AIP are best remembered for their teen orientated movies - JD pictures, beach party films, Poe adaptations, sci fi flicks. They did turn out a few meat and potato war movies as well, films with titles like Jet Attack. This was a late entry - originally called The Seafighters its title was changed to Operation Bikini, which implied it was a military themed beach party movie. (The film was made before Beach Party).
Which would probably have been more fun. This is a sluggish not terribly involving film. It has an interesting, eclectic cast who in all honesty look like they should be in a beach movie: Tab Hunter, Frankie Avalon, Jim Backus (as part of the same platoon!), Gary Crosby (who actually looks like a believable GI), Michael Dante, Scott Brady, Eva Six, Jody McCrea. Avalon, Six and McCrea would go on to make Beach Party.
It's a flabby film. It's a guys on a mission movie but the mission doesn't start til 45 minutes in. The time up til then is padded out with not one but two scenes of Avalon dreaming about his girlfriend and him singing a lounge tune toher.
Eva Six, who would be in Beach Party, is a native girl who helps the men - including dousing Hunter's head and bare chest with water, giving him a massage and then having sex with him. This scene was a little awkward to watch.
The action isn't very well done - it's not that exciting. There's some stock footage from the water and murky underwater footage. And an ending which mentions the Bikini Atoll explosions and a final credit sequence in colour with two women in bikinis (I think one of them is Eva Six, even though her character dies in the movie) cavorting around on a beach. It's just a bit weird. I honestly wonder what the hell the story was with the making of this film. My guess is they started off making a conventional war movie then worried how dull it was and panicked.
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