Beach Blanket Bingo

Beach Blanket Bingo
theatrical poster
Directed by	William Asher
Produced by	Samuel Z. Arkoff James H. Nicholson
Written by	Leo Townsend Sher Townsend William Asher
Starring	Frankie Avalon Annette Funicello
Music by	Les Baxter
Cinematography	Floyd Crosby, ASC
Edited by	Eve Newman Fred R. Feitshans Jr.
Distributed by	American International
Release date	April 14, 1965
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Beach Blanket Bingo is an American International Pictures beach party film, released in 1965 and was directed by William Asher. It is the fifth, and also best-known, film in the beach party film series. The film starred Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello and also featured Paul Lynde, Don Rickles and Buster Keaton. Linda Evans's singing voice was dubbed by Jackie Ward.

A singer, Sugar Kane (Linda Evans), is unwittingly being used for publicity stunts for her latest album by her agent (Paul Lynde), for example, faking a skydiving stunt, actually performed by Bonnie (Deborah Walley). Meanwhile, Frankie (Frankie Avalon), (duped into thinking he rescued Sugar Kane), takes up skydiving at Bonnie's prompting; she secretly wants to make her boyfriend Steve (John Ashley) jealous. This, of course, prompts Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) to also try free-falling. Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and his Malibu Rat Pack bikers also show up, with Von Zipper falling madly in love with Sugar Kane. To top all this, Bonehead (Jody McCrea) falls in love with a mermaid (Marta Kristen). Eventually, Von Zipper "puts the snatch" on Sugar Kane. The film takes a The Perils of Pauline-like twist, with the evil South Dakota Slim (Timothy Carey) kidnapping Sugar and tying her to a buzz-saw.