Search - Frankie & Annette MGM Movie Legends Collection (Beach Blanket Bingo / How to Stuff a Wild Bikini / Beach Party / Bikini Beach / Fireball 500 / Thunder Alley / Muscle Beach Party / Ski Party) on DVD

Beware!! This collection is not entirely widescreen!

Robert Badgley | London,Ontario,Canada | 08/06/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Just to let all potential buyers of this set know.This set is NOT entirely widescreen/letterbox.

It says the entire set is letterboxed/widescreen:

1.On the Amazon website

2.On the back outer cover of the set box

3.On the slipcase covers(inside)

4.And it is stamped on each DVD!!

The bad apple in the bunch is "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini".Specifically the DVD starts with the familiar box that this movie has been "formatted to fit your screen"....uh-oh.The credits then roll and they are letterboxed.....whew!!

But then the movie rolls......FULLSCREEN!!

I unfortunately have had to return my copy for just this reason.I can see Amazon not realizing this but MGM has to take the fall for this,plain and simply.Either a mistake at the factory OR a deception....you choose."

Back to the 60s

Frank Schurgast | Paris, France | 05/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Frankie & Annette MGM Movie Legends Collection (Beach Blanket Bingo / How to Stuff a Wild Bikini / Beach Party / Bikini Beach / Fireball 500 / Thunder Alley / Muscle Beach Party / Ski Party)

I am a disabled man in his 60s but for a couple of hours, while watching these films, I am young again in the 60s. Once again I feel the excitement I felt and for a few minutes dreamed the dreams I had back then. I would give anything if a time warp suddenly transported m back to those carefree days."

Midnite Movies boxed up

joseph Corey | Raleigh, NC United States | 05/25/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are the 4 Midnite Movie Double Features of AIP Beach Party films that were released a few years back. I enjoy being able to sit back and watch the surf nonsense. Eric Von Zipper is king. Shame they don't run these as afternoon flicks in the summer on WLVI in Boston. Also a shame they didn't create a double feature of Pajama Party and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.



MGM fixed How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. The original double feature release (with Beach Blanket Bingo) claimed it was a Scope transfer, but it turned out to be the pan and scan. Luckily the folks in quality control have put the Scope verion on this flipper. Enjoy the full version of Annette hiding her baby belly."

These films are not as much fun as I remember them

Brian Camp | Bronx, NY | 08/15/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This box set contains eight movies produced by American International Pictures (AIP) from 1963-67, five of them "Beach Party" movies--four of them starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (BEACH PARTY, MUSCLE BEACH PARTY, BIKINI BEACH, BEACH BLANKET BINGO) and one starring Annette, with Frankie in an extended cameo (HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI). There's a Beach Party offshoot in SKI PARTY, starring Frankie, but with Annette in a cameo, and two southern-set stock car racing dramas, one starring Frankie and Annette (FIREBALL 500) and one starring Annette, but no Frankie (THUNDER ALLEY). Frankie's fellow South Philly teen idol, Fabian, co-stars in both of the racing movies. Given this lineup, I'm more than a little annoyed that two of the better Beach Party spin-offs, PAJAMA PARTY (1964), which starred Annette but no Frankie, and SERGEANT DEADHEAD (1965), which starred Frankie but no Annette, were not included here. They would have been a better fit than the two racing movies.



BEACH PARTY, the oldest film here, is the only one of the eight that truly holds up well. It's got the strongest plot, some interesting adult characters in an anthropologist and his pretty assistant, played by Hollywood veterans Robert Cummings and Dorothy Malone, and the best music and song score of any of these films. The other Beach Party films don't age well at all. The comedy isn't terribly funny anymore and the songs are generally awful. The only pleasures come from some of the guest stars, particularly silent comedy great Buster Keaton, who appears here in BEACH BLANKET BINGO and HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI. Don Rickles is in three of the films, but he's only allowed to be funny in BEACH BLANKET BINGO, in a scene where he does his classic insult routine. There are random musical guest stars who pop up out of nowhere, do a quick song, and disappear again, including Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Lesley Gore, and the Kingsmen. There are also surprise closing cameos in the first three Beach films provided by horror stars then appearing in AIP's Edgar Allan Poe cycle. And I must give a special shout-out to gorgeous Irene Tsu, who plays Frankie's native girlfriend during his stint with the Naval Reserve in the South Pacific in HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI and has a bigger part than he does.



The racing films need to be judged a little differently. The weaker of the two, FIREBALL 500, with Frankie, Annette, Fabian, and Harvey Lembeck, is set in deep south moonshine country and not one of these actors belongs there. THUNDER ALLEY, on the other hand, is actually kind of interesting and is easily the most watchable film in the set after BEACH PARTY. Directed by Richard Rush, it has a good feel for its stock car/stunt driving milieu, is a bit edgier than the other seven films, and throws in a love triangle involving Fabian, Annette, and sexy Diane McBain. Both of these films would actually have been better served as Elvis Presley vehicles and would have been better than Elvis' own films of the era. THUNDER ALLEY, in fact, features two of the cast, McBain and Warren Berlinger, from SPINOUT (1966), Elvis' own car racing film of the year before. Put Elvis in the Fabian role and give him a few songs, and put in Deborah Walley, also from SPINOUT (and Frankie's girl in SKI PARTY), who would have been more suitable in the Annette role, and we would have had a perfect Elvis movie. (I can't help but wonder, though, what an Elvis-and-Annette pairing would have been like.)

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