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Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine More at IMDbPro »

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32 reviews in total

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23 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
A too-little-known (and too-little-appreciated) gem, 11 June 2005

Author: Brandt Sponseller from New York City

Now this is what I call a too-little-known gem. Despite being a perpetual "student" of film and being a fan of Vincent Price, 1960s films, and the various genres this film can be seen as, I somehow overlooked this title for years. I can't remember anyone else I've read or talked to who mentioned this title. Maybe that's because a film like this is an acquired taste, one that apparently many people haven't acquired. I must have come across it sometime, but I didn't really notice it until I stumbled across it on Netflix recently.

Some of the descriptive terms that regularly pop up in others' reviews of this film include "silly", "ridiculous", "goofy", "insane", and "absurd". I wouldn't disagree with any of those terms. What I would disagree with is that they denote something undesirable in films, or that they denote something that deserves less respect than other descriptors. Other admirable terms that I would add include "surreal", "satirical", "madcap", occasionally "atmospheric" and "funny". Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine certainly isn't intended to be realistic, and despite popular conceptions, it's not intended to just be a laugh-out-loud comedy, either.

One could think of Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine as what we now call "high concept"--"Vincent Price, in a transformative mode between his Corman-directed Poe characters and Dr. Phibes, meets Frankie Avalon in a beach film attitude meets James Bond meets 1960s 'madcap'/'screwball' comedy".

Price is Dr. Goldfoot, a satire of a Bond mad scientist, with a name that's obviously a pun on Goldfinger. He's planning on usurping the wealth of some of the world's richest men by creating a veritable army of hot robotic women in gold bikinis, appropriately enough, since they're mechanical but artificially intelligent/sentient gold-diggers. Todd Armstrong (Dwayne Hickman) is one of the victims of the nefarious plan, and Craig Gamble (Frankie Avalon), an almost secret agent, becomes involved because the robot aiming for Armstrong initially mistakes Gamble for him--they have a similar look. Gamble falls in love with her and searches for her once she disappears. This gradually leads to Armstrong and the eventual discovery of Dr. Goldfoot's scheme.

In the 1960s, filmmakers were on the upswing of increasing experimentation. The Hays Production Code, which filmmakers had started seriously challenging in the 1950s, was decreasingly influential or "enforceable", and would be abandoned before the end of the decade. In addition to broaching previously forbidden subject matter and images, filmmakers were also increasingly experimenting with the structure of films. The roots of this were the same as the roots fueling parallel revolutions in pop music, for example, and more importantly, in society, leading to the lifestyle experimentation of the hippies. For films, plots were often pushed and prodded, including some attempts to effectively abandon them. The result was a lot of sprawling and too-often-messy "madcap" comedies. In a number of famous cases, such as Casino Royale (1967), or What's New Pussycat (1965), the experimentation ended up hurting the films as much as helping. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine has the same basic attitude and sense of experimentation, but director Norman Taurog and writers Robert Kaufman, James H. Nicholson and Elwood Ullman admirably keep a relatively tight lid on their plot. It gives us the best aspects of the era's "freewheeling" sense of filmic adventure while not forgetting about the importance of a coherent story.

As a Price fan, some of my favorite moments arrived with Price satirizing his previous screen personae. Dr. Goldfoot lives in an elaborate laboratory/dungeon beneath a funeral parlor that serves as a front (this is prescient in an oblique way of Don Coscarelli's 1979 film, Phantasm), and many scenes of Dr. Goldfoot in his home environment are surprisingly atmospheric, including the chamber housing Goldfoot's razor sharp pendulum, which almost trumps the one in the Roger Corman Pit and the Pendulum (1961), which it references, or questionably "spoofs". Price is good with this kind of comedy if you like complex ambiguity, because he's so dry and his "comic" characters are so closely played to his serious characters. It's a very subtle difference.

Frankie Avalon is far less subtle, but he's no worse for that, and he's primarily done lighthearted roles anyway. Avalon's scenes often veer towards slapstick. Some of the best material in that vein arrived in his special agent office, with his boss, Donald J. Penny (Fred Clark).

Even though this is a 1960s film with one foot in the comedy genre, as a Vincent Price film you wouldn't expect the climax to be an extended, madcap chase scene. It is, and it's one of the best sequences of the film. Our heroes and villains chase each other around the streets of San Francisco (with some attendant very attractive cinematography in a mini-San Francisco travelogue) in a number of increasingly absurd vehicles and scenarios.

Insofar as Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a James Bond spoof--and that's a prominent mode, although certainly not the only dominant one--it was obviously one of the influences on Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). But Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is also somewhat serious about its other genres, and it satirizes gold-digging, marriages and high-profile divorces in a time where they were becoming much more commonplace in the public consciousness. Of course, it's also a great excuse to watch a dozen scantily clad, beautiful women, who even go-go dance a bit for us.

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12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Wonderfully stupid fun, 11 January 2006

Author: estabansmythe from Azusa, CA

Vincent Price having a field day hamming it up like John Barrymore on scotch and speed!

Harvey Lembeck as Erich Von Zipper in a hilarious 10-second cameo!

The titanic teaming of Dobie Gillis and Frankie Avalon!

One of the finest Second Bananas, the late Jack Mullaney as Price's Mad Scientist henchman, Igor!

Tons of young American International babes!

The Supremes singing the title song!

Directed by Elvis' #1 Man, Norman Taurog!

Written by the Three Stooges #1 Man, Ellwood Ullman!

WOW!

And what have you got? Only the greatest film since "Gone With The Wind," "Citizen Kane" and "The Bicycle Thief"!

