The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)

"Good heavens! Young people today are a nervous lot."

Opening in a cemetery on a dark and foggy night, amongst the broken and crooked tombstones we spy a shrouded figure in red entering the crypt of circus and sideshow operator, Hiram Stokely.

Summoning the old shyster from his coffin, turns out this visiting specter is the ghost of his wife, Cicely, who preceded him in death by over thirty years. Obviously, Stokely (Karloff) is very happy to see her again -- until informed that he's deceased, too. And the news only gets worse from there because, according to Cicely (Hart), who has it on good authority, the only chance the recently departed has to get into heaven, and be with his beloved for all eternity, is to perform a good deed from beyond the grave.

Seems that throughout the years Stokely had managed to bilk, swindle and steal a small fortune before he died. But! Convinced that his unscrupulous attorney, Reginald Ripper, will try to keep all of this ill-gotten loot for himself, for his good deed, Stokely will make sure the money goes to the rightful heirs of those he screwed-over in life.

However, the Powers that Be have a few ground rules for the recently deceased doing preternatural good deeds; the stickler being that Stokely can’t leave the crypt. No problem, says Cicely. Whatever calls for a supernatural intervention, she can take care of it. And with that obstacle cleared, Stokely then gazes into his fully functional crystal ball and introduces us to his three heirs:

The first two are the children of the rival circus owners that he ruined, Chuck Phillips and Lily Norton (Kirk, Walley), and the third is his only living relative, an old crackpot named Myrtle Forbush (Kelly), as they make their way to his secluded mansion for the reading of the will. He also spies Ripper (Rathbone) conspiring with J. Sinister Hulk (White) to bump them all off and hoard all the loot for themselves, confirming Stokely's worst suspicions on the crooked lawyer.

Thus and so, when the three unsuspecting heirs finally meet at Stokely’s allegedly haunted mansion, Ripper escorts them all inside, where Myrtle has them all gather around a table and then tries to perform a séance. But as she tries to contact Stokely’s spirit, they're interrupted by a flying knife -- that barely misses Lily’s head! Further inspection finds a note attached to the blade embedded in her chair, which reads, "Those who remain tonight won’t live to see tomorrow."

Well, that’s enough for Lily, who tries to leave, but Chuck talks her into staying by reminding her if any potential heir isn't present at the reading of the will, they’ll forfeit their share. And since the will is to be read later, at the stroke of midnight, naturally, with time to kill -- maybe a bad choice of words, given the circumstances -- the group regroups around the table and tries the séance bit again, not realizing the massive chandelier dangling by a thread directly above them has suddenly broken loose and is currently on a crash-course to crush them all… 

As big a financial gamble as American International Pictures took with House of Usher (1960), it took an even bigger monetary risk two years later by backing its first teenage-fueled, surfside musical romp-n-stomp, Beach Party (1963).

See, when Hammer Films first introduced vibrant Technicolor to their gothic horror revival with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the writing was on the wall and AIP's old black ‘n’ white double-bills just weren't gonna hack it anymore. This led, of course, to Roger Corman combining those duo-monochrome budgets into one, Richard Matheson-scripted take on a color version of Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher -- a gamble, to be sure, but with Hammer already paving the way, there was already a built-in and proven audience for this type of horror picture to help hedge the bet.

Not so for William Asher's cinematic brainstorm about 10,000 co-eds with 5000 beach blankets and what they did on them when the sun went down, the moon came out, and the water got too cold to surf. Unsure if Beach Party would sell anywhere, at all, over five miles inland, history would prove that AIP won both of these bets, as both films would spawn lucrative franchises that would run their course over the next few years with a combined dozen or so sequels and spin-offs. Corman’s Poe Cycle churned out The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), Premature Burial (1962), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of Red Death (1964) and Tomb of Ligea (1964), and Asher would ‘hang ten’ with Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), Pajama Party (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), Ski Party (1965) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965).

However, by 1965, each series was running on fumes and running out of ideas -- until someone got the brilliant notion of combining these dissimilar genres into one motion picture, squeeze-out just a little more money before these terminal cash-cows finally went belly-up, and then move on to the next “thing” -- a strategy the studio was no stranger to, as we discussed earlier in a review of Blacula (1972). Or, as AIP co-founder Jim Nicholson put it in an interview with Martin Abramson (Philadelphia Daily News, April 6, 1966), “One important thing I learned in the theater business is that audiences, particularly younger audiences, go for things in cycles. For a while they just can’t get enough of a certain type of film, and then suddenly, one day, they just don’t want this kind [of movie] anymore. I knew that we’d have to keep coming up with different cycles and to anticipate the audiences’ desire for change.”

