Presenting the theatrical trailer for the awesome beach movie/hot rod movie mashup, Bikini Beach from 1964. It’s groovy!
Two worlds collide in this classic teen flick from 1964: hot rod films and beach movies. Bikini Beach stars Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello doing their familiar teen musical romance routine, as they did in a whole series of movies from American International. But we gearheads will be focused on all the great hot rod and drag racing action led by Big Drag, the manager of Bikini Beach Drag Strip—played by none other than Don Rickles.
A number of familiar Southern California dragsters appear in the film, including the Greer-Black-Prudhomme and Stellings & Hampshire fuelers, woven with stock footage from the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona. The fabulous Mantaray show rod of Dean Jeffries also appears, though only briefly in the trailer. Famed racer TV Tommy Ivo served as a technical director and also, it’s said, as the driver in the crazed go-kart scene. It’s all great fun, and if you’d like to see more, the full-length feature movie is available most everywhere. Meanwhile, enjoy the original theatrical trailer.
HA, it’s amazing we can think at all with movies like that in our childhood. Truth be known, my parents wouldn’t let us watch THOSE kinds of movies. Scantily clad girls shaking their rear ends around. We had to see them at the drive-in, after telling our folks, we were going to see something else( like the “Sound of Music”) Kind of like going to a porno movie today, and to my folks, and many others, I’m sure, it WAS porno to them. We all had a crush on Annette Funicello ( who didn’t). She recently passed away, and struggled with MS for years. She was 70. Thanks, MCG ( sorry if this is a double post, 1st one didn’t take) BTW, I grew up in the Mid-West ( and no, Lake Michigan wasn’t like that), does anybody know if that how it really was in S. California in the 60’S?
Yes.
Thanks for the tip. I found the movie online in a few clicks. It was AWESOME!