It's a Bikini World

It's a Bikini World is a 1967 American musical comedy film starring Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley and Bobby Pickett. The film features cameos by the music groups the Gentrys, the Animals, Pat & Lolly Vegas, the Castaways and R&B girl group the Toys. Featuring a pro-feminist plotline, it is the only film in the beach party genre to be directed by a woman (Stephanie Rothman).

This film, along with Catalina Caper (which also starred Tommy Kirk), is among the last of the beach party films. The mainstay of the once-popular genre was the series of films by American International Pictures (AIP), starting with the surprise hit Beach Party in 1963 and ending with The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (a box-office flop) in 1966.

Although AIP picked up distribution, It's a Bikini World was not an AIP film. It was produced and originally distributed by Trans American Films under the title The Girl in Daddy's Bikini. A new 35-mm print with this title was screened at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood on August 1, 2009.

Young surfer, local beach jock and ladies' man Mike Samson meets Delilah Dawes. At first, he tries to add her to his collection of women, but she rejects him because she finds him chauvinistic and shallow, so he disguises himself as a nerdy twin brother named Herbert.

Publisher Harvey Pulp plans to start a new magazine called Teen Scream. To publicize the venture, he joins forces with Daddy, a car, surfboard and skateboard customizer and owner of local music club The Dungeon. Pulp and Daddy organize a series of contests, and Delilah competes against Mike with the encouragement of Mike's fake brother and alternate identity Herbert in various events, and loses each time. However, Mike finds that he is falling in love with her. Delilah finds out about the deception. The two compete in a final race using various vehicles.

It's a Bikini World was partly financed by Roger Corman, who hired his protégé Stephanie Rothman to direct and Rothman's husband Charles S. Swartz to produce, and Rothman and Swartz co-wrote the script.[1] Rothman later stated her rationale for the script:

The movie was originally entitled The Girl in Daddy's Bikini. In October, 1965 Kirk signed on to do the film, which then was to be released by Paramount.[3] He had just finished Ghost in the Invisible Bikini with Deborah Walley who was also hired.[4]

It's a Bikini World was filmed in late 1965 but not released until the spring of 1967.[5] The fact that the film was shot off-season (when the beaches were less crowded, which was typical for beach party films) is noticeable from the foliage and the Hollywood Boulevard Christmas decorations appearing onscreen.

Trans American made an effort to copy AIP's style. Both Kirk and Walley had appeared in previous AIP films, Kirk in Pajama Party and Walley in both Beach Blanket Bingo and Ski Party, and they had just starred together in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Bobby Pickett's character Woody, with his goofy hats and dim wit, is a riff on the character Deadhead/Bonehead that Jody McCrea portrayed in several of the AIP beach party films. Sid Haig's character of Daddy, with his Kustom Kulture design merchandise empire, is a take-off on Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, whose designs were tied to the AIP films as well. For example, Roth's trademark hat, the Hillbilly Crash Helmet, was worn by McCrea in a couple of AIP films, and Roth's Surfite custom car appears in AIP's Beach Blanket Bingo.

The role of Woody was originally offered to Aron Kincaid, who turned it down.[6]

Pickett recalled Walley as being "flirtatious" and Rothman as "very sweet."[7]

Shooting took place over the course of two weeks at a number of locations, including Malibu Beach and a theatre in the Palisades. The location used for Daddy's "dungeon" in the film is the notorious Hollywood Boulevard club The Haunted House, notable for its bizarre stage in the shape of the mouth of a giant fanged monster. The club also appears as the setting for Ted V. Mikels' go-go exploitation film Girl in Gold Boots, released a year later in 1968. Surfboards used in the film were provided by Hobie.

The Animals perform their hit "We Gotta Get out of This Place" and the teen garage band the Castaways perform their hit "Liar, Liar." The Toys perform "Attack," the Gentrys perform "Spread It on Thick" and Pat & Lolly Vegas perform "Walk On (Right Out of My Life)."

The soundtrack is by Mike Curb and features an early Moog synthesizer cut. The kinetic surf instrumental used over the opening and closing credits, and as a signature throughout the film, is by Bob Summers.[8]

The film was released in April 1967, finding limited release in the big cities and mostly playing Southern drive-ins.[6]

According to a contemporary review, the film, which was playing on a double bill with Teenage Rebellion, "is filled with bikinis filled with girls, as advertised. It is also filled with combos who call themselves the Animals, The Castaways, The Gentrys and things like that. What it is not filled with is entertainment. Deborah Walley and Tommy Kirk work as hard as if they were in a really great film like Beach Blanket Bingo but director Stephanie (!) Rothman's efforts, I'm afraid, fall far short of that classic."[9]

A review of the film in TV Guide describes it as "Not one of the better films in the 'Beach Party' genre," but that "[s]ome great 1960s bands [...] are featured."[10] A modern review by Graeme Clark reported that the film "unintentionally has an oddly forlorn mood to its silliness," that it "had more of a proto-feminist theme to it than anything Frankie Avalon ever had to contend with from Annette Funicello," and that "[f]or nostalgists, this is a far more promising prospect for entertainment than anyone else, but that casual melancholy informs the proceedings, not something that would have struck many at the time."[11]

Tommy Kirk later said that he was embarrassed by the movie. "It was ... basically the end of my career, one of the worst pieces of shit that I've ever been in in my life. I can't believe that I could be so stupid. Poor Deborah Walley, poor me."[12] Stephanie Rothman later said that she "... became very depressed after making [the film]." She also said, "I had very ambivalent feelings about continuing to be a director if that was all I was going to be able to do. So I literally went into a kind of retirement for several years until more than anything in the world, I wanted to make films."[2]