Now, the end result of this particular cinematic gene-splicing, Beach Party in a Haunted House, was more Beach Blanket Bingo than The Pit and the Pendulum; and honestly, the only thing the Poe-Cycle really contributed were some leftover sets and props. Also, at this point, despite all efforts to reunite them one last time, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello both said thanks but no thanks. Also long gone were director Asher and scriptwriters Robert Dillon and Leo Townsend, replaced with future Batman (1966-1968) TV-director Don Weis and former Ernie Kovac's gag-man, Lou Heyward, and Edward Ullman, who wrote and directed a ton of shorts for the Three Stooges. And if that type of borscht-tinged slapstick and absurdist comedy doesn't really appeal to you, well, you might as well stop reading right now.

If you're still with us, as the legend goes, their initial end-result turned out to be such an incoherent mess that a drastic decision was made by the studio brass to blow the whole thing up for a massive overhaul; and to top off some extensive re-editing, some additional scenes were shot -- namely the entire subplot of Cicely's ghost helping out Hiram, to try and salvage it.

By the time these inserts were filmed, Boris Karloff wasn’t in the best of health -- his legs and lungs were pretty much shot at this point, so the plot contrivance of him having to remain in the crypt and only providing a running commentary through his crystal ball is more of a convenience, making it both understandable and forgivable -- sharp eyes and long memories will also notice the entire opening sequence in the graveyard was lifted wholesale from The Haunted Palace. Meanwhile, donning the prerequisite bikini, and acting as his agent on the ground, was actress Susan Hart.

Hart was officially discovered by an agent while working in Hawaii, hanging around Waikiki beach. She was born Susan Neidhart in Wenatchee, Washington, but her family wintered and eventually moved to Palm Springs, California, where she was bitten by the showbiz bug early, living vicariously through Noreen Nash, who was a relative in the business -- The Devil on Wheels (1947), Assigned to Danger (1948), Phantom from Space (1953), when she wasn't watching the Hollywood stars motor down Palm Canyon Drive, vowing that would be her someday.

Upon graduating high school in 1960, Hart and a friend had saved enough money to vacation in Hawaii, had some fun, learned to surf, and then returned to California -- but just long enough to make the scratch needed to return to the islands, where she got a job selling clothes at the International Market. There, she was approached by an agent, Morton Smith, who also just happened to be a photographer; and he wanted to know if the pretty girl selling Polynesian shirts would be interested in posing for a piece he was doing for Playboy magazine called Girls of Hawaii. She readily agreed -- as long as she didn’t have to take her clothes off.

“I told him that I loved to surf,” Hart said in an interview with Tom Weaver (Double Feature Creature Attack, 2003). “So we went down to the beach at Waikiki the next day; I got on a surfboard and he took pictures from a catamaran. That was my first time in front of a professional camera-person, and the picture did appear in Playboy."

Susan Hart.

Hart returned to the mainland not long after and would sign with Smith for a year, who quickly got her a small speaking role in a skit on The Joey Bishop Show (1961-1965). A few more glorified extra roles followed, but once she signed on with Billy Schuyler, the parts got slightly bigger than just “Party Guest” in Cain’s Hundred (1961-1962), starting with roles in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1962), Laramie (1959-1963) and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1963).

Technically, Hart's first feature film was Boys Night Out (1962), where her cheesecake "centerfold" was ogled by Tony Randall and James Garner for a hot minute. But her official big screen debut came a year later with Robert Hutton’s The Slime People (1963).

When asked how she got the role, Hart told Tom Lisanti for his website, Sixties Cinema (November 9, 2013), “Just luck, I guess.” Seems Hutton was an actor who wanted to direct a feature; and he had a script by Blair and Joseph Robertson, financial backing from Don Hansen, who owned a chain of dry cleaners, and started knocking on agents' doors -- including Schuyler’s, looking to round-out his cast for a low-budget creature feature about Los Angeles being invaded and overrun by a race of underground mutants, who sound like they’re suffering from a bad case of Montazuma’s Revenge as they wurble and gurgle on the warpath.

