Ignored by the Academy and Still Oscar Worthy!
So anyway, I was once again channel surfing at O-dark-thirty this morning and I chanced upon one of Mutant Surfing’s favorite movies, Bikini Beach. This 1964 cult classic from, the guys who launched that Jack Nicholson fella’s film career, American International Pictures embodies just about every aspect of the 60′s culture that we like so much!
How this fine example of film making was overlooked for recognition is beyond us. It was one eight films that brought to prominence the beach, car and surf culture of that time period (and yes, we are fully aware of the differences between the surfing lifestyle portrayed in an AIP flick as compared the Bruce Brown films). This alone should have met whatever that unwritten “social relevance” requirement is that Hollywood seems to embrace. It even made fun of the British music invasion.
It had a tour de force of stars and interesting characters. Frankie (buy my health products) Avalon as “Frankie” and “Potato Bug”; Annette (God bless her, still fighting M/S last we heard) as “Dee Dee”; a “G” rated Don Rickles as “Big Drag”; Keenan Wynn as the stodgy “Harvey Huntington Honeywagon III”; Harvey Lembeck as Von Zipper (hey, that would make a good name for a band), a parody of Marlon Brando in the Wild One; plus Martha Hyer, John Astley, Meredith MacRae, and Elizabeth Montgomery’s voice. Not to mention cameos by Gary Usher, Mickey Dora and Boris Karloff with a nod to Vincent Price. How much more could you ask for?
Special effects? People loved Haley Mills in a dual role three years earlier. Why not Frankie as both “Frankie” and “Potato Bug”? Maybe it was because her father was an actor.
Musical entertainment, you say? Besides Frankie and Annette, how ’bout Donna Loren, The Exciters, The Pyramids in all their baldness, that trailblazer of surf music?…Little Stevie Wonder and, in all her go-go dancing glory, Candy Johnson!
Action? How about the dragsters with their blown Chrysler hemis at a time when a sub-eight second e.t. was the zenith for the quarter mile? Or, Von Zipper being chased in a go-kart. Or, Big Drag ridin’ his Trojan mini-bike? Or, Deadhead doing nuthin’ wearing his hillbilly crash helmet?
Sadly though, Hollywood always seems to prefer nominating depressing (to say the least) movies, About Schmidt immediately comes to mind (a non-AIP role played by that same Jack Nicholson fella), for its highest honors. Too bad.
Bikini Beach can’t help but leave you smiling at its end. No question about it! So, see it when you have the chance.
Sphere: Related Content
