We usually give some warning before leaving for vacation, so we understand if this is a shock. It’s also a disappointment to us. This two-postings-a-week schedule has created a backlog of trash that we’d like to get around to covering. We’re also feeling pretty good about a lot of the schlock that we’re planning to watch over the next several days. Regular postings resume on August 14th.

But here’s a quick plug for a film that doesn’t quite rate a proper posting. 1964’s Pajama Party was a typical American International Pictures beach epic, except for Annette Funicello being paired with Tommy Kirk as her leading man. He stars as Martian invader Go Go—and you can understand why Disney was already distancing themselves from their former child star. It’s kind of obvious that Go Go’s gay gay.

Go Go will eventually learn that the freedom-loving teenagers of Earth are a lot more fun than his oppressive Martian superiors. That’s actually foreshadowed in a brilliant opening sequence. There’s a bunch of over-age singing teenagers in a particularly overblown AIP dance sequence. Anyone can tell that the production number is moronic even by beach-movie standards.

Then the action cuts to Don Rickles as a Martian viewing the action. He turns to his superiors, and suggests that maybe they should just call the whole invasion off.

That must’ve gotten a big laugh at the drive-in. Too bad that those amazing bikini babes couldn’t have been seen in the theaters of Moscow, though. Pajama Party is a swell entry in what could be an entire genre of "Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!” Movies.

 

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