Post #47527 by AquaZombie on Tue, Aug 12, 2003 3:11 PM

I'm glad you guys brought up "Psycho Beach Party" which got my personal vote for Best Movie of 2000 - along with "The Woman Chaser," a snappy neo-noir based on Charles Willeford's pulp novel shot in B&W and set in the early 60s. There's a tiki bar sequence and the incredible lounge soundtrack features a lot of exotica (I don't think it was even ever officially released, though - someone gave me a copy of a bootleg they found on eBay, I strongly recommend your searching it out, as well as the extremely rare video - its obscurity is downright criminal.)

Speaking of tikis on TV, anyone ever see the episode of "My Favorite Martian" where the last half is set in a tiki bar? I caught it by accident late one night on TV Land and didn't have a g.d. tape handy. It was amazing.

There is also "Elviki" - tikis in Elvis flicks. You can find prominent tiki statues in beach party scenes from "Girl Happy" and "Clambake" in addition to "Blue Hawaii" and "Paradise, Hawaiian Style." His other movie set in Hawaii, "Girls! Girls! Girls!" seems to almost downplay its island setting, for some reason (probably because it was originally written to take place in New Orleans, hence the creole-tinged non-hit "Song of the Shrimp" ).

There are also prominent tikis via South Sea island settings in several Japanese monster movies including "King Kong vs Godzilla" ('62) "Mothra" ('62) and "Godzilla vs the Sea Monster" ('67). There's also a lengthy tropical island segment (no tikis, but lotsa hula girls) in the 1966 Gamera epic "War of the Monsters" which just came out on DVD retailing for 6 or 7 bucks.

Another film noir that featured a scene in a tiki bar (in Palm Springs) is 1950's "711 Ocean Drive" starring Edmond O'Brien, which I've shown in Thrillville but is not currently available on video - but it turns up routinely on the Mystery Channel, so watch for it if you have cable, and keep those blank tapes handy...