{"id":4201,"date":"2018-04-06T18:33:13","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T18:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixtiescinema.com\/?p=4201"},"modified":"2018-04-06T18:33:13","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T18:33:13","slug":"52-years-ago-today-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/06\/52-years-ago-today-3\/","title":{"rendered":"52 Years Ago Today&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Ghost-in-the-Invisible-Bikini.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4206\" src=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/The-Ghost-in-the-Invisible-Bikini-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a>The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini<\/strong><\/em> opened starring Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, Aron Kincaid, Nancy Sinatra, Quinn O&#8217;Hara, Harvey Lembeck, Bobbi Shaw, Piccola Pupa, Claudia Martin, and Susan Hart. Plus the regular cast of beach boys and girls including Ed Garner, Christopher Riordan, Salli Sachse, Mary Hughes, Patti Chandler, and Luree Holmes.<\/p>\n<p>Financially the least successful of the <em>Beach Party<\/em> movies, <em>The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini<\/em> put the nail in the coffin for the genre at AIP.\u00a0 After six movies, seven if counting <em>Ski Party<\/em>, the beach films was getting tired. AIP tried to pump life into it by shifting the locale to a creepy mansion and mixing aspects of the beach-party formula with the horror genre and populating it with fresh faces. Three heirs (Kirk, Walley, and Patsy Kelly) to a fortune gather at Hiram Stokely\u2019s mansion for the reading of his will unaware that his crooked lawyer (Basil Rathbone) with the help of his near-sighted but knockout of a daughter (O&#8217;Hara) and a bunch of bungling circus performers (Shaw, Jesse White, Benny Rubin replacing the ill Buster Keaton, and a gorilla) plans to off them so he can steal the inheritance. His nevarious plot goes awry due to the interference of a beautiful ghost in an invisible bikini (Hart) who is sent down by Hiram (Boris Karloff) to make sure the money winds up in the rightful hands. There\u2019s nary a beach or a surfboard in sight, which greatly hurts the movie. Instead all the action takes place at a spooky old estate with a fair number of scenes around an in-ground swimming pool with boys in bathing trunks and girls in bikinis twisting to the sounds of The Bobby Fuller Four and Nancy Sinatra. The less said about that Italian &#8220;singing sensation&#8221; Piccola Pupa the better.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) - Theatrical Trailer\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mghTPnEDKsU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the shoot, are a number of its stars from my books Talking Sixties Drive-In Movies; Hollywood Surf &amp; Beach Movies: and Drive-In Dream Girls.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bobbi Shaw on Harvey Lembeck<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHarvey was amazing and always a joy. You could tell he just loved what he did waking up in the morning and showing up on the set. We always had fun. After we finished making the beach party movies, Harvey started a comedy group and asked me to join. I didn\u2019t, but he was always sweet and friendly. His wonderful son Michael directed <em>Friends<\/em> for many years and we are buddies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Bobbi-Shaw-Harvey-Lemback.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4202\" src=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Bobbi-Shaw-Harvey-Lemback-300x239.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"239\" \/><\/a>Quinn O&#8217;Hara on Basil Rathbone<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I first met him I was so afraid I\u2019d say, \u2018Rasil Bathbone\u2019 that I actually did! He was a charming man. I heard that during his heyday in Hollywood he and his wife would throw the most magnificent parties. I was just so happy to play his daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Patsy-Kelly-Basil-Rathbone-Deborah-Walley-B-W.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4205\" src=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Patsy-Kelly-Basil-Rathbone-Deborah-Walley-B-W-300x278.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"278\" \/><\/a>Susan Hart on playing the ghost in the invisible bikini while wearing a blonde wig<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne day they sprayed the wig and turned on the big lights for a scene. The make-up girl came over to powder me and she turned her head away as she did it. Then the guy who measures the distance for the lights came near me and let out a, \u2018whoa!\u2019 I thought, \u2018My gosh, what is the matter?\u2019 The director [Don Weis] started to come over and he wouldn\u2019t get close to me. I started to get upset. Finally, somebody came over and asked me, \u2018What\u2019s the matter?\u2019 I answered, \u2018I don\u2019t know but something is wrong because everybody who comes over to me looks at me funny, turns around and walks away. Please what is it? Do I smell or something?\u2019 Turns out that the damn sheep oil got so hot that I started stinking like a sheep. I couldn\u2019t smell it because not only did I have it on all that time but they had those big fans blowing as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ghost___.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4204\" src=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ghost___-300x222.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"222\" \/><\/a>Ed Garner on Aron Kincaid<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Aron Kincaid is a fabulous guy. He was the most dedicated, serious guy I ever worked with who wanted to become a movie star. He actually lived, breathed, and ate show business. I was amazed. He couldn\u2019t believe that I couldn\u2019t give a hoot about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/download-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4203\" src=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/download-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"289\" height=\"175\" \/><\/a>Aron Kincaid on Quinn O&#8217;Hara<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I adored Quinn O\u2019Hara. I had known her for a few years prior to this. She was a wonderful girl and an actual beauty queen\u2014Miss Scotland. She had been at Universal when I was there. I had always said that once they put her in color everything would change. She looked great in black and white but nothing like she did in person.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/the-ghost-in-the-invisible-bikini-lobby-card_1-1966.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-4207\" src=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/the-ghost-in-the-invisible-bikini-lobby-card_1-1966-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini opened starring Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley, Aron Kincaid, Nancy Sinatra, Quinn O&#8217;Hara, Harvey Lembeck, Bobbi Shaw, Piccola Pupa, Claudia Martin, and Susan Hart. Plus the regular cast of beach boys and girls including Ed Garner, Christopher Riordan, Salli Sachse, Mary Hughes, Patti Chandler, and Luree Holmes. Financially the least [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}