Bikini Drive-In (1995; Fred Olen Ray)

A well-remembered T&A favourite from the days of late night cable, Bikini Drive-In remains one of the most durable titles from the prolific Fred Olen Ray, whose low-budget exploitation films were plentiful on rental shelves and specialty channels during the heyday of the video age.  His movies are especially known for generous showcases of old and new favourite B-movie personalities. As per its namesake, Bikini Drive-In, features many veterans from ye olde drive-in, as well as scream queens and familiar Cinemax personalities of its time. 

Kim Taylor (the appealing soft core queen Ashlie Rhey) inherits the El Monte Drive-In Theater from her deceased grandfather. Along with its staff, projectionist Oscar (Ed Wood veteran Conrad Brooks!), dorky ticket taker Tom (Tom Shell) and nerdy confectionary attendant Susan (Nikki Fritz), Kim has also inherited the theatre’s debt, since granddad made the unfortunate business decision to show only family fare, and must pay the bank $25,000.00 by the following Monday or the theatre will be foreclosed. Guess what? It’s Friday. 

Meanwhile, cigar chomping businessman J.B. Winston (veteran exploitation producer David L. Friedman in a fun role) is pressuring Kim to sell the property so he can convert it into a mall. Unfortunately Winston has to rely on his dim-witted goons Harry (Ross Hagen) and Carl (Peter Spellos), and his idiot son Brian (Richard Gabai) to carry out his dirty work. 

Thanks to some vintage exploitation film prints stashed by Oscar behind the old man Taylor’s back, Brian instead defies his dad and plans to rejuvenate the drive-in with a quadruple bill of such classics as Sorority Sister Slaughterhouse, I Was A Teenage Tree, The Ape Man Cometh, and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (only the latter title is a real movie) with a personal appearance by scream queen Dyanne Lynn (scream queen Michelle Bauer), and by hiring a bevy of bikinied bombshells for publicity! Candy (Becky LeBeau) puts on a striptease to make radio DJ Randy The Rocket do an on-air promotion (Rocket is billed “as himself”, though it’s actually director Fred Olen Ray- check out that mullet!). And erotic thriller perennial Tane McClure does a show-stopping car dance for lucky contest winners, while vintage drive-in ads project onto her body. Eat your heart out, Warhol factory! 

At this remove, Bikini Drive-In is a product of its era, when struggling drive-ins were being ploughed over for strip malls, as patrons instead chose the VCR as their drive-in. This is a soft core variation on the well-worn theme of “let’s put on a show to save a business from an evil corporation before the bank opens”, while honouring the Cinemax conventions of plentiful sex or nudity in every reel. This is why Kim and Brian fall into bed together within five minutes of screen time (it IS Ashlie Rhey after all), a “cleaning up the parking lot” montage becomes an excuse for a lot of wet T-shirts, Kim’s friend Carrie (Roxanne Blaze, billed as Sarah Bellomo) enlists the help of her boyfriend Bobby (Rob Vogl) with a hot tub sequence, and Ms. Bauer has a poolside encounter with her Chippendale servant. But for me, the most exciting moment involves the tantalizing Nikki Fritz (who sadly passed away this year), when the nerdy Susan is revealed to rock a bikini (sorry, but I have a thing for the "sexy nerdy girl with glasses" look).

The appealing cast is otherwise given little to do, and the film isn’t very funny, as its humour largely results from Winston’s schemes to sabotage Kim and Brian’s entrepreneurship. Michelle Bauer shows surprising comic energy, which gets underused in the otherwise feeble sequence where Winston’s goons kidnap Dyanne Lynn. The scene with the anti-Communist rhetoric spouting sheriff (Steve Barkett) attempting to shut down this den of iniquity, feels forced. The whole plot seems to be resolved with a shrug (as if someone watches this for humour or story). Still, it moves quickly for the obvious visual appeal, and that its heart is obviously in the right place, especially once the big night at the drive-in begins. 

And here is where Fred Olen Ray’s appeal is defined for certain viewers. Those who appreciate his reverence for exploitation film history and genuine love of the B movie veterans he would cast in his low budget epics will love the irresistible cameo appearances by fan favourites (new and old) playing drive-in patrons: Forrest J. Ackerman (of course) tries one of those old drive-in bug repellent contraptions; producer-director Anthony Cardoza and director David L. Hewitt name-drop their own films Bigfoot and Wizard Of Mars; also in there among the parked cars are Rolfe Kanefsy, Donald Glut, Dan Golden, and executive producer Jim Wynorski! Plus, drive-in fans will love the plethora of film posters seen in the concession stands and the theatre office: Beast From Haunted Cave; The Cremators; Wild, Free, & Hungry (which starred this film’s cinematographer, the prolific Gary Graver, who shot tons of erotic thrillers in that decade), and Dave Friedman’s own Bummer!  

Also vital to the drive-in experience is what plays onscreen during the carhopping. (Yes, we really did go to the drive-in to see the movies… mostly.) The vintage intermission ads, and some hilarious fake trailers of coming attractions (my favourite: the peplum Goliath Meets the Cheerleaders, with muscleman star Gordon Mitchell!), the excerpts from films by Ray or his friends (Evil Spawn, Steve Latshaw’s Dark Universe, Dinosaur Island, and Attack Of The 60 Foot Centerfold- starring Ms. Bauer) to comprise the “Dyanne Lynn” films onscreen are a perfect synthesis of the kinds of films we would flock to see every weekend. 

If Hollywood Boulevard was a valentine to the Roger Corman school, Bikini Drive-In is a love letter to the universe of Fred Olen Ray and his pals. This is why, instead of a cameo by Robby The Robot, we have the monster suit from Ray’s own Biohazard wandering around the drive-in lot- and appropriately gets kicked in the nuts when Kim’s ex-boyfriend wears it. Even John Carradine has a cameo, if only in a photograph, as Kim mournfully looks at a picture of her grandfather. 

The film feels like a family affair onscreen, which compliments the time-honoured “let’s get together and put on a show” optimism of its characters. In addition to the cameos by old friends (including Hagen’s wife Claire Polan),  the commentary track on the Retromedia DVD, reveals more stories of how this “who’s who” of 90s exploitation came together for this six-day wonder. Additional scenes were shot at David Carradine’s house, and Ray’s as well; Bauer and her husband tended bar for the extras during the drive-in scene! You can tell that they had fun making this picture, and that appeal eventually rubs off on the viewer. By the end, one is invested enough to wonder what the next weekend would’ve been like. 

Bikini Drive-In, the first of many Bikini-themed titles in Fred Olen Ray’s oeuvre, was a cable favourite for its obvious visual appeal of lovely ladies who were already veterans of 90s late-night erotica. There was a cheap unauthorized edited DVD release of the film, featuring scenes with ‘clothed’ versions for television, but the movie was released uncut to VHS by Malofilm, and to DVD on Ray’s own label, Retromedia. If you’re a fan, the latter is the version to get, especially for its commentary track which further shows how its making was a family affair.