“All [Schuyler] told me was that I was reading for a lead in a motion picture,” said Hart. “At that point I still didn’t know the title of the film,” but, “I read for the role in the morning, went to lunch with a friend, and when I arrived home around four o’clock I got a call from my agent telling me I got the part.” And, “Not only did I get a role but also my roommate, Judee Morton, was cast as my little sister. It was incredible!” Here, she finally found out what she’d be starring in, but, “Even after I found out the title, I thought this was still a pretty good opportunity.”

Apparently, the production of The Slime People was nearly as big a mess as the finished product on screen. One location shoot was delayed indefinitely because no one had bothered to bring any film for the camera. Money was tight, and it was shot non-union. Hart, who was supposed to get $300 a week for the duration of filming, told Weaver, “I did get paid the first week, and we had a make-up person the first week.” Then, “In the second week, we started doing our own make-up. And people started disappearing, like lighting men and carpenters. All of a sudden, the crew was down to maybe seven -- not counting the monster. When it was all over, I believe I was still owed $1400.”

The Slime People didn’t do a whole lot for Hart’s burgeoning career -- and she would purposefully leave it off her resume, which took another hit when she was sidelined with a severe case of pneumonia (-- perhaps from all the dry-ice fog she inhaled while making The Slime People), which found her convalescing in a hospital for over three months.

When she’d recovered enough to start working again in 1964, Hart’s first big breakout role that got her noticed was as Candy Davis, a recurring love interest for Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971). This got her a few more feature roles, including the Bob Hope vehicle, A Global Affair (1964). Unfortunately for Hart, her role might’ve been a little bigger but she and fellow actress, Brenda Benet, were dismissed from the picture for refusing to strip down during a locker room scene, which blew her shot at landing a contract at MGM. Said Hart, “I didn’t feel that they were paying me enough money to do that.”

Undaunted, the actress really started to gain some traction in a couple of big studio knock-offs, who were subsequently trying to horn in on AIP’s private box-office beach party success. First was United Artists’ For Those Who Think Young (1964), where Hart played a sorority sister of headliners Pamela Tiffin, Nancy Sinatra and Claudia Martin, who then effort to keep a popular beach-side hangout open and out of the hands of a greedy developer.

Once again, Hart was mostly relegated to the background but it was enough to catch the eye of Mike Frankovich, who cast her as one of the leads in Columbia Pictures’ Ride the Wild Surf (1964). Filming on that allowed Hart to return to Hawaii, where she played a native girl who falls in love with Tab Hunter, one of a quartet of California surfers -- along with Fabian, James Mitchum and Peter Brown, who were visiting the islands over Christmas vacation.

The film was a modest hit and, according to Hart, “I think everybody in Ride the Wild Surf was put on a six-month option” with Columbia. “Frankovich, who was the head of the studio at that time, always had great faith in me.” But not a whole lot happened after that, and by the fifth month of her contract Hart was summoned to the offices of American International for a meeting with Jim Nicholson and Bill Asher, who offered her a lucrative contract to make films exclusively for them. And on the advice of her agent, Hart signed on the dotted line and was quickly added to the cast of the forthcoming Pajama Party.

And here, well, is where things get a little complicated. As the story goes, Nicholson had access to see the rushes for Ride the Wild Surf while it was still in production. Why? Well, maybe AIP was feeling a bit territorial and were sniffing around to see if anything was litigious -- and from what I’ve read about both Nicholson and Arkoff, this theory seems legit. Anyhoo, as the projector hummed and rattled, Nicholson soon became infatuated by the dark-haired beauty smiling back at him in the flickering light.

“He was handsome, charming, and the kindest man I’d ever met,” Hart told Weaver. In that same meeting, Nicholson invited the actress to come onto his boat, alone. Nicholson was 48, Hart was 24. A few weeks later, she was back onboard with her agent, along with director Don Weis and his wife, and their affair was just starting to pick up steam.

