Don't let the name fool you. "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" is not what it sounds. Sure, it has has lots of girls in bikinis and it's plenty offensive, but the actual stuffing of the wild bikini is just one minor mindless song out of seemingly hundreds of mindless songs in the movie.
The action starts with Frankie (who isn't even in the opening credits) on military assignment in an island somewhere in the South Pacific. His duties are to think about his girl at home -- Dee Dee (Annette) and make whoopee with the native girls. One of these girls plants the idea in him that Dee Dee may be just as unfaithful as he is. Initially he blows this idea off, explaining the sexual double-standard of men and women, but then he gets worried. He goes to the island witch doctor (played stereotypically by Buster freaking Keaton!) who is able to see what Dee Dee is up to. Dee Dee proves to be faithful -- for the time being. Just to be sure, Frankie and the witch doctor concoct some kind of black magic woman to teleport back home. In the witch doctor's words: "she's a creature so beautiful -- no boy will look at your girl." 
So the temptress appears at home beach, initially as a floating bikini. Then the beach gang sings a song about filling said bikini, which i guess is where the title comes from. Part of the song is explaining that the perfect "filler" should be 36-22-36. Eventually, the bikini is filled by Cassandra (Beverly Adams). Cassandra is pretty cute. She's got a red color of hair that I'm pretty sure only existed in the 60s. She isn't, however, far and away cuter than all the other girls on the beach. Nevertheless, every single guy on the beach gives full attention to Cassandra. These guys obviously have never seen "A Beautiful Mind." 
In the meantime, Dee Dee is just sitting on the beach reading and throwing smiling glances to her debauched friends. Not only is Dee Dee fully clothed on the beach, but she appears to be wearing a business suit. Good thing, because two ad-execs show up. They're looking for the perfect girl to model for something and also go on some cross-country bike race or something. One of the execs is played by Mickey Rooney and he decides on Cassandra. The other exec, the one who will actually go on the bike trip, is smitten with Dee Dee. His name is Ricky and he's played by Dwayne Hickman. Dee Dee, of course rebuffs Ricky and asks him why he just doesn't go for other girls like Cassandra or any other girl at the beach who will give it up all at once. Ricky explains that it's a lot funner to work for it. In the meantime, all the girls are trying to get cozy with Mickey Rooney because they want the gig over Cassandra. They even sing a song saying they're "chicks who know all the tricks" and that they're "ready and willing."
Eventually Dee Dee discovers Frankie's infidelity and consents to wholesome dating with Ricky.
Oh yeah! There's also this motorcycle gang and the lead biker wants to win the advertising biking spot. The lead biker is the goofiest, dopiest, oafiest, nerdiest, oldest character in the movie. It was as if Jerry Lewis was the leader of a motorcycle gang. Near the end, Ricky and Dee Dee enter the big race, along with the biker leader (I think his name is Zipper) and Cassandra and a bunch of other bikers. It's wicked important. It's also fixed. Mickey Rooney and the bike gang have set up traps for Ricky and Dee Dee to fall into, including a tiger in a pit that only eats men. Ricky and Dee Dee totally win, but Dee Dee breaks up with him afterwards. She explains that the moral of this story is that you should be a doormat to your cheating boyfriend instead of fall for someone who's willing to work toward a relationship. Poor Ricky then solicits Cassandra just before she evaporates away.
There are some other random elements that I need to throw in. There's a subplot about Cassandra's clumsiness explained by male-o-phobia. Dee Dee also wears Dr. Evil's uniform in a club scene. There were SO many songs in this movie and it seemed more than anything else that these songs were in because the movie was contractually obligated to have 30 songs in it. The singing was consistently whiny. This movie came out two years before the Summer of Love, but there was a lot of sex in it. I'm also amazed that the movie didn't set the feminist movement back 30 years. Also, sometimes Ricky and Dee Dee would take walks on the beach and it was VERY OBVIOUS that they're WALKING IN PLACE with stock beach footage behind them. On the plus side, I couldn't take my eyes off this film. I had to respect it because it's not like it was so bad it's good -- it's more like they tried as HARD AS THEY COULD to make it bad. Maybe bad is a strong word. They tried as hard as they could to make it annoying. None of the actors had any shame. I guess this was a very spazmatic period of our nation.
1 comment:
Thank you Jon. Here is where I admit I only got half way through the "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" musical number. Val was watching it with me and declared it to be the worst movie she had ever seen and that Santa would take all my presents back if I persisted in watching it. Anyway, I could tell exactly what kind of film it was going to be from what little I saw and it bears out in your review.
Thanks for being Cool Jon!
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