Normally I love AIP musicals but this one was hard to take. It’s an attempt to graduate their Beach Party stars to more grown up entertainment – so we have Frankie Avalon, Deborah Walley (fitting in for Annette Funicello), John Ashley, Harvey Lembeck, Bobbi Shaw, Donna Loren and Buster Keaton put into military outfits. Service comedies are normally pretty surefire, but this is dreadful.
For one thing, it has a needlessly over-complicated plot – geeky Avalon is accidentally shot into space (fine), comes down a national hero but has a big head (fine), then has to have his position taken over by a lookalike (silly – and introduced way too late to the story). For another the antics of Avalon and co are really irritating, and breaking out into song doesn’t work. Also the freedom inherent in the beach party movies is stifled in the army setting.
There is a funny gag about the girls having to salute while wearing towels and said towels dropping on the ground, and Avalon and Walley work well together. It's weird to see John Ashley playing a nerd type character as opposed to his normal suave sidekick.
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