Nicholson, of course, was married at the time to Sylvia Nicholson, his wife of 24-years, with three children -- daughters Luree, Loretta and Laura, all in their 20s by ‘64. Luree and Laura Nicholson appeared in nearly all of the Beach Party movies as background beach bunnies, while Loretta had appeared in War of the Colossal Beast (1958) and Diary of a High School Bride (1959). Nicholson did little to hide his ongoing affair with the younger woman, and he and his wife officially separated in August of ‘64 -- the same month Hart had signed that contract with AIP; then Sylvia sued for divorce in October ‘64, citing infidelity, and named Hart as co-respondent, claiming their extra-marital affair had been going on for nearly two years. For his part, Nicholson counter-sued, claiming Sylvia had committed adultery with at least five other men.

The case would drag on for over a year; and in the meantime, Nicholson cast Hart in a string of pictures for AIP, including War Gods of the Deep (1965), reuniting Hart with Tab Hunter, which co-starred Vincent Price. War Gods was, technically, yet >another< AIP Poe picture, where an underwater haven of smugglers is discovered off the coast of Cornwall, which, sadly, turned out to be nowhere near as exciting as all that sounds.

This was followed up by another bastardized Beach Party sequel; this time mashed-up with some covert spy-shenanigans pilfered from James Bond’s martini shaker, which resulted in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965). Here, Price once again plays the villainous madman, who creates a cadre of bikini-clad robots to carry out his covert operations to take over the world. Hart would play one of his automatons, who runs afoul of Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman and immediately short-circuits. It’s a total goof of a film, anchored by Price, with a kickin’ theme by the Supremes, which I dug a lot.

Now, Nicholson would accompany Hart as she toured around the country and all over the world to promote these films. And it was announced while they were in London that as soon as the Nicholson's divorce was final, the two would be married. “As for the divorce from my wife,” Nicholson confided to Harrison Carroll for his newspaper column (January 5, 1965), “I feel that this will work out in a fair and sensible fashion for both of us” -- he typed ominously.

Meantime, and circling back, Beach Party in a Haunted House was allegedly in shambles and slated to be released in less than six months. And it sat on the shelf for a couple of those months before the salvaging process began, which started with an attempt to rechristen it as Bikini Party in a Haunted House; then Slumber Party in a Haunted House; then Pajama Party in a Haunted House; then The Ghost in the Silver Bikini; then The Girl in the Glass Bikini -- as it was advertised in the closing credits of Dr. Goldfoot; and finally, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966).

Here, once again, it should be stressed that this film was done and 'in the can' before the ghost in that invisible bikini was added to the picture. It’s unclear who came up with the idea of adding the two ghosts to try and shore up the film and explain away all the plot-holes and inconsistencies -- odds are good it was Nicholson, or who wrote the additional dialogue, but these inserts were, according to Hart, directed by film editor, Ronnie Sinclair.

Karloff was friendly with Nicholson, having starred in several pictures for him already -- The Raven, The Comedy of Terrors (1963), Black Sabbath (alias I tre volti della paura, 1963), and agreed to a couple days of shooting. Hart, meanwhile, was free because something had happened while she was in Italy, set to co-star with Barry Sullivan in the Mario Bava film, The Outlaw Planet -- later released as Planet of the Vampires (alias Terrore nello spazio, 1965), which soon found her off the picture and returning home to California with little to no explanation.

Thus and so, she was soon outfitted in a black bikini and a blonde wig and started cavorting around a sound-stage against a large black velvet backdrop, following Sinclair’s instructions on how to react with the existent footage, later to be superimposed in, raising all kinds of havoc on the proceedings -- some of these antics productive in accomplishing Hiram’s good deed, while some of the others, well, not so much.

Case in point: that falling chandelier. For while it was J. Sinister Hulk who threw the errant knife out of one of the mansion’s many secret doors, hidey-holes, and passageways, it was the eavesdropping Cicely, whose ectoplasm added just enough weight, who accidentally sent the fixture crashing into the table below. And with each passing calamity and near miss, Chuck grows more and more suspicious that someone must be trying to scare them all off -- and doing a pretty good job of it, too, according to Lily.

But before they can discuss it any further, their attention is suddenly drawn outside, where a large, double-decker bus crammed with displaced beachniks loudly invades the mansion -- including Myrtle’s nephew, Bobby “Goo-Goo” Forbush (Kincaid), his girlfriend, Vicki (Sinatra), the Bobby Fuller Four -- all together now, "I fought the law and the [PAUSE] law won,” along with about fifty others, who hit the pool, as we get our first song so the jerks can do The Monkey.

