The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (not rated)
AFI Catalog; IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon

Caution: spoilers, I guess.

This came out in 1966, but I didn't see it until 2026. It is the seventh and final movie in the "Beach Party" series, and the only one to include neither Frankie Avalon nor Annette Funicello in the cast. It's also not set on a beach, but there is a swimming pool with a bunch of teens dancing around in bathing suits. (But I don't consider it a "teen comedy", just a regular comedy. Though it's also pretty weird and wacky.) It does have several elements that are reminiscent of previous Beach Party movies, perhaps most notably the presence of Eric Von Zipper and his motorcycle gang. The movie's title comes from a framing device that was added after the film was originally completed, so it kind of seems to have nothing to do with the main "plot" (if you can call a bunch of random hijinks a plot). But honestly, there's so much different stuff going on here that it somehow doesn't feel entirely out of place, in my opinion.

It begins with the ghost of a woman in a hooded cloak walking through the wall of a mausoleum. She knocks on a coffin to wake up its occupant, an old man named Hiram Stokley (Boris Karloff), who had died a week earlier. I think he used to run a circus or something, and his girlfriend, Cecily (the ghost), had died in like a trapeze accident, or something, many years ago (which explains why she's still young). She tells Hiram he must perform one good deed in order to get into Heaven, but he can't leave the crypt. Cecily can leave, however, and she produces a crystal ball for Hiram to communicate with her and watch all that goes on. Hiram has a crooked lawyer named Reginald Ripper (Basil Rathbone), who is supposed to read Hiram's will at midnight, in Hiram's mansion. His fortune is to be divided between Ripper and three heirs, two of whom had apparently never known Hiram. (It is eventually sort of explained why he chose them.) They include Chuck Phillips (Tommy Kirk, who had previously appeared as a different character in "Pajama Party"), Lili Morton (Deborah Walley, who had appeared as a different character in "Beach Blanket Bingo"), and Hiram's cousin, Myrtle Forbush (who reminded me of Aunt Wendy from "Pajama Party", but this was both a different character and a different actress). Myrtle has a nephew named Bobby (aka Gugu), whom she invited, along with all his teenage friends, to come party at Hiram's estate, for no apparent reason. Anyway, Hiram tells Cecily that Ripper will try to eliminate the other heirs in order to keep the entire inheritance for himself, and for his good deed, he wants Cecily to stop Ripper, on his behalf. He's supposed to give her instructions on how to do that, via the crystal ball, but as far as I recall he never actually did that. She just popped up once in a while to do things apparently of her own accord, to influence events. Mainly that means saying things to various characters, who can neither see nor hear her, but what she said somehow entered their minds, and they would repeat her words. (Though of course, in reality it was more like she was just repeating words the other characters had already said in the original script, but before they said them.) I should mention that when she left the crypt, she discarded her robe, so now all she's wearing throughout the movie is an invisible bikini, which means she was see-through in the areas that were covered by the bikini.

Ripper had hired J. Sinister Hulk, a character previously seen in "Pajama Party", to kill off the three heirs. Hulk had a couple of employees to help with that: Princess Yolanda (Bobbi Shaw, who had played different characters in earlier Beach Party movies) and Chicken Feather (an offensive caricature of a Native American, like the one played by Buster Keaton in earlier Beach Party movies, but played here by a different actor). The two of them bring with them a gorilla named Monstro, who is kept in a cage, but later in the movie he escapes and causes some predictable havoc. And when Ripper learns that Myrtle has a nephew, he brings in his daughter, Sinistra, to seduce Bobby and kill him. But he keeps getting away, whenever she's not wearing her glasses, without which she can barely see. Also, there's a girl named Vicki (Nancy Sinatra), who was apparently Bobby's girlfriend, so she was jealous of Sinistra, whom all the guys were attracted to. Honestly, I don't know why they were so into her. She was attractive, of course, but no more so than Vicki or any of the other bikini-clad girls. But I did wish a bit more would have been done with Vicki's character, who was fairly unimportant to the plot. Meanwhile, Chuck and Lili believe someone is trying to scare them off so they wouldn't be at the reading of the will, in which case they'd forfeit their inheritance. (I really don't know why Ripper felt the need to have them killed, if all he really needed to do was keep them away from the will reading, but whatever.) So Chuck and Lili make a pact to... not be scared. But Chuck clearly wants their relationship to become romantic. As if all this weren't chaotic enough, Eric von Zipper and his gang show up at the mansion, having followed Princess Yolanda and Chicken Feather. They sneak around, and eventually discover that Hiram's fortune is hidden somewhere in the mansion, so they want to find it before anyone else. Chuck and Bobby end up sharing a bedroom, when everyone goes to sleep for the night, planning to look for the treasure in the morning. But Bobby keeps getting scared by Hulk and Chicken Feather, in costumes, as well as by Monstro. But Chuck is always conveniently out of the room at the time, and doesn't see them, so he thinks Bobby was just imagining them. Until everything finally comes to a head, and there's a big fight between the good guys and the bad guys.

What else can I say? There are some forgettable songs, just like in all the Beach Party movies. And there's a random butler or something who barely appears in the movie, and who seemed completely superfluous. And, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff goes on throughout the movie. It's all quite silly, but I still found the movie somewhat entertaining. Something also happens at the end with Hiram, which I had predicted all along would happen. And I guess that's all I can think to tell you. (I've probably said too much, but I won't reveal how the main plot ends.) But I'm glad to have finally seen the movie.