Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is as good a movie as its title suggests. A half-parody of the 1964 James Bond movie Goldfinger and a sort of crossover spin-off of American International Picturesâ (AIP) beach party series (beginning with 1963â˛s Beach Party to 1965â˛s How to Stuff a Wild Bikini) and Edgar Allan Poe series of films, one has to wonder who the hell would even think of writing something like that? Well, screenwriters Robert Kaufman and Elwood Ullman certainly did from a story by James Hartford, and AIPâs producers â always looking to cater to a teenage audience (the rock ânâ roll and bare-but-not-too-bare skin certainly helped the teenage draw to the beach party movies; Iâm not certain if those same teenagers were attracted to seeing Vincent Price hamming things up in Poe adaptations) â certainly did.
With Norman Taurog (a career stretching from early talkies to several Elvis movies) attached to direct and Vincent Price as Goldfoot (the character wears gold, pointy, elfish shoes), there is some talent here salvaging the film from being utter dreck. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine could be seen as one of those so-bad-itâs-funny pieces, at least for those who know what they are getting into. For those who have never seen a single AIP beach party movie, go watch Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) instead â the campiness of Dr. Goldfoot may be too much to tolerated for AIP novices. For in the tradition of AIPâs productions, this is a spin-off well aware of the beach party series overextending, passing its sell-by date.
Here, archetypal mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot (Price) has constructed several golden bikini-clad female robots directed to flirt and fraternize with San Franciscoâs rich and famous. Goldfootâs laboratory assistant. Igor (Jack Mullaney; of course his character is named fucking Igor), was brought back from the dead by Goldfoot, and is tasked with programming one of the robots to the ludicrously rich bachelor, Todd Armstrong (Dwayne HIckman). Instead, the robot, named Diane (Susan Hart), becomes involved with Agent 00½, Craig Gamble (Frankie Avalon), who works for the Security Intelligence Command (SIC; heâs a âSICâ man, so one sedative joke goes). As Todd and Craig become entangled in each otherâs lives, they realize the lives of the San Francisco Bay Areaâs economic and political elite are threatened by Goldfoot and his nearly naked robots, and team up for the greater good. They track Goldfoot to his fiendish lair underneath a cemetery, fend off attempts at a torturous death, and seriocomic hilarity ensues.
One suspects that Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine would collapse without the actor billed first, playing the antagonist: Vincent Price. Early in Priceâs career, he was a stock character actor at 20th Century Fox, appearing in prestigious films such as The Song of Bernadette (1943) and Laura (1944). As the 1950s arrived, Price dabbled in horror films, leading him to embrace campier films that appealed to younger audiences. These films, often derided as seedy drive-in pictures, were a specialty of AIP â hence Priceâs appearance in many AIP pictures. Price, an American with a mid-Atlantic accent who established a career in lavish 20th Century Fox period pieces, never treated his work in less-than-reputable productions as beneath him. And, as seen in Dr. Goldfoot, he plays up his characterâs tongue-in-cheek, sexualized attitude towards his female robots. The situations are impossible, the characters idiosyncratic. Yet, there is not a single inauthentic moment with Price, and he flings himself headfirst into otherwise thoughtless material â that devilish laugh, that condescending flippancy! One only wonders what Price might have brought to the James Bond series if he was ever cast as a villain.
For the other principal actors, there are too many lousy performances to go around. Dwayne Hickman and Jack Mullaney â as Todd Armstrong and Igor, respectively â are silly throughout, but never registering anything past a chuckle. Hickman, whose interplay with Frankie Avalon was developed in Ski Party (1965; basically the beach party seriesâ characters during a winter break, rather than spring or summer) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, boasts boyish good looks but little else. Mullaney brings nothing to the stereotypical maniacal lab assistant character.
Regarding Avalon, the misadventures his characters in AIP films always verged on the slapstick. In the midst of his farcical surroundings, Avalon is the inoffensively delightful straight shooter for the duration â but his interactions with Price are some of the best examples of two bouncing off each otherâs performances in an AIP movie aside from the numerous times co-starred with Annette Funicello. Price and Avalon are two actors with different skillsets and of varying competence, but their performances are mindlessly entertaining, never laborious to watch.
So much of Dr. Goldfoot is a melding of incongruous, barely funny comedic bits â unclever sexuality is a hallmark of AIP teen-centric movies (a champagne bottle popping open and frothing when a buxom robotic babe arouses a male character, anyone?); the climactic chase scene up and down San Francisco and Marin County (immediately north of San Francisco on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge) is more The Great Race (1965) than beach movie/Edgar Allan Poe mashup. The wordplay contained in Dr. Goldfoot is not the wittiest, but Vincent Price exclaiming lines like, âStop dinging that dong!â will elicit some laughs. Sophisticated humor this is not; nor is it scatological or sexploitative. Reused footage 1961â˛s The Pit and the Pendulumâs torture scenes are poorly edited into Dr. Goldfoot, distracting from the macabre silliness that begins the movieâs final third. Select cameos will be lost on some who have not seen a single beach party movie.
Originally planned as a comedic musical (Price was looking forward to singing in a 007 spoof, but alas), Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine contains only one original composition: the titular song sung by The Supremes. Donât rub your eyes, youâve read that correctly â The Supremes, the same trio that recorded, âWhere Did Our Love Goâ, âBaby Loveâ, and âCome See About Meâ the year prior (so they were anything but unknowns when Dr. Goldfoot was released). Composed by Guy Hemric and Jerry Styner, âDr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machineâ accompanies a lively stop-motion animated opening credits that might just be the best part of this movie â Goldfootâs tapping shoes, electrical discharges, the golden bikinis, and a dangerously fast drive down Lombard Street in San Francisco unfortunately means the rest of the movie doesnât live up to the creativity of its opening credits. The song itself was distributed for radio stations as a single-sided promotional single, never available for mass release.
As an ancestor to the Austin Powers series with its frequent innuendo, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine unapologetically has a madcap plot where filmmaking was subordinate to dopey fun. Earning enough for a healthy profit following its theatrical run in North America, Dr. Goldfoot proved popular in Europe, especially Italy, spawning a sequel â Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, directed by Mario Bava, produced primarily in Italy rather than with AIP, and with Vincent Price the only actor starring in both films. Price, who enjoyed his time on set for the first film, considered the sequel, âthe most dreadful movie Iâve ever been in.â To have a film considered so-bad-that-itâs-good/funny requires a special mixture of redeeming elements â competent artistry and editing, actors noticeably having fun and intentionally hamming their performances, a joyfulness. To replicate that formula for a Dr. Goldfoot sequel is just asking too much.
With the beach party series in decline by mid-late 1965 (AIP released the films in quick succession: the first installment in 1963, three sequels in 1964, and another three sequels â not including Dr. Goldfoot â in 1965), AIP found itself in terminal artistic and financial decline as the 1960s progressed. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine has since become a cult classic. It is also a terrible movie. But, like a handful of AIPâs teenager-focused productions that I have seen, the peculiar wackiness of its performances and its absolute shamelessness made it a delightful waste of my time.
My rating: 4/10
^ Based on my personal imdb rating.
