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MGM's earlier DVDs, most of which were 16:9 enhanced, helped a lot, but Olive Films' new Blu-ray of Beach Blanket Bingo, as well as other ‘60s AIP titles released by Olive and a few other labels, are at long last permitting interested parties to see them as they were meant to be seen. And in Beach Blanket Bingo, the closest these teens-in-their-twenties come to strong drink is Coca-Cola.įor decades the only way to see any of the Beach Party movies, all shot in 2.35:1 Panavision, was via terrible, grainy and discolored panned-and-scanned video masters. These kids weren't worried about being drafted and shipped off to Vietnam they weren't experimenting with LSD, or fretting about the Kennedy Assassination or racial strife. ![]() The musical aspects were wildly uneven, too, with great talent like "Little" Stevie Wonder and Dick Dale and the Del-Tones mixing it up with more innocuous, sometimes dubious talent.īut there's also a beguiling sense of fun to these pictures, too: carefree teens surfing and (in Beach Blanket Bingo's case) skydiving, and generally having a blast on the beach. Accept for special, extended "cameo" appearances by Buster Keaton in some of these films, they're full of broad, labored, and mostly unfunny slapstick done in a manner that makes Gilligan's Island seem extraordinarily sophisticated by comparison. ![]() Though technically comedies, AIP was all thumbs in this department. Admittedly, these kinds of movies demand a non-critical movie-watching adjustment. Seen today, the Beach Party movies are like quaint, ancient anthropological artifacts of a more innocent age. Most of these star Frankie Avalon and/or Annette Funicello. A few other AIP films, notably Sergeant Deadhead (1965) and Fireball 500 (1966) also nearly qualify. Ski Party (1965) usually isn't included but it plays a lot more like an "official" Beach Party movie than Ghost in the Invisible Bikini does. Official lists usually include The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), but nearly all the series' cast is absent from that feeble entry. The movies were Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, Pajama Party (all 1964), Beach Blanket Bingo, and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (both 1965). As a drive-in movie craze, it petered out quickly: six, seven, or eight pictures (depending upon how you count them) released, with one exception, over a two-year period, from August 1963 to July 1965. She has shown up in short films like Ageless (2016) and Breaking Point (2018) and in longer form fare like Inspirit (2018) and The Vamps Next Door (2019).Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) is the high-water mark, the apex, of American International Pictures' (AIP) "Beach Party" film series. These days, Marta still makes the occasional onscreen appearance. Are we seeing double - or in the case of all those boobies, quadruple? Marta plays an actress sharing a home with Kathy Kersh in Hollywood, but eventually, they share much more than an apartment. Despite her unremarkable career, Marta did have a memorable lesbo scene in the obscure film The Gemini Affair (1974). ![]() Aside from getting lusty in outer space, Marta appeared in a 1961 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called "Bang! You're Dead" and films like Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), Terminal Island (1973), and Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). We sure wanted to get lost in her space - the space between her legs! Born Birgit Annalisa Rusanen in Oslo, Norway, this Finnish/German beauty never quite made it as a movie star. We watched to see big, busty blonde Marta Kristen cavorting through the universe as lost spacegirl Judy Robinson. Let's face it - we didn't watch this sci-fi show for the special effects or to hear the psychotic ramblings of Dr. The show aired on network television from 1965 to 1968, but most guys became fans once it played endlessly in afternoon reruns. Skin will never forget the outer-space-family-Robinson hit series Lost in Space.
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