 1975. It passed back and forth between California and Mexico before it broke free of its moorings in 1997 and ran aground. The owners abandoned it for a decade before they finally broke it up for scrap in 2009.
What I Don't Like: I'm afraid you need the jokes from Joel, Crow, and Tom Servo to make some sense of the strange and dull plot. The three main stories have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, and Kirk is clearly bored. The musical numbers are even more shoehorned in, without even the vague attempts at plot relevance in the AIP films. Fingers the agent was likely an attempt at a random Buster Keaton pantomime character (as in Beach Blanket Bingo), but while Donner proved to be an adept comedian in later TV shows like Mork & Mindy, he's no Buster Keaton.
The Big Finale: Only if you're a really, really huge fan of Kirk, the Beach Party movies, or the early Joel seasons of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Home Media: Can be found on DVD with three other MS3K episodes skewering Crown International movies and solo on streaming.
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