William Asher (1921–2012)

"Bikini Beach" was the third film in the AIP beach party series. The plot for this silly but entertaining entry has dastardly Harvey Huntington Honeywagon III (Keenan Wynn) and his chimp Clyde (Janos Prohanska) campaigning against the "sexually preoccupied" teens of Bikini Beach and their fun-living antics. Wholesome Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) are more concerned about English pop star "Potato Bug" (Avalon in a dual role) and Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck), leader of The Rats bike gang who, along with Honeywagon, has a dislike of surfers. Big Drag (Don Rickles) is on hand, however, to sort things out via the power of drag racing. "Bikini Beach" is snappy but simplistic brain-free nonsense, that unbelievably took three scriptwriters (Director William Asher, Leo Townsend and Robert Dillon) to scribe. Asher's directorial approach is to ensure everyone hams it up, while giving the whole thing a wide-eyed innocent charm and ensuring that the plot skips along at a speedy, happy-to-lucky pace. Frankie Avalon does well in his dual role and particularly so as "Potato Bug", a decent satire on The Beatles who were hitting it big at that time in America. Annette Funicello has less to do but is charming enough, while Harvey Lembeck hams it up mercilessly as the thick-as-a-brick biker boss. Boris Karloff turns up towards the end of the film in a small cameo role, with The Pyramids, The Exciters and Stevie Wonder as Little Stevie Wonder providing the musical backbeat. It goes without saying that "Bikini Beach" is stupid and derivative, but at the same time it is full of innocent laughs and tons of bikini-clad babes. It is always entertainingly engaging and full to the brim with AIP's fluffy teen pizazz.… (mehr)