Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine

USA 1965
produced by
James H. Nicholson, Samuel Z. Arkoff for AIP
directed by Norman Taurog
starring Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Susan Hart, Jack Mullaney, Fred Clark, Patti Chandler, Mary Hughes, Salli Sachse, Luree Holmes, Sue Hamilton, Laura Nicholson, Marianne Gaba, China Lee, Issa Arnal, Deanna Lund, Leslie Summers, Sally Frei, Kay Michaels, Jan Watson, Arlene Charles, Alberta Nelson, Milton Frome, Hal Riddle, William Baskin, Vince Barnett, Joe Ploski, Kaye Elhardt, David Sharpe, Diane De Marco, Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley, Harvey Lembeck, Aron Kincaid, Tommy Kirk
story by James H. Nicholson, screenplay by Robert Kaufman, Elwood Ullman, music by Les Baxter

Doctor Goldfoot, Eric von Zipper (cameo)

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Craig (Frankie Avalon), a totally inept secret service agent, falls madly in love with Diane (Susan Hart) at first sight, and at first it looks as if their romance is going great ... until she ditches him without any rhyme or reason, and instead marries rich guy Todd (Dwayne Hickson) out of the blue.

Thing is, there is a reason behind her actions: She is a robot controlled by Doctor Goldfoot, who has created an army of female robots to marry the richest people of the world to sign their belongings over to him. That Diane accidently dated Craig was an accident, no more, but Craig is not ready to let go of her that easily, and eventually finds out Goldfoot's secret.

Craig warns Todd, and Todd even believes his story about female robots and whatnot, but when he is made subject to her seductive charms, he signs over everything he has to her anyways. It's only the next day that he fully realizes what he has done, and now he and Craig pay a (not so) friendly visit to Goldfoot's headquarters ... which eventually leads to a chase by car, motorbike, cablecar and boat and culminates in the destruction of the villain - but is he really dead?

Pretty much a blend of AIP's own beach party movies and the then immensely popular James Bond-films by way of comedy, Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was AIP's most expensive feature so far - and one of its biggest successes. But though it is fondly remmebered by genre fans even nowadays - mainly probably because it shows what a brilliant comedian Vincent Price is -, it's not all that good of a film. Basically, there is more wrong than right with the movie: It's not that well-written, its comedy is of a rather childish variety, the slapstick setpieces are neither all that special nor too well-conceived, and Frankie Avalon is not too great a comedian to carry the movie anyhow. Of course, there are some fun sightgags, including guest appearances of Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck from the Frankie & Annette Beach Party-series and the return of the pendulum from The Pit and the Pendulum (also starring Vincent Price), plus above-mentioned great performance by Vincent Price, but that's plainly not enough to make this a really good movie.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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