Muscle Beach Party/Ski Party
by William Asher
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Annette Funicello, Don Rickles, Frankie Avalon, John Ashley, Luciana PaluzziDirector: William Asher
Cinematographer: Harold E. Wellman
Writer: William Asher
Editor: Eve Newman
Producer: James H. Nicholson
Producer: Robert Dillon
Writer: Robert Dillon
Producer: Samuel Z. Arkoff
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Muscle Beach Party/Ski Party
Movie Review: Not without a RING, you don't!
Summary: 5 Stars
Let's begin with some ground rules: Annette Funicello, America's Sweetheart, is beloved by all, but especially me. Lest anyone construe any remark made by me as "criticism", and then decide to chime in with their own digs at Ms. Funicello, rest assured this will result in being punched in the face, by me. So, on we go.
"Muscle Beach Party" is the second installment in the wildly popular "Beach" series of movies of the 1960's, each one made for about five dollars by director William "Bud" Asher, creator of such fine television shows as "Return to Green Acres" and "I Dream of Jeanie: 15 Years Later". As in the first film, "Beach Party", Frankie Avalon is "Frankie" and Annette Funicello is "Dee Dee", young lovers who enjoy nothing as much as a good surf weekend.
The movie opens with Frankie and Dee Dee leading a caravan of jalopies piled high with middle-aged Hollywood extras playing teenagers on their way to the ocean for some sun, sand and surfing. No sooner do they arrive than Dee Dee starts harping on Frankie for not having any ambition in life other than surfing. At the beginning of their SURFING VACATION.
In the first shocking twist, the boys and girls are all sleeping together in the SAME HOUSE. Luckily, sensible Dee Dee is armed with a clothesline and an antique quilt, to block off the "girls area" (which is tastefully provided with frilly curtains and soft lighting) from the "boys area" (which looks like a sub-saharan mud shack). A couple of the "faster" girls bristle at Dee Dee's prudishness and try to sneak over to the boys' side, only to find that ALL the boys have already fallen asleep! Ha ha, aren't boys stupid?
Next day, all the kids head out to stand on their surfboards while someone sprays water on them and a movie of the ocean plays in the background. Their fun is disrupted by the arrival of "Jack Fanny" (artfully played by Don Rickles) and his "Muscle Boys", who are all wearing pink square-cut swim trunks with matching capes. Pink. Capes. Fanny. What this movie could use is some more sub-text.
Also, there's an Italian heiress on a boat offshore, who has something to do with Buddy Hackett. I'm not sure exactly what, I nodded off for awhile. The heiress flies a helicopter over to the beach and picks up the head muscle man, "Flex Martian" (Peter Lupus of "Mission: Impossible" fame, who would later doff his pink trunks for Playgirl ) and takes him back to the boat, causing no end of worry for Mr. Fanny.
(Attention smart-alecks: I KNOW a vessel at sea is called a "ship", and a "boat" is a vessel in inland waters. Lay off.)
Frankie, still miffed at Dee Dee, heads off for a late-night surf with a LIT TORCH IN HIS HAND (I'm still not quite sure what that was supposed to accomplish - to scare off sharks? - or the logistics of riding a surfboard while holding a flaming piece of driftwood. ) While he's gone, Dee Dee takes the opportunity to sing a plaintive teen ballad. Now, I'm the first to tell you that Annette never had the strongest singing voice, but honestly, it sounds like she was standing in another room with a tin can clamped over her mouth when they recorded this one. Help a girl out, sound engineers!
Frankie returns to shore to enjoy a smoke, just in time to meet the Italian heiress, who hears him singing, forgets all about the captive muscle man she has holed away on her yacht, and decides to fall in love with Frankie. Oh, and arrange a recording contract for him. Now, Frankie Avalon is reasonably attractive, I GUESS, but I've seen Peter Lupus' Playgirl spread, and take it from me, she's a FOOL!
Anyway, action shifts back and forth between a teen hangout run by Morey Amsterdam, where Dee Dee and Frankie's respective posses engage in a sort of proto-"serving" of each other, and Jack Fanny's Home for Wayward Boys, where the muscle men are now wearing tank tops with their names - Rock, Biff, Tug, Sulk, Riff, Mash, and Clod - emblazoned with rhinestones on their chests. I might also mention that there are two muscle GIRLS, "Lisa" and "Flo", who are treated with contempt throughout the film.
Of course, everything works out okay in the end, with Frankie giving up fame and sex with a foreigner, for the promise of someday getting it on with Dee Dee, who has the biggest breasts on the beach, but isn't about to give it without a ring on her finger. `Atta girl!
The cast is filled out by a bevy of beach party regulars, including John Ashley as "Johnny", who is always much more respectful of Dee Dee that bad boy Frankie; Jody McCrea as "Deadhead", so named not because he is a tripped-out Grateful Dead groupie, but rather an abject moron; Valora Noland as "Animal" - one can only wonder where THAT nickname came from; and Candy Johnson as "Candy", who looks about 60 years old, has the beer gut and stick legs of a boozehound, wears a pants-suit made of what looks like red cheerleading pom-poms, and STILL manages to drive the kids into paroxysms of ecstasy when she does the frug on the beach.
The real thrill of any beach movie is seeing what big stars are down on their luck enough to take the job. Besides the aforementioned Rickles, Hackett, and Amsterdam, we are "treated" to the dulcet tones of the ever-present Dick Dale and the Dell Tones. You may think that all beach music of the sixties is happy and perky, a la the Beach Boys. If you do, you've never heard Dick Dale. His voice sounds like he's just spent the weekend smoking clove cigarettes and drinking absinthe, and he looks like somebody's "cool dad" who decided to spend the weekend with "the gang".
A young pre-"Grizzly Adams" Dan Haggerty is one of the Muscle Men, "Riff". Despite being shaved and oiled, one can see the beginnings of the beefy good looks that would make him King of the Wilderness.
Peter Lorre plays some sort of ex-muscle man who creeps around and spies on people. Apparently he died four days after this movie premiered. From shame, one would guess.
Last but not least, this movie introduces us for the first time to "Little Stevie Wonder", who serves the dual role of being the only black person AND the only person with a physical disability on the beach. Little Stevie, backed by the Dell Tones, sings a joyous Gospel-influenced number that the white children go crazy for - at least, they go crazy for it during instrumental breaks. While Stevie is actually SINGING, they return and sit politely in their seats, patting their knees in time to the music. Just like Talent Round Up Day on the Mickey Mouse Club!
Now, take the above review, substitute "Annette Funicello" with "Dwayne Hickman", "Little Stevie Wonder" with "James Brown", "beach" with "ski lodge", "Italian heiress" with "Yvonne Craig", and "Jack Fanny" with "Frankie and Dwayne dressing in drag", and you've got the gist. Annette has a cameo as a sex-ed teacher (!), but otherwise the reason to own this disk is for the beach-party side.
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