The Party, with Peter Sellers, 1968 - Mod Movie Monday at The Tiki Bar

Get out your Naru jacket, tune up the sitar and get ready to watch a truly mod movie from the psychedelic ’60s, baby! Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards got together only once to make a comedy that wasn’t about The Pink Panther.  The Party, 1968 is a crazy, mod, very ’60s flick about Hollywood craziness of the day, and spoofs a big hippie-era Hollywood party so well you’ll wish you were there.

Peter Sellers plays an Indian actor named Hrundi V. Bakshi who is trying desperately to get his big break in American films. As you might expect, he does more harm than good on the set and gets himself put on the black list, only to be accidentally put on the invitation list to the big Hollywood shindig instead. Add every 1960s mod movie gag in the book, hot women, pot smoking musicians and a baby elephant and you can’t miss. And I guarantee, for the rest of your days every time you see a parrot, you’ll want to call him Birdy Num Num.

You’ll have to put yourself in the era to enjoy this flick - it’s not exactly action-packed, and there’s no real story, just one funny scene after another. (According to IMDB: “This film was improvised from a 56-page outline. Each scene was shot in sequence, and built upon the previous scene. To aid in this experiment, the film’s producers had a video-camera tube attached to the Panavision camera and connected to an Ampex studio videotape machine, allowing the actors and crew to review what they had just filmed.”)

Since the movie is about a big swingin’ Hollywood party in 1968, suitable fare should include fondue, caviar, California salad and cucumber sandwiches. For drinks, Champagne would be grand, or Beefeater Martinis for the cocktail set.

-Tiki Chris for Tiki Lounge Talk

Art Deco & Mid-Century Modern Come Together in Downtown Hollywood, Florida

It was a beautiful day in downtown Hollywood, Florida where I work. Sun shining, puffy white clouds, not too crazy hot. So I decided to take my trusty Instamatic Camera (not really, it’s a digital camera) and head down to the happinin’ section of Hollywood Boulevard.

Hollywood was founded in 1925 by a visionary named Joseph Young who wanted to build his dream city in Florida. It quickly became a thriving city, with beachfront hotels, beautiful homes, and a busy downtown area. This downtown was first built up in the mid to late 20s, with some slowing during the depression and WW2. It found a resurgence in the 50s, as many vacation spots did, and had a building boom through the 60s. This history led to a unique combination of early Art Deco construction, Spanish-Floridian construction, and Mid-Century Modern.

It’s amazing that these buildings were able to survive through the architectual vacuum of the 70s and 80s, but some managed to hang on with their original look intact. The late 90s saw a re-popularization of the original styles, and luckily the popularization has remained through the present leading to numerous restorations, retro-refitting of more recent dull buildings, and dig this…brand new construction in the Art Deco and Mid-Century style. Seriously. (continued after the slide show)

I was able to get some very nice shots of the Art Deco and Mid-Century Modern buildings along the boulevard. One of my favorite buildings is the Great Southern Hotel, located on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Young’s Circle. I believe Young himself had this hotel built as part of the city plan back in the mid 20’s. It has a sort of Florida-Spanish style combined with that 1920s pre-Deco look you see in a lot of shore towns. What the hell do I mean by that? Basically it means simplicity, symmetry, and terra cotta.

There are a good number of trendy nightclubs and cafés along the boulevard, and most of them have stuck with the retro look. It’s nice to see people taking these historic styles seriously, and appreciating them for the timeless beauty they portray.

***

Funny story about The Great Southern hotel. When we first moved to Florida in 2000, my wife and I took a drive to Hollywood to check it out. At that time it was in a state of change; a lot of stores were vacant, and still looked like they did in the 70s. I noticed the big white hotel on the corner, and thought to myself that it looked really familiar, but couldn’t place it. Mind you this is the first trip I ever took to Hollywood. Anyway, a few years later in 2005, I end up working in a building on Hollywood Boulevard a couple of blocks from downtown. While there I picked up a local paper, which happened to have a story about “The Great Southern Hotel” on the cover. The story was about how the owners wanted to tear it apart to put up a parking garage, how the city didn’t see anything wrong with that, and how the historical society was about ready to commit murder if necessary before letting that happen. The name rung a bell…but I still couldn’t catch it. Then one day it came to me…where I’d seen that name. It was in a movie, which I ran out and bought right away.

