Frankie & Annette MGM Movie Legends Collection (Beach Blanket Bingo / How to Stuff a Wild Bikini / Beach Party / Bikini Beach / Fireball 500 / Thunder Alley / Muscle Beach Party / Ski Party)
by William Asher
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DVD details
Actor: Annette Funicello, Dorothy Malone, Frankie Avalon, Robert CummingsDirector: William Asher
Brand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 755 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-10
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Frankie & Annette MGM Movie Legends Collection (Beach Blanket Bingo / How to Stuff a Wild Bikini / Beach Party / Bikini Beach / Fireball 500 / Thunder Alley / Muscle Beach Party / Ski Party)
DVD Review: These films are not as much fun as I remember them
Summary: 2 Stars
This box set contains eight movies produced by American International Pictures (AIP) from 1963-67, five of them "Beach Party" movies--four of them starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (BEACH PARTY, MUSCLE BEACH PARTY, BIKINI BEACH, BEACH BLANKET BINGO) and one starring Annette, with Frankie in an extended cameo (HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI). There's a Beach Party offshoot in SKI PARTY, starring Frankie, but with Annette in a cameo, and two southern-set stock car racing dramas, one starring Frankie and Annette (FIREBALL 500) and one starring Annette, but no Frankie (THUNDER ALLEY). Frankie's fellow South Philly teen idol, Fabian, co-stars in both of the racing movies. Given this lineup, I'm more than a little annoyed that two of the better Beach Party spin-offs, PAJAMA PARTY (1964), which starred Annette but no Frankie, and SERGEANT DEADHEAD (1965), which starred Frankie but no Annette, were not included here. They would have been a better fit than the two racing movies.
BEACH PARTY, the oldest film here, is the only one of the eight that truly holds up well. It's got the strongest plot, some interesting adult characters in an anthropologist and his pretty assistant, played by Hollywood veterans Robert Cummings and Dorothy Malone, and the best music and song score of any of these films. The other Beach Party films don't age well at all. The comedy isn't terribly funny anymore and the songs are generally awful. The only pleasures come from some of the guest stars, particularly silent comedy great Buster Keaton, who appears here in BEACH BLANKET BINGO and HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI. Don Rickles is in three of the films, but he's only allowed to be funny in BEACH BLANKET BINGO, in a scene where he does his classic insult routine. There are random musical guest stars who pop up out of nowhere, do a quick song, and disappear again, including Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Lesley Gore, and the Kingsmen. There are also surprise closing cameos in the first three Beach films provided by horror stars then appearing in AIP's Edgar Allan Poe cycle. And I must give a special shout-out to gorgeous Irene Tsu, who plays Frankie's native girlfriend during his stint with the Naval Reserve in the South Pacific in HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI and has a bigger part than he does.
The racing films need to be judged a little differently. The weaker of the two, FIREBALL 500, with Frankie, Annette, Fabian, and Harvey Lembeck, is set in deep south moonshine country and not one of these actors belongs there. THUNDER ALLEY, on the other hand, is actually kind of interesting and is easily the most watchable film in the set after BEACH PARTY. Directed by Richard Rush, it has a good feel for its stock car/stunt driving milieu, is a bit edgier than the other seven films, and throws in a love triangle involving Fabian, Annette, and sexy Diane McBain. Both of these films would actually have been better served as Elvis Presley vehicles and would have been better than Elvis' own films of the era. THUNDER ALLEY, in fact, features two of the cast, McBain and Warren Berlinger, from SPINOUT (1966), Elvis' own car racing film of the year before. Put Elvis in the Fabian role and give him a few songs, and put in Deborah Walley, also from SPINOUT (and Frankie's girl in SKI PARTY), who would have been more suitable in the Annette role, and we would have had a perfect Elvis movie. (I can't help but wonder, though, what an Elvis-and-Annette pairing would have been like.)
More Frankie & Annette MGM Movie Legends Collection (Beach Blanket Bingo / How to Stuff a Wild Bikini / Beach Party / Bikini Beach / Fireball 500 / Thunder Alley / Muscle Beach Party / Ski Party) reviews:
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Description of Frankie & Annette MGM Movie Legends Collection (Beach Blanket Bingo / How to Stuff a Wild Bikini / Beach Party / Bikini Beach / Fireball 500 / Thunder Alley / Muscle Beach Party / Ski Party)
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