'BEACH BLANKET BINGO'......FRANKIE, MY DEAR, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN......

Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)   We could make all kinds of excuses for this post......claiming that only our forced quarantine would reduce us to watching this movie.........

               Aw, hell no.......we enjoyed it way back when.......and we still do.
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              Some movie reviewers, half-serious, half-snarky, declared this the quintessential beach party movie.......the best of the bunch.

              Although we lean toward the 1963 original, with its primal innocence and Vincent Price cameo, we kinda see their point.

               The is the beach party movie for people who'd never waste any precious time on any of the others.......it's the only beach party movie you'll ever need.

                Why?  It's overflowing with so much randomly placed stuff, it plays like a 1920's vaudeville show......with a younger cast in bathing suits and bikinis......

                There's sufers, skydivers, pop stars, press agents, the usual idiot bikers led by the series' resident moron Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck)...("I am my ideal").

                 You want more, you say?  How 'bout a mermaid (Marta Kristen), silent film star Buster Keaton, and the legendary all-around madman Timothy Carey, (the Nicolas Cage of the 50's and 60's), who somehow managed to finish the film without the cops called to escort him off the set....

                  Ooops , we almost forgot the ever-squabbling, ever-singing Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello......(as always, Annette's discreetly covered up in one piece bathing suits, so as not to break the morals clause in her still enforced Disney contract.....)

                 But what a sweet trip to a never-never land where all the beach party boys and girls share the same small split level house.......boys on the ground floor, girls on the upper deck balcony with a "Heaven's Above" sign draped across it.

                   And you'd better believe not even Frankie Avalon gets to ascend to the...uh  heavenly gates........

                  The closest anyone comes to experiencing romance here, of all people, is the beach gang's village idiot Bonehead (Jody McCrea) who strikes up a sweet meet-cute with the mermaid......(at our first packed-theatre showing of this film, the tween and teen audience adored these scenes.....if American International had made a 'Bonehead And The Mermaid' movie, it might have quadrupled 'Beach Blanket's grosses.....)

                 Let's move on to the other primary plot engines.......the beachers take up skydiving which leads to the expected rear projection shots of Frankie and Annette in mid-air, replacing the usual rear projection shots of Frankie and Annette on surf boards.......

                  Meanwhile, in comic villain-ville, Timothy Cary, who calls everyone 'Boobie', abducts the beautiful, brainless singing star Sugar Kane (Linda Evan)and spirits her away to his lair 'the Boobie Hatch'........where he plans to bisect her, silent-film style, with a huge circular saw,,,,,(or as Timothy puts it, "I got ideas. And they're all vile, baby!")

                 Speaking of silent films, we sat astounded at the sight of  69 year old Buster Keaton chasing a busty blonde down the beach......and vice versa.......what these two would do if they ever caught each other can only be left to the imagination

                   We could go on and on about our favorite moments (including insult comic Don Rickles screaming at Annette, "I never liked you!"), but let's just say we enjoyed  anice wide-awake dream re-visiting the beach brigade......

                    And in an era besieged by both a plague and the one-man human plague of Trump,         "Beach Blanket Bingo" offered 90 minutes of retro relief...3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)