So much average

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello get involved with skydiving on the beach - after "Bullets" Paul Lynde uses the sport to promote "Sugar Kane" Linda Evans. Frankie and Annette get into the sport, with Don Rickles' "Big Drop"; and, they try out skydivers Deborah Walley and John Ashley, too. Harvey Lembeck's "Eric Von Zipper" falls for "Sugar". "Bonehead" Jody McCrae meets and falls in love with Mermaid Marta Kirsten. Buster Keaton chases a bikini-clad young woman around.The music is lightly pleasant - especially when sounding like Brian Wilson's Beach Boys, as in "Cycle Set", for example. Mermaid Kirsten's was the storyline I found the most enchanting. Kirsten the Mermaid was on "Lost in Space" as Judy Robinson. Michael Nader could have had a bigger part. As far as the low points, it's difficult to pick one - there are so many weak elements of "Beach Blanket Bingo" - possibly, it's Eric Von Zipper's solo song. ** Beach Blanket Bingo (4/14/65) William Asher ~ Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Paul Lynde, Marta Kirsten

BEACH BLANKET BINGO is woeful from beginning to end! This idiotic junk has the beach party gang involved in skydiving AND kidnapping with neither plot-thread even remotely bearable. The opening musical number features a typical non-song lip-synched by Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, both of whom had to be sick to death of these movies by 1965. Avalon is particularly annoying bickering with Paul Lynde, who plays the proverbial adult "square." The final chase scene, shot in fast motion as if the filmmakers wanted to stop this nonsense as quickly as possible, is moronic. With the usual assortment of Z-grade talent: Harvey Lembeck, Deborah Walley, Jody McCrae and, in one of his last and most thankless appearances, Buster Keaton.

The era of cinema from 1958-66 saw a lot of what film critics called fluff movies. There was a long line of films from studios that featured teen idols and popular singers. While several became classics like The Beatle's A Hard Day's Night, many became forgotten as outdated light comedy with the occasional hidden adult humor. The entire era for T.V. and film were filled with this kind of stuff that may be funny for children but bore the heck out of adults.Frankie and Annette made quite a few of these Beach Party movies during the beach fad. Pretty much every one of them is the same story recycled with a few changes. This is just Frankie and Annette and friends having a good time while a B-level pop star uses the kids as a chance to gain publicity to advance her career while another one meets up with mythology come to life. Skydiving is also on the menu.The movie isn't bad and pretty much everyone comes out as likable: Frankie, Didi, Bonehead, and Havey Lembeck's painful go as Erich Von Zipper; an English-mangling German biker. Paul Lynde plays himself practically and actually is pretty good. Buster Keaton, however, is a tragedy. The greatest silent film star from the U.S. is reduced to playing a dirty old man. Don Rickles was cracking the same tired material in 1965 that he uses today. Still, the women look great, the guys actually look like they belong, and the songs are decent. If you've seen one Beach Party movie you've seen them all, but if you haven't seen one before, might as well be this one.

I hadn't seen this movie since I was a kid. I always sort of preferred a picture that preceded this one in the series with Bob Cummings as, I think, a Sociologist studying surfers in their natural habitat. Anyway, I recently ran into this one on cable. Fairly early on Eric Von Zipper and The Rats do their number (I don't recall the title) in which - not once, but twice - Von Zipper's lyric says "I am my ideal!" (This develops in the scene that follows into the running gag (or is it a leitmotif?) of Von Zipper calling Kandy Kane his 'idol' - referenced in earlier comments.) Then, in the very next scene, as Von Zipper and the Rats enter the nightclub, he says "Stand aside everyone, I take large steps!" My jaw dropped a bit. Both of these are direct quotes from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, which had opened a little over a year earlier on Broadway! Late in Act One Miles Gloriosus, a Roman Soldier (Ron Holgate) announces his entrance by shouting, from offstage: "Stand aside everyone, I take large steps!", which cues the music for his song, which includes the lyric "I am my ideal!" Is William Asher paying homage to Sondheim and Burt Shevelove (who wrote the book for FORUM)? Is it an inside joke? Or is it just plain old-fashioned plagiarism? Anyone?Another interesting (to me, at least) question: Is this where William Asher first saw/met Paul Lynde? Were the seeds for Uncle Arthur (Who would appear a couple of years later on BEWITCHED) planted in the sand of BEACH BLANKET BINGO??