Mickey Rooney joins the beach scene for this outing as a businessman promoting his product through a cross-country race. For a beach party movie, there's very little surfing going on here, and Frankie appears in studio sequences where he's stuck on a South Seas island (surrounded by gorgeous babes). he's worried about Annette being faithful, so he enlists a witch doctor (Keaton), who sends a sea-bird to watch her, in exchange for "torpedo juice" which he drinks to great comical effect. Lembeck and the rest of the crew appear, but Harvey in particular has not been as well-written as usual in this one, and his bit is starting to feel really worn out (jumped the shark, in the modern vernacular). Hickman is strictly 2nd rate as a temporary replacement for Frankie (maybe he was busy in "Sgt. Deadhead" or "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine). Donlevy is the head of the company hiring racers.
Review of How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
(1965)
Enjoyable, fast beach movie signals the cylce winding down
11 October 2002