Speaking of monkeys, the rest of Hulk’s henchmen -- Chicken Feather (Dubin, a last minute replacement for Buster Keaton, a comedy-relief regular in these things, who sadly passed away before filming commenced), Yolanda (Shaw), and Monstro, her pet gorilla (Barrows), are all lost out on the road and can’t find Stokely’s mansion. And when they cross paths with the dastardly Erik Von Zipper (Lembeck, another series regular) and his outlaw biker gang of Ratz and Mice, they all wind up in a pond (-- don’t ask). And when Yolanda saves him from drowning, Von Zipper falls madly in love with her and decides to follow the blonde to the ends of the earth -- but at a safe distance, since she clearly doesn't want anything to do with him.

Back at the mansion, while touring the garden, Chuck and Lily form a mutual partnership to watch each other’s back until the inheritance is settled. Meanwhile, at the pool, after a rousing game of blatant product placement winds down (-- alas, I don’t think the Swing-a-ma-Thing ever caught on), Ripper introduces Bobby to his daughter, Sinistra (O’Hara). But Sinistra's deep cleavage, good looks, and sex on heels appeal are matched only by her evil intentions as she lures the gob-smacked Bobby into the study for an arsenic highball. Luckily for our hopeless dope, without her glasses, his assassin is as blind as a bat; and with a little help from Cicely, Sinistra inadvertently feeds the toxic concoction to a suit of armor instead -- whose screams sound suspiciously like the giant arachnid from Earth vs. the Spider (1958).

Anyhoo, after night falls, and things settle down, Von Zipper and his gang clandestinely follow Hulk and his cronies through a secret entrance into the mansion. Elsewhere, as they're still wandering around the garden, when Stokely’s old butler (Bushman) tries to warn the young heirs of Ripper's treachery, they wrongly assume he’s just trying to scare them off, too. For as soon as they’re gone, Ripper silences him forever. 

Later, with midnight fast approaching, the myopic Sinistra blows yet another attempt to cull Bobby from the herd and dispatch him. And while The Bobby Fuller Four serenades the lonely and jilted Vicki by the pool, a storm suddenly whips up, chasing everyone inside, just as the clock strikes twelve.

Thus, when the heirs gather, Ripper breaks the seal and, according to the will, Stokely’s fortune is to be split equally among Chuck, Lily and Myrtle. However, there's a catch: nobody knows where the money is, and their only clue is that it's somewhere hidden inside the mansion and to "Look to the prince of love." But before they all start tearing up the place, Ripper suggests they all turn in and get a fresh start in the morning. The rest agree, but after they all head off to bed, Ripper opens a secret room and then, well, rips into his hired help for not doing their job. And to thicken the plot even more, overhearing all of this, Von Zipper decides to find the loot for himself.

Thus and so, the treasure hunt is officially on. And when Chuck and Bobby decide to bunk together for the night, Hulk tries several times to scare them off; the catch being only Bobby sees him. And as his friend helplessly spazzes out over some “imaginary” boogeyman, an exasperated Chuck leaves to check on Lily. Now alone, his nerves already shattered, Bobby finds yet another monster in the bed and freaks out so badly he wakes everyone else up.

Meanwhile, outside in the rain, Monstro escapes his cage and makes his way inside, where Chuck is trying to calm everyone down, swearing that his bunk-mate just had a bad dream. Once order is restored, Chuck is talked into at least calling the police by a desperate Bobby. But when he leaves to find a phone, alone again, Bobby barely escapes an encounter with Monstro, who apparently doesn’t like being mistaken for a guy in a gorilla costume. Lily, however, isn’t so lucky. Caught alone in her bedroom, she faints, and then Monstro carries her off into a secret passage that leads down into Hiram's basement, where his ghastly Chamber of Horrors awaits!

Also managing to tunnel his way into the dungeon while looking for the lost loot, Von Zipper mistakes Monstro for another one of the many automated wax display dummies found therein and yanks out some hairs to prove to the others it's a fake. As Von Zipper realizes his error too late, the ape goes berserk; and as his gang scatters, their Leader runs for his life with the gorilla hot on his leather-booted heels. (Try giving him the finger! No! Not that finger.)

