HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI (1965)

The Beach series really fell off the rails on this one.  Released just two months(!!!) after BEACH BLANKET BINGO, HTSAWB is a unfunny pile of dolphin testicles.  Frankie Avalon is now a sailor.  Stationed in Tahiti, he's knee deep in pussy.  One day, a native girl that he's banging playfully mentions that his girlfriend Dee Dee (Annette) is probably getting lots of strange dick while he's away.  This infuriates Frankie, so he hires a witch doctor (Buster Keaton) to have a bird spy on Annette and send a girl that can stuff a wild bikini to steal all the attention from the boys.  Meanwhile, Mickey Rooney and Brian Donlevy are ad execs searching for the "boy and girl next door" for an advertising campaign.  The male winner of the campaign, Dobie Gillis, excuse me, I mean, Dwayne Hickman falls for Annette, but Mickey and Brain have their sights set on the witchdoctor's decoy...and so does Eric Von Zipper.

That might not sound too bad, but trust me, it's a fucking snoozefest.  All of the jokes are D.O.A., the acting is stale and the songs!  Oh my god, they suck.  Forced, lifeless, talentless and torture to listen to.  In the older films the songs mostly had a natural feel to them, whether it was Frankie and Annette walking on the beach together or a band in the clubhouse, but here there songs just come out of nowhere.  People are talking then suddenly "The perfect boy doesn't have to be a Hercules (Hercules).  The perfect boy doesn't have to be Euripides ('ripdies)."  Euripides?!! Hahahaha!  Sadly, that's probably the best song in the movie, but those dumbass lyrics cracked me up.

Lame musical numbers, unfunny jokes, overacting, stupid story, Annette wearing tons of clothing since she was pregnant during the filming, Frankie reduced to probably less than 10 minutes of screentime, stupid motorcycle race finale, weak end credits without any go-go dancing.  The only funny thing was Eric Von Zipper and the Rats and they weren't that funny.  Skip it with a vengeance or watch it to make fun of.

Part 1 - Beach Party (1963)
Part 2 - Muscle Beach Party (1964)
Part 3 - Bikini Beach (1964)
Part 4 - Pajama Party (1964)
Part 5 - Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
Part 7 - The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)
Part 8 - Back to the Beach (1987)

THE VIRGINIAN (1946)

I've never read the novel "The Virginian" by Owen Wister which I've heard was really good, so I can't compare this film to the source material.  But I liked the movie.  Barbara Britton plays a young woman who travels out West to take a job as a school teacher in a small Wyoming town.  Upon her arrival she immediately gets the attention of all the men in town including two old cowboy friends Joel McCrea and Sonny Tufts.  At first they make a game out of winning the affections of Barbara, but then things take a darker turn when Sonny joins a group of cattle rustlers (ran by the all black wearing Brian Donlevy).

A bunch of the standard old western stuff happens...horses racing about, campfires, square dancing, trash talking, shootings, people can't read, gambling in a saloon, frontier justice, posse tracking down rustlers and so on.  The town of Medicine Bow is described as just a bump in the road, but it looked like your standard western backlot to me.  Some of the outdoor scenes were obviously shot on a soundstage and McCrea is quite a bit older than Britton, but despite all those things THE VIRGINIAN was still an entertaining film and one I would gladly watch again.