There it was, in one of the last scenes of Midnight Cowboy from 1967. Joe Buck and Ratzo Rizzo are headed down to Miami on a bus. The bus stops for a break, and Joe Buck ditches his cowboy outfit and boots for a Hawaiian shirt. As he shoves the boots into a trash can, you can clearly see a giant white building with the name “Great Southern Hotel” in giant letters in the background. That was it; a scene in a movie I had seen when I was about 13 had stuck in my head for years…and as fate would have it, I wind up working down the street from the place. But here’s what’s even more interesting: One of the themes of the movie is that the characters want to get out of the city, out of the cold, away from the freaks up north and down to sunny Florida where the palm trees sway and you can pick the oranges right off the trees. Well, my father and I used to joke around about it all the time, that we had the same dream. Finally, in 2000, he, my wife and I made it down here. “Everybody’s Talkin’ at Me” from the movie was going through my head as we crossed the Georgia border into Florida. The sun actually was shining through the pouring rain as we drove down I-95 into Fort Lauderdale. My father, who was very sick at the time, made it down right behind us, but unlike Ratzo lived a few years to enjoy it. Whenever I see the Great Southern I think of him, and how we both got our dream to come true.

(This is a repost from last year, but it was such a popular one I thought I’d give it another view)
-Tiki Chris Pinto, for the Tiki Blog

Mod Movie Monday: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968

Hang on to your hats kids, we’re goin’ on a wild ride! It’s

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968

There are few movies that can compare in the combination of craziness, zaniness, modness and madness as this one. Between the comedy of Dick Van Dyke, the beauty of Sally Anne Howes and the original story by Ian Flemming (of James Bond fame) it’s no surprise this flick has remained a favorite for over 40 years.

But let’s not try to fool anyone…the real star of this movie was, of course, the car. A true-bred race car, born to win until a fatal accident retired him to a peaceful life slowly withering away in a field, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang would be rediscovered, and reborn - by Caractacus Potts, a somewhat oddball inventor who seemed to be able to make mechanical wonders out of bits of junk. The ultimate in recycling and restoration came when he brought Chitty back to life, using spare parts from toasters, boilers, and even a boat. And what an amazing cat Caractacus was - a mechanic, machinist, welder, brass-wright, boat-wright, carpenter and inventor all in one!

Of course we’re led to believe he didn’t actually build it all by himself…especially the wings and flotation built into the car…there’s a little bit of magic in that car, just a little.

Depending on where you look, you’ll find that there were anywhere from four to six full-size models of this car built for the movie, with at least one being fully-operational. There’s been a lot of conjecture over the years as to what happened to them all…lost, hiding in barns has always been a favorite of mine. But they all seem to be accounted for…apparently one lives somewhere down here in Florida, so I may even get to see it in person one day.

For someone who has had a hand in restoring (or at least fixing up) old cars since I was a kid, this movie really hits home. More than the fact that it’s a kool little car that can fly, more than the fact that it’s magical. There’s another story here, one that most people don’t care much about…it’s a story about taking something that was once magnificent, and that has since fallen from grace; about taking that wondrous piece of machinery and bringing it back to life, giving it a new chance to delight and be adored. I’ve had the good fortune to do that with a couple of cars, some vintage toys, and even an antique clarinet. I’m doing it now with my 1953 Chevy Belair, although not nearly as quickly (or with as much talent) as Caractacus Potts.

Since this is really a kid’s movie, I’d have to go with some sweet snacks and drinks to go along with it. For drinks, I’m thinking along the lines of chocolate milk…maybe a Nutty Irishman, or Chocolate Martini. For snacks, break out the hard candies, chocolates and cakes. Some good old-fashioned Hershey’s chocolate bars and Brach’s hard candies should do the trick. Oh, and don’t for get the Maloxx.

-Tiki Chris Pinto, Live from The Tiki Blog

Mod Movie Mondays: Casino Royal, 1967

Today from the Tiki Bar, here’s a kookie flic that’s got so much insanity flying around you’ll have to watch it three times just to figure out what the hell is going on. Straight from swingin’ London during the heart of the Mod era comes

James Bond 007 in Casino Royal

This is a kinda-sorta real but not really part of the James Bond 007 series of movies…it was supposed to be the movie version of Ian Flemmings’ first James Bond novel, but Hollywood politics got in the way. Long story short, producer Charles K. Feldman decided to make it a spoof of the James Bond movies. Cut to Peter Sellers. Hilarity ensues.