Upstairs, Hulk, Chicken Feather and Yolanda are convinced the mansion really is haunted -- and it truly is, because Cicely has been foiling all their assassination attempts and playing tricks on them all day. But when they try to leave, Ripper and his revolver force them to stay. Herding them toward another secret passage entrance to investigate all the noises downstairs, they trip the door and head down -- not realizing Bobby saw and heard the whole thing, who quickly moves to alert the others.

Down in the basement, the bad guys find Lily just as she wakes up. Here, they pull a Perils of Pauline, lashing the poor girl onto a log in the sawmill display with the working buzzsaw. Once she's secured and silenced, Ripper throws the switch, dispatching the girl to her doom! But as she slowly inches closer to the spinning blade, Chuck, Bobby and the others find the dungeon. At first, Ripper and the others try to pass themselves off as wax effigies, too, until Bobby discovers that one of them is breathing, and then the inevitable slapstick fight breaks out.

And as the battle rages back and forth, the gears on the buzzsaw ride are switched from forward to reverse about fifty times. Luckily, with some inadvertent help from Sinistra, the bad guys are thwarted, Lily is saved in the nick of time, and the money is found with Cupid’s statue pointing the way. (Eureka! Look to the Prince of Love.)

Defeated, Ripper pulls a blunderbuss from off the wall, thinking if he can't have the money then no one can. But Cicely plugs the barrel just as he fires and the shotgun explodes, sending Ripper to his great reward. And with that, Hiram Stokely has accomplished his good deed and gets to go to heaven with Cicely -- sort of. Everybody becomes friends, the band sets up in the dungeon and begins to wail, and then the monkeys do The Jerk as the end credits roll.

And so, a film that was already done once, was finally done again and hit theaters in April of 1966. And while Ghost in the Invisible Bikini did make a profit, it was easy to see the Beach Party movie, as a genre, had officially flatlined until a brief mini-revival in the 1980s with the gloriously silly Back to the Beach (1987). AIP was ready to move on to the next cycle, too -- motorcycles, that is, with Roger Corman’s The Wild Angels (1966) due to hit theaters a couple of months later. And as the studio moved to embrace the counterculture movement head on, it officially abandoned the beach and turned in their surfboards and bikinis for some chrome and hot leather and a dose of LSD.

Nicholson and Hart were also looking forward to starting a new chapter in their life, too, cooking up a few more features for his soon-to-be-bride to star in, including a hypothetical epic concerning Genghis Khan and a hillbilly take on Joan of Arc -- Joan of Arkansas. But Hart always denied that these upcoming nuptials would contribute to her acting ambitions, telling Bob Lardine (The New York Daily News, December 26, 1965), “Jim and I never even discussed my career. I’ll go on making films for his studio, but I’m also going to do feature roles for other companies.”

But none of that ever came to fruition and Ghost in the Invisible Bikini would turn out to be Hart’s last feature film; and after a TV appearance on Death Valley Days (Major Horace Bell, S15.E21, 1967) her last credited role would be on an episode of The Wild Wild West (The Night of the Fugitives, S4.E7, 1968) two years later in 1968. Why? Well, she and Nicholson would eventually get married when his divorce was finalized in 1965, and they had a son together soon after. 

However, as part of the divorce settlement, Nicholson lost half of his stock in American International to his ex-wife, making Arkoff a majority shareholder. No longer equals, from there, AIP went through a sudden and drastic paradigm shift, which is illustrated easily enough when their films abruptly switched from “A James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff presentation” -- as it had been since their ARC days -- to “Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson present.”

Arkoff had also apparently cooled on his partner’s dalliances and apparent “mid-life crisis” once it started affecting the company, as quite a few people at the studio and around the industry saw Hart, fare assessment or not, as nothing more than a homewrecker and a gold-digger and no one else would really touch her. And so, she had nowhere to go. As she told Weaver, “Mr Arkoff informed me that after I did four films there wasn’t going to be any more nepotism at AIP. I did not want to cause waves, but I think that may have caused some waves. But I must say I was in a state of shock when I was told that I was no longer going to be in pictures for that company because nepotism was not part of the bylaws of American International Pictures. I guess nepotism is in the eye of the beholder.” 

For the record, Arkoff would hire his son, Louis, as Vice-President of the company as it moved into the 1970s. So, yeah.

