Product Description

A Navy demolition team must destroy a sunken submarine before the Japanese get to the top-secret equipment aboard the vessel.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50687 in VHS
• Released on: 2001-02-20
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English
• Running time: 77 minutes

Amazon.com
Two-piece bathing suits don't show up until the closing credits, so anyone expecting Operation Bikini to be a precursor to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is going to be disappointed at the sight of Jim Backus in swabbie gear. Still, you could do a lot worse than kill 83 minutes with this standard-issue World War II actioner set in the South Pacific theater, aimed at the teen audience favored by American International Pictures, and released just as the British Invasion was hitting the American pop-music charts. Frankie Avalon does his latter-day Sinatra thing as a lovesick submarine crewman (complete with full-color dream sequences as he sings about "The Girl Back Home"--the movie's only blatant promotional gimmick), and Tab Hunter does hunk duty as a demolitions expert assigned to blast a sunken U.S. sub on the Bikini atoll (site of later atomic bomb testing) before Japanese salvagers can steal its prototype radar equipment. That's pretty much it for plot, but it's aided immeasurably by lively dialogue and a cast of familiar '60s faces, from the aforementioned Backus (a year away from Gilligan's Island infamy), Gary Crosby, Scott Brady, and Michael Dante. Director Anthony Carras was moving up after editing several of AIP's biggest hits (he only made two other films), and while this routine programmer is hardly distinguished, it's a perfectly acceptable example of Kennedy-era entertainment, when WWII heroics still lingered in the memory of an increasingly youth-oriented nation. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Nicely Done War 60's War Movie!!
This is a nicely done 60's war movie with a great cast that includes Frankie Avalon,Tab Hunter and Jim Backus.Check it out!!