Casino Royale, 1967

The Tiki-Time Scoop:

This is the only James Bond film to offer multiple Bonds…David Niven stars as the retired James Bond, a somewhat stodgy fellow who is rather annoyed by the sexual antics of the new 007s. Peter Sellers stars as Evelyn Tremble, who becomes James Bond. Woody Allen plays Jimmy Bond. The list goes on…

This spoof takes elements of the original story and twists them into an LSD-induced string of craziness that is fun to watch. The fact that Ursela Andress, Jaqueline Bisset and Deborah Kerr are in it don’t hurt. Throw in kats like William Holden, Orson Welles and George Raft, and you can’t miss.

1967 Computer...hi tech stuff

This truly “Mod” movie even includes original music by Burt Bacharach, much of it performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. “The Look of Love” is performed by Dusty Springfield behind one of my favorite 60’s Movie Scenes of all time, which includes glowing goldfish and a sunken living room.

I won’t try to give you a synopsis of the story…that would just make things more complicated. Just watch the silly film. It may be a little hard to take if you’re not into the scene. It’s strange, it’s odd, it’s a product of the times. It had six-plus separate directors. Sellers and Welles couldn’t stand each other and the scenes they were in together were shot separately using stand-ins.

Sellers was so much trouble on the set he was fired before filming was over, and they re-arranged the ending of the movie around scenes he never shot. (There’s a lot of great trivia on the movie at IMDB, click here). It ran over budget and was one of the most expensive films produced up until that time. All in all, it managed to make it to the number 3 spot for 1967.

How To Watch:

I don’t dig drugs, but if I did, I’d want to be high on acid to watch this. Since that ain’t gonna happen, I’d suggest something a little far out there…for snacks, stuffed mushroom caps, escargot, assorted cheeses with pimentos and olives, you know, goofy 60’s stuff. For the booze, I think Martinis would be ok, but expand your mind for this groovy movie, try a Gin or Vodka Collins, a Harvey Wallbanger or maybe a nice Golden Cadillac.

Hukilau 2010! June 11-13 - Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Well kids, there’s not much to say about the most intimate Tiki event in the world that they don’t do a great job of saying on their website:

http://www.thehukilau.com/2010

So I’ll just tell you if you’re into the Tiki Lifestyle, dig Tiki Art, swing to Exotica music, love Tiki drinks and have a thing for hot chicks doing Polynesian dances, you’ve got to hop a rail and get yourself down to Fort Liquordale, Florida this June.

If you’ve ever been to a Tiki event, you know how much fun this can be.

For those of you who are saying “what the hell is a Huki-whatsis?”: The Hukilau is a weekend of crazy people celebrating all things Tiki. There are Tiki idols, Tiki music, Tiki art, Tiki mugs, Tiki Ti-shirts, and of course Tiki Bars. Have I said “Tiki” enough yet? You catch my drift, right?

Colleen at the Hukilau 2009. That's not me next to her.

There will be tons of great performers like  The Bikini Beachcombers and King Kukulele. And of course, South Florida’s favorite underwater bombshell, Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid will be showing of her fabulous dancing and aquatic skills.

But one of the things that really sets this Tiki Life event apart from all the others is the inclusion of the world-famous Mai Kai Tiki Bar & Restaurant, a Fort Lauderdale landmark since 1956. It’s one of the few remaining original Tiki bars from the golden era of Poly Pop, and has stood the tests of time, hurricanes and changing fads to take its place as one of, if not the top, Tiki bars in the world. When you go, make sure you take a stroll through the tropical garden.

If all goes well (and the banking industry doesn’t turn America into a desert) we’ll be attending all three days. Hopefully we’ll see some of you retro-kats and swingin-kittens there! Come up and say hello to us…I’ll be the guy in the Hawaiian shirt.

For more info on the event, to book tickets online and to arrange for a motel click the Hukilau link above. You can also join their facebook fanpage by clicking the words in the pretty color.

Mahalos! See you in June!