This blog was begun Friday night, March 6th :
Sorry I missed you yesterday, I know I've been missing a lot of blogs so far this year. It's been due first to Pearl's illness in January and since then to adjustments in my work schedule. When I'm off I have plenty of time to write, but I've been back on the job since Thursday morning, which means I am on my new 21 hour workday for the next two weeks. I bought a Blu-Ray player last Monday to use here at the house, and I was hoping to have it hooked up by last night so I could watch movies (and thus review them for the blog), but I didn't know about something called an HDMI cable. I'm sure that you do know what one is, but I am a non-technophile. I don't keep up with this stuff, and the last time I hooked anything up (in 2008!), it was a regular dvd player that used good ol' RCA cable. Last night I opened the box to the Blu-Ray machine and was all set to plug it in when I saw it had not come with a cable, and the one it needed was HDMI, so now I've gotta make sure I know what type to buy. The ports on the Blu-Ray and Pearl's tv appear to be two different sizes. I hate dealing with this kind of stuff, and I know it's no big deal but at this point in my life I just want something I can plug in and play.
I'm an Alzheimer's caregiver and I don't have time for electronic shenanigans, lol.
Fortunately we do have TCM here at Pearl's, and they came through in a pinch tonight with "Beach Blanket Bingo"(1965), a title I remember from my childhood when I lived just around the corner from where I am now writing. Back in those days, the "beach movie" was a popular motif and the genre's biggest stars were Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, who according to IMDB made five such movies together. "Beach Blanket Bingo" is a catchy and memorable title, and though I'd never have sought it out, say, in a library search, I decided to take a chance tonight, just to have something to watch and review. And hey! - it turned out to be a lot of fun, pure hijinx all the way.
Frankie plays the leader of a group of teenage surfers. Annette is his girl. They just wanna have fun in the sun and are doing so at Leo Carrillo State Beach, when a small plane flies overhead. A skydiver jumps out, performs an acrobatic freefall and parachutes into the water before swimming ashore. Talk about making a big splash, haha. The skydiver turns out to be a beautiful female pop singer (a young Linda Evans), who did the jump as part of a publicity stunt dreamed up by her smarmy manager (the one and only Paul Lynde). The surfers, including Frankie Avalon, are instantly smitten with Evans, which in Frankie's case doesn't go over too well with Annette. He swears he's just admiring her courage and daring in performing the jump and to prove it to Annette, he signs up at the local skydiving school, run by none other than Don Rickles.
The first thing to mention is that we know something about Linda Evans that Frankie, Annette and the surfers don't know. The second thing is that Annette doesn't buy Frankie's story about admiring Evans' only for her skydiving ability, so she starts up a fling with the school's pilot. It's just harmless flirtation, mid-60s style (with all the inherant lingo), but it's intended to pay Frankie back by making him jealous.
Meanwhile, the head of a local biker gang also has designs on Evans. He fancies himself as a Malibu version of Marlon Brando in "The Wild One", but - as played by comic actor Harvey Lembeck - he's more doofus than dangerous. Paul Lynde, Evan's manager, wants to make her a Hot Item, so he calls in a favor from a columnist friend of his (Earl Wilson) to write her up as the New Pop Sensation in town. In service of this, he also stages a record release party for her at a rented beachfront mansion. He wants to create a "scene", so he invites all the surfers to attend, promising free food and drink. They're the kind of kids he wants to attract as fans for Evans : hip, energetic, clean-cut and most of all, music lovers who will spread the word.
The problem is that Harvey Lembeck and his gang of goofy outlaws (including notorious weirdo actor Timothy Carey) are gonna try to crash the party. What will Paul Lynde do if that happens? Also, will Frankie go through with his pledge to make a skydive, and is he doing it to impress Annette Funicello or Linda Evans the pop singer? Will Annette fight back by getting tighter with pilot, and will he wind up trying to sabotage Frankie's jump, in order to steal Annette away?
You can probably wager a "yes"! to all of these questions, because the whole movie is about boys and girls and good clean fun. In the middle of all this, there is a subplot romance between a tall, dimwit surfer known as Bonehead, and a gorgeous blonde who swears she's a Mermaid. Is there a connection between her and Linda Evans? If so, what could it be?
Watch and find out. You might be surprised at how enjoyable this movie is, despite it's ham-handedness. The comedy is strictly of the wacky variety, it isn't subtle, but the story has so much panache, so much zip, that you'll find yourself hanging ten the entire way. It never lags, that's for sure, there's always another setup on the way, as certain as the next wave. Buster Keaton is even on hand for a cameo as a bikini-chasing beachcomber. There are also songs by Frankie, Frankie and Annette, Linda Evans (with overdubbed vocals) and Donna Loren, another teen singer who used to perform on shows like "Hullabaloo".
I wasn't expecting much from "Beach Blanket Bingo". I just needed something to watch, and wasn't sure I'd make it through to the end, but after about 20 minutes I was having a blast, and so even though it's pure pop culture cheese, I'm gonna give it Two Big Thumbs Up, because it brings back memories of a great era, the early 1960s, and does so in high style. Now I'm gonna seek out the other Frankie and Annette Beach Movies (if only I can get my Blu-Ray player hooked up, haha).
Well, thanks again to TCM for coming through at the last minute. Hopefully I can find the correct HDMI cord in the next day or two so we can program our own movies as usual, but we sure could've done worse than "Beach Blanket Bingo" in the meantime. :):)
Well, it's now 10pm Saturday Night, which means it's really 11pm due to the time change. I love daylight savings time, but as far as sleep is concerned, I like "Fall Back" a heck of a lot better than "Spring Forward". That goes double because I've gotta be in church at 8am, which will really be 7am. And, I've gotta have Pearl ready to go, too. This will be my first time taking her to church by myself since she got out of the hospital. Wish me luck and I'll see ya there, and then back here too, tomorrow at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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