This demotion and cold shoulder would signal the beginning of the end for Nicholson at American International as well, as he was slowly squeezed out of the decision making process. He officially left the company in 1971, striking a five-picture deal with 20th Century Fox, which he would produce independently. Alas, only one feature got into actual production -- The Legend of Hell House (1973), before Nicholson unexpectedly died of complications from an undiagnosed brain tumor. Another was in the pipeline, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), which would prove to be Fox’s biggest moneymaker the year of its release, which led to a nasty legal dispute, instigated by Hart, when Nicholson received no posthumous credit on the picture, meaning no profits for his estate.

Things were never quite the same at AIP after Nicholson left. And about a decade later, after American International was usurped by Filmways, when the studio was eventually bought out by Orion Pictures in the early 1980s and officially ceased to exist, the rights to the majority of the studio’s back catalog went to MGM after Orion went bankrupt -- except for 42-films that fell under the umbrella of a limited partnership Nicholson and Arkoff had formed back in the 1950s. These films were split evenly with 21 going to Arkoff and the other 21 being divvied up between Hart and Nicholson’s daughters from his first marriage. And through the court’s decision, Hart was awarded the rights to what she called her husband’s favorites, including It Conquered the World (1956), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957) and Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957). 

And as we reached the 1990s, while many of those titles saw a VHS release, you may have noticed none of them have ever made the official digital leap yet beyond YouTube and gray market rips. And that’s because Hart, who later remarried, is highly litigious when it comes to protecting her late husband’s legacy -- that kinda started with a lawsuit over the use of The Amazing Colossal Man on an episode of Mystery Science theater 3000 (1988-1999), which Rhino tried to give a home video release and led to a recall. 

And ever since, Hart has staunchly refused all overtures to license or release them in any format, which, to me, seems counterproductive when no one is allowed to see and enjoy her late husband’s efforts; and sadder still, this may just be a misguided effort to stick it to the Arkoff estate for either derailing her career or because she always felt her former husband didn’t get the credit he deserved for the company’s success over the years, which was all going to Arkoff because, well, morbidly enough, he lived long enough to take a bow.

Sadly, once all of this acrimonious background is absorbed, it’s hard to separate it from the tinkering done to Ghost in the Invisible Bikini and its legitimacy for ever existing in the first place. As one watches it now, knowing it was all added in later, the majority of Cicely’s interventions seem intrusive, redundant and totally unnecessary, because all of the supernatural antics could easily be credited to (a pre-Karloff) Stokely’s ghost being a pain in the ass, leaving one to ponder if the only reason she’s there was not because the film needed fixing but because the executive producer wanted to shoehorn his mistress into the movie simply because he could. 

And then things get a bit icky when you consider the main thrust of those added inserts, where a geriatric old fart gets to recapture his youth and spend the rest of eternity with a woman half his age. Coincidence? Wish fulfillment? Who can say for sure. But I do admit it is kind of fun to try and piece together what the original edit and ending for Beach Party in a Haunted House might've looked like from all the production stills.

Now, with all that excess baggage looming over the film, it can be hard to judge Ghost in the Invisible Bikini on its own merits -- and it does have a few. As I said, this would be the seventh and last Beach Party movie; a franchise I love dearly and unironically. Hell, I can’t even call them a guilty pleasure because there is no guilt involved, so, yeah, my opinion might be a tad shaded. Sure, the SHEER TERROR the promotional material promised is non-existent and the comedy is very low-brow, corny, and cheesy as hell but I still think it's still worth a spin if you have a penchant or the patience for such things.

As for the cast, as Frankie and Annette’s replacements, Tommy Kirk -- another liberated Mouseketeer, and the quite possibly too-cute-for-words’ Deborah Walley aren’t given a whole lot to do and are remarkably absent from the film. In fact, I’m pretty sure Walley’s longest contribution was her ride on the buzzsaw during the climax. And while Boris Karloff is always a welcome sight, again, I’m not really sure if those inserts really added anything.

