The trashy teen beach comedy didn’t reach its peak until the 1970s and 80s when nudity and frank sex jokes could make it to the screen. Bad jokes and breasts are one of those perfect combinations in life, like peanut butter and jelly. They belong together. They enrich each other. Together, they keep at least half of the audience still watching.
In the Frankie and Annette days though, good stuff like that wasn’t allowed, which is why these films all suck. I’m talking serious endurance tests here.
Not that they didn’t try to get raunchy in their own little ways. Director William Asher does his best to keep Annette Funicello’s abundant chest region on display in as many shots as he can. He goes for the bathing suit cleavage whenever possible. Meanwhile, in scenes that call for more classy attire, Annette sports the kind of bras that could put out your eye. Sharp points jutting WAY out there. The classic teepee style. It looks like two Sioux Indian families have settled inside of her top.
Every boy at the drive-in in 1965 noticed, I have no doubt.
Meanwhile the only really racy joke here is the one in which the dumb guy of the gang Jody McCrea (the towering son of actor Joel McCrea) falls in love with a pretty blonde real-life mermaid (Marta Kristen) and in the middle of him touching her so that he can measure her for a dress, she begins to swoon, enjoying the contact, which gets him worked up, too.
He asks her, “Do you know about the birds and the bees?”
“No”, she says.
“Well, I better get out of here or you’re going to find out.”
Naughty, naughty, William Asher.
As for the story, it’s the same as all of the beach party movies. Frankie and Annette are a couple whose relationship ends up on the rocks over some interlopers. In this case, it’s because a fledgling pop star (Linda Evans, future star of 80s TV soap opera Dynasty) shows up on the beach shaking up the scene with publicity stunts for her new album release. She pretends to fall out of a plane and be rescued. Okay, whatever.
In the middle of this is a sky-diving couple who are a part of the gag. The girl (redhead Deborah Walley) falls smitten over Frankie Avalon at first sight; the guy (John Ashley) gets jealous so he comes on to Annette in reaction.
Real-life skydiving footage shows up in there, presumably because producers Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson got a hold of it for cheap and decided to build the plot of the movie around it.
The result is best descrbed as a bunch of who cares? and so what?
Not even the songs are good.
The best thing that you have to grasp onto here is the absurdity of it all, and that includes Timothy Carey playing a genuine murderous psychopath who doesn’t seem to know that he’s in a lightweight Frankie and Annette flick. Carey’s a complete nutcase here, bless him.
My favorite line comes late in the film after Frankie and Annette skydive together and pull their chords a little late, which results in a rough landing.
After they land safely, one of the background guys gets hold of him and says “Hey, Frankie, skydiving’s groovy, but let’s stick to surfing.”
I love the way he says it. It’s so unconvincing and I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to steal it in my daily life.
Without actually skydiving or surfing.