THE WORST WE CAN FIND - Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 9 - Catalina Caper

 

It’s Day 9 of The Worst We Can Find Christmas Advent Calendar and by this point in December, we’re all sort of longing for summer and the beach, so why not a dip in the water with the dips of Catalina Caper?

Catalina Caper (1967)

Program: Mystery Science Theater 3000

Air-Date: November 29, 1991

Plot: Well, it’s like this. The Allan Sherman guy steals a placemat off the wall of a building. He gives it to the Louis Nye guy and his wife. They plan to recreate the art, sell it to a Greek guy, and then have the original artwork returned to the “museum.” The Greek guy is on to them and plans to steal the real artwork, using his henchmen. One of the thugs (played by Lyle Waggoner), is possessive about the girl from Flipper.

Meanwhile, Tommy Kirk.

There’s your story.  Have at it.

 

The rarely seen movie poster for the movie and the VHS box art for the MST3K version.

Thoughts:  The Beach Party movies were an ever-morphing genre that took the musical-comedy format of the 1940s and 1950s, dropped in modern music of the time instead of show-tunes, and featured young adults in romantic entanglements. American International Pictures, an independent studio that worked cheap, but knew what kids at the drive-ins liked, was at the forefront of cashing in on crazes of the day starting with Beach Party in 1963, featuring a 23-year-old Frankie Avalon and 21-year-old (and former Mouseketeer) Annette Funicello, along with several familiar faces and pop-rock performances. When the movie became a hit, AIP continued and many other studios jumped in with their own variations of the theme.

And, as with any movie genre, it saturated the market so quickly that by 1965, it was becoming clear that it was time to move on. AIP tried to mixed up the concept with a military comedy, Sergeant Deadhead, and horror-themed versions like Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (starring Tommy Kirk) but by 1966 the audience had moved on. Bikers movies were to become the next big thing, while horror movies hung on by being grislier and “more adult.” Beach party movies were considered for kids, as the kids who liked them were now nearly college and ready to move on.

That didn’t Crown International, the studio you went to when AIP was too fancy and expensive for you, from releasing one of their own beach party movies in 1967, Catalina Caper. The movie stars Tommy Kirk, a former Disney actor that had a popular career going for him when he got busted for drugs and faced scandal for having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy. Disney managed to get a lot of it swept under the rug, but Kirk was on the outs with Disney and moved to AIP to work on such pictures as Village of the Giants (also seen on MST3K), which eventually led to Crown International. Kirk would continue for a time, but he would eventually leave the business, get off the drugs, and began a carpet-cleaning business that kept him going. He passed away in 2021.

An ad from Buffalo, New York, September 1967, with the film showing not only with Wild Rebels, but another big MST3K film, Skydivers!

The movie evidently was filmed in 1965 during the last gasps of the beach party era, but didn’t get released until 1967 as a second-billed movie at the drive-ins, typically for Wild Rebels, another MST3K classic riff. As with other beach party movies, the film features faces familiar, along you may not quite place them. Del Moore, who plays the conman trying to pass off the fake art, who best remembered for co-starring in a number of Jerry Lewis movies. Peter Duryea popped up in “The Cage” pilot of Star Trek. Ulla Stromstedt, aka Creepy Girl, was on several episodes of Flipper. Robert Donner appeared in a lot of movies but is probably best remembered as Exidor on Mork & Mindy. Venita Wolf, who plays Charlie’s sister, also popped up on Star Trek, this time in “The Squire of Gothos.” Lyle Waggoner of course eventually moved to The Carol Burnett Show and then Wonder Woman (and, for those too young to remember, was involved with an informercial in 1993 for penile implants, hence the riff in the movie). Michael Blodgett probably has some of the biggest cult-following credentials as he would later appear in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, with his character beheaded by Z-Man (John LaZar).

A moment NOT from the Informercial.

As for the musical talent on display, there’s no need to introduce Little Richard, and by golly he does appear to be squinting a bit more than needed to because of the sun. Carol Connors had sung lead on the Teddy Bear’s big hit “To Know Him is To Love Him” and co-wrote “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme song from Rocky. The Cascades had a hit in 1962 with “Rhythm of the Rain.” As you can guess, none of these artists had a hit from Catalina Caper (although the songs aren’t that bad for one of these movies, really).

Poor guy is having trouble seeing with all the whiteness around him.

As to the plot of the movie? Well, you’re namely there to see girls in bikinis and perhaps to see some comedy from Tommy Kirk and the gang, but most of the comedy is ancient and the back-and-forth nature of the art-steal is so dull that it’s easy to lose interest. It’s a rare case when MST3K went after a comedy, as it isn’t easy to make fun of intentional comedy.  But Crown International showed them an exception to the rule.

 

Favorite Riff: “Hey, what gives? He’s the one with the implant.”

 

The Riffing: This was early in the second season of the Comedy Central era (and the first season where it actually was Comedy Central), early in the era of Tom Servo being voiced by Kevin Murphy, and of course early in Frank Conniff’s years on the show. Two clips from the invention exchange would make their way into the opening credits (the tank-tops and the tickling bazooka), while we have a song by Servo fondly remembered by fans, “Creepy Girl.” It’ll be another season before he gets to sing another love song, only to a turtle.

Joel has the bots do their nightly prayers even if they don’t want to pray for certain individuals, such as Frank and Forrester. Although Joel gets a rare chance to lose it in the hysterical “memories of the 1960s” segment, the prayer sketch, and the later attempt to teach the ending segment explaining the movie will be typical of the parental role that we would see Joel be to the robots through his time on the show. This of course would change with Mike, who took on a more sibling/frat brother role to the bots in his years.

Tommy has a crush and needs to sing about it.

From time to time over the years, MST3K has fallen into a situation where movies riffed had to be pulled from repeats on Comedy Central due to licensing ending. MST3K eventually worked out those issues and it is available to watch on various streaming services, but it was a first for the program and not a last, keeping some episodes still unavailable to watch in a conventional manner.

On a personal note, this was the episode that got me interested in becoming a fan. I had seen bits and pieces of earlier episodes, but had trouble following the riffing and the dialogue at the same time and didn’t concentrate on what I saw long enough to really “tune in.” Then it all clicked into place with this episode, as I felt the movie deserved everything they were giving to it.  Thus, while it may not exactly be fitting for Christmas, it’s a special memory for me and couldn’t not help to include it here. Hopefully you feel the same.