Making up for all of this is the riotous return of one of my favorite characters of the franchise, Erik Von Zipper. I tells ya, Harvey Lembeck's odd combination of Brando’s Johnny Stabler from The Wild One (1953) and all Three Stooges never fails to crack me up. I especially love the way he's always yelling and smacking his “Stupids” around; or how his epic plans of grandeur always self-destruct and end-result in a copious amount of grievously self-inflicted bodily harm; and how he always managed to give himself the finger. No, no. Not that finger, the Himalayan Suspenders Treatment Finger -- which will make AH-lot more sense if you’ve seen Beach Party.

And that’s another thing I’ve always loved about this franchise, those loose threads of continuity that runs throughout them, which leads to several, perpetual, running gags. Also, loyalty to the background actors, as I spotted Mary Hughes, Patti Chandler and Salli Sachse amongst the beachniks; and I’m almost positive the same actors played Von Zipper’s gang in every film: Andy Romano as J.D., Alberta Nelson and Myrna Ross as Puss ‘n’ Boots, along with Jerry Brutsche, Bob Harvey, John Macchia and Allen Fife.

And between Lembeck, Karloff, Basil Rathbone, Patsy Kelly, Jesse White and the other, older players, they all appear to be having a lot more fun than their younger co-stars -- I adore how much glee Karloff shows whenever he gets to crack on Rathbone. "Hit him again!" To be fair, Rathbone holds his own, and Kelly is an absolute scream. 

Music, of course, was always an integral part of this franchise, too, and one of this film’s true highlights are the musical numbers. Here, The Bobby Fuller Four sub in for the Supremes, who had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts. They join The Pyramids and The Hondells by doing a competent job of filling Dick Dale and the Del-Tone's massive shoes. Italian fireball Piccola Pupa burns her way through “Stand Up and Fight.” And while still a few months away from her breakout album, Boots, Nancy Sinatra chimes in with "Geronimo.” But Quinn O’Hara steals her thunder as she bumps 'n' grinds and blindly bounces off the furniture with a sexy and sultry rendition of "Don’t fight it Baby" while trying to seduce Aron Kincaid. Kincaid was also supposed to have a few songs, too, including a duet with Pupa, which was to serve as the title track, but they all wound up on the cutting room floor due to all those later changes. 

But if I’m being honest, the real star of Ghost in the Invisible Bikini is Stokely’s Mansion, which can be credited, once again, to art director extraordinaire, Daniel Haller, whose intricate designs, grand halls, and secret passageways, slapped together on a budget scrounged from beneath several couch cushions, were put to good use by director Weis and cinematographer Stanley Cortez. Like with another AIP regular, Floyd Crosby, Cortez was a bit of a legend behind the camera -- The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Three Faces of Eve (1957), who kinda found a second career working for the little studio that could. And his work here reminds me a lot of an earlier horror-comedy he did, The Black Cat (1941), which we reviewed on the old bloggo.

And lurking around those secret passages you had George Barrows playing Monstro, who infamously played Ro-Man the Robot Monster (1953), and who also apparently got over his grudge and regret over loaning his gorilla suit to AIP and Herman Cohen, who kinda trashed it during the making of Konga (1961). Also nice to see one of Larry Buchanan’s Eye Creatures -- from Attack of the the (not a typo) Eye Creatures (1967) -- making a cameo appearance.

Putting all of those ingredients into a tumbler, the resulting mixed-drink is tasty enough but you can’t quite shake the bitters. And with each swig, your mind starts to wander and wonder. Were Hulk, Yolanda and Chicken Feather former, disgruntled circus employees of Stokely? And where the hell did Monstro go during the climax? Also, was Stokely an avid hunter? As each room in the house has about five dead animals in it, which really gets weird when you remember he used to run a circus. GAH! Seek this movie, find this movie, watch this movie, and then love this movie like I do. Or did. Or not. I understand. Also, RELEASE THE WEIS CUT, YOU COWARDS!

Originally posted on May 18, 2000, at 3B Theater. 

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) American International Pictures / P: James H. Nicholson, Samuel Z. Arkoff / AP: Anthony Carras / D: Don Weis / W: Louis M. Heyward, Elwood Ullman / C: Stanley Cortez / E: Fred Feitshans, Eve Newman / M: Les Baxter / S: Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, Aron Kincaid, Nancy Sinatra, Basil Rathbone, Patsy Kelly, Harvey Lembeck, Boris Karloff, Susan Hart, Jesse White, Quinn O’Hara, Bobbie Shaw, Benny Rubin, Francis X. Bushman