Annette Funicello is probably the most over-dressed beach bunny to ever hit the sands, but she's a stitch in her scenes with Frankie Avalon (as surfer Frankie) and pop-singer The Potato Bug (Avalon again, in a Beatle wig, funny teeth and English accent). Their repartee makes this a charming piece of Americana, but the thing is so stuck in a sterile time-capsule it's nearly impossible to believe that teenagers once got a charge from it. Drag-racing is the newest craze, and the beach gang gets shown up once Keenan Wynn puts a chimp successfully behind the wheel of a hot rod. For racing aficionados, we get a glimpse of the Mantra Ray, a $50,000 all-aluminum experimental "dream rod" with a King Cobra Ford engine. Annette poses prettily beside it... ** from ****
Review of Bikini Beach
