scm-84771 You would have had to have grown up with these incredibility corny movies to find them even mildly interesting. I did. But the one take-away was when the native girl says to Frankie " here on the island, we have a saying 'if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with". Now, did I hear that correctly? Sure enough, next scene, 'Cassandra" says the exact same line at the beach party. Now did Stephen Stills really get this line from Billy Preston for his first solo hit single? "Love the One You're With" Or did he watch this movie five years earlier and forget where he first heard this line?

bluegreenbluegreen I watched it on tcm and enjoyed it. Minimizing Frankie and Annette is OK with me. I watched these movies as a kid, when they ran on LA TV, less than 10 years after they were made. F and A were the worst part.. I thought it was clever and about time to put frankie on a distant island.I remembered Buster Keaton's witch doctor .. and the pretty island girl, and the torpedo juice gag.. and liked them just as well as I did back then.I think it was a nice way to show kids a real actor, in the midst of this froth. And not in any way demeaning. A shaman, an old man with magic powers and mystery... whats wrong with that.. it's fitting. I loved the character then and now. He has his own set, his supporting players, and reccurs through-out the movie. At no point is he upstaged or interrupted by the youthful players.But Elizabeth Montgomery's cameo was indulgent and bugged me then even as now.Eric Van Zipper was great then, and even now a delight. One of the "mice" is a quite pretty blonde called "puss".. she's so serious- it plays well.Some-one mentioned musical "book-numbers".. I thought that was kind of cool.. and the fun part- setting it up, moving from dialogue to song to number.. was there, while the bad part- the music itself- was mercifully truncated. It played fine by me.Speeding up the race scenes was something borrowed from the greats of silent film... and made fun something that might have been tedious..I'm reminded now of the courtship motorcycle ride with Annette and the male lead.. that Was tedious.."Bonehead" is a wonderful character actor.. loved the girl sent by the witch doctor.. the clumsey gag was good..I liked the way the race was previewed by the sabatour explaining to Van Zipper how it would go down, and then we recognize it, before it happens, and enjoy it more that way. We know there is a tiger in the pit.By the way, no-one mentioned the gay innuendo involving the tiger. The blonde mouse says she's not OK with a woman being eaten by a tiger.. and the heavy says "well this tiger only likes to eat boys..." later, when Von Zipper is spared by the tiger, he exclaims.."I've never been so insulted..." Also, the island girl squeezes torpedo juice from a very phallic looking torpedo. The torpedo enters the screen nose first, with a shocking imagery.What else.. Liked the suits on the beach... nice juxtaposition.. and Micky Rooney was fun, and has nothing to be ashamed of in this, either. Contrast it with his and Buddy Hacket's dreary bit in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World".Yeah, it's sophisticated- and I liked it. I'd of rated it higher, but I didn't want to give you the wrong idea.

keesha45 You know it had to end eventually, but this put the wraps on the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello team in the beach party series of pictures that defined the genre. Although far from the best of the series, it still had some pretty good parts. Buster Keaton had a memorable role as the witch doctor and his daughter, the witch, turns out to be Liz Montgomery, who was on hiatus from her BEWITCHED series, and put in an appearance as the nose-twitching witch she also played in her husband Bill Asher's sitcom. Besides those two actors and the always entertaining Harvey Lembeck as Von Zipper, there are some fairly good bits to recommend here. Beverly Adams stands out as the eye candy and the Kingsmen perform a couple of songs. The claymation credits in the opening was a nice touch and the climactic motorcycle race was mildly amusing. Actually, the musical numbers inserted into the plot made sense, but could have been performed better. Taken together, it wasn't half bad as a way to end what had been a pretty entertaining film series. Like most series that were cranked out by Hollywood, it has its pluses and minuses, but, generally speaking, the series as a whole rates a thumbs up from me and would be worthwhile to both see and to own. Dale Roloff

Skragg Like Jackie19, it's nearly my least favorite of the beach movies, but luckily, that isn't much of an insult. Along with all the regular actors, there are the great guest actors. Buster Keaton's witch doctor (along with Bobbi Shaw's native girl) may not be the most enlightened image of a Polynesian, but he manages to be very funny in the part. (I'm sure plenty of people see these movies as a big, embarrassing step down for people like him, but I see no good reason why.) And of course, Irene Tsu as the girl who tries to tempt Frankie. Then, there's Len Lesser, who's just about as great a comical villain in this one as Timothy Carey is in Beach Blanket Bingo. And of course, Mickey Rooney. Someone mentioned the "touching her boob" bit that he gets away with, but one of his scenes also has a fairly funny gay joke. Rooney asks one of the surfers (someone in that scene alone) if he's seen the exciting girl that so much of the film is about, the one that all the boys are crazy about, and the character says in a lisping voice, "Certainly not!"