Okay, perhaps not - but it is a ton of zany low budget screwball fun, '60s American Internationl-style.

I really liked it.

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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Silly Sexploitation, 19 June 2004

Author: EmperorNortonII from San Francisco, California

"Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine" is one of those campy'60s movies that are, basically, an excuse to show bikini-clad girls in a movie. Vincent Price stars as the mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot, with an insane plan to rob all the world's richest men. Frankie Avalon plays a bumbling secret agent trying to foil Dr. Goldfoot's evil scheme, and even pokes fun at his "Beach Blanket" history. This movie has a ridiculous story, but it has some good qualities. For one thing, the animated opening credit sequence is fun and eye-catching. For another, the chase scene is a good laugh. And, if nothing else, is has better production values than its sequel, "Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs"!

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Stupid but Fun, 9 January 2000
Author: Thomas Merritt Scofield (carolsco@concentric.net) from Olathe, Kansas

What can one say about this movie? It's ridiculous but iresistable. Vincent is always fun, the film has great color and location photography. A perfect time capsule of how much fun the '60s could be. The Les Baxter score and songs are great and the opening number, with the Supremes, no less, is a rockin' Baxter classic!

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Lowbrow fun., 5 November 2001

Author: gridoon

A totally dumb, freewheeling comedy, good for some lowbrow fun. With its mad scientists, bikini-clad girls, laser guns and silly slapstick gags, this film has definite cult possibilities, but it's never really very funny (despite campy performances by Price and Frankie Avalon). Plus, the mismatch between on-location filming and rear-projection techniques in the final big chase sequence is so obvious it becomes awfully distracting. (**)

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7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
It Was So Bad.... I Strangely Kind Of Liked It., 25 December 2001

Author: GuyCC from Las Vegas, NV

But in the kind of way people like hospital Jell-O. You take it simply because it's there.

A friend brought this over to my humble abode for what seems to be a new tradition of "Bad Movie Nights". This pithy little nugget is quite the mound of poo, but it was so laughably bad that, well, I pretty much laughed.

Hilarity and hi-jinks ensue as Diane the multi-accented robot (and Carmen Sandiego wardrobe impersonator) rips of the wealthy in the name of Dr. Goldfoot (and does he have a bikini machine... but hey, who doesn't have one these days?). The good doctor is played by Vincent Price, and our main hero is Sonic restaurant spokesman and beach movie veteran Frankie Avalon. So for the duration of the film, we get a Motown/claymation intro/theme song, a far out and utterly random dance moment, goofy plot devices, dungeons with motorcycle riders, a dense henchman, a Scooby Doo-esque graveyard, lots of girls in bikinis, quite possibly the longest and most improbable chase scene ever, and the fabled line "stop dinging that dong!" Ah, this is high comedy, or comedy created while someone was high. I'm not sure. It was slapstick that would have made Jerry Lewis very proud indeed.

If this never made it to MST3K, then it should have. My friends and I ripped into it with sarcastic glee. All we were missing were the robots. I was stunned about how laughably bad this film was, and yet when it was all over, I actually had a good time with the thing. This is definitely a film to watch if you enjoy hurling witty insults at bad films. Everyone else, run far away, but stay for that wacky theme song.

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7 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
A tip o' the brim to Castro Street?, 5 January 2004
Author: LucyCannon from Massachusetts, USA

Our little group saw this on our own "Bad Movie Night" and speculated that this was a sly homage to San Francisco's gay community. Certainly there was no obvious reason to film it there, besides the fun involved in careening down Lombard Street between Hyde & Leavenworth (allegedly the crookedest stretch of paved road in the USA) during the chase scene.

Why? Because Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman seem almost disinterested in Dr. Goldfoot's sex-bots at first, and, once they find each other, they hold on to each other for dear life. Vincent Price camping it up in silk smoking jacket doesn't help. All of us viewing in this session were straight, so those of you with acute pre-Stonewall Hollywood Gay-dar should check this out to see if we're just a clueless bunch of breeders. There may even have been clues we missed.

A few things that make us go "Hmmm": Why would someone who obviously has the means to construct an opulent underground lab with fancy decoration and fabulous machinery need to use it to soak rich guys? Why does Igor look and act like just a normal schlub pulled off the street, rather than a revived corpse (did the SFX budget run out after all those gold bikinis)? How does making her scrub the floor punish a robot? (Unless she's Marvin the Paranoid Android.) What ever became of Igor's impersonation of the SIC chief visiting the local department? And why does a movie that advertises "killer sex-bots" have little violence, and essentially no sex, in it -- not even of the off-screen early-60s sex-tease sort?

Aww, so the hell what? IT'S A REALLY STUPID MOVIE ALL ROUND. ***, one of them just because Vincent Price is simply mahvelous.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Robot Females and Stupid Males, 14 September 2007

Author: Bogmeister from United States

MASTER PLAN: marry off rich bachelors to female robots and get rich. Of all the films attempting to capture the absurdity and success of the James Bond craze of the sixties, this one is the most ridiculous. This one combines the weird plots of the Bonders with some elements of the stupid beach movies and campy horror of the decade, complete with dungeons and threat of torture (genuinely if mildly amusing). It's an odd mix, to be sure. Then-popular teen idol Avalon, most famous for his beach blanket bingo pics, is an agent (number 00 & 1/2) of S.I.C. (Secret Intelligence Command), based out of my old hometown of San Francisco - nice location long shots and a focus on the winding Lombard street. He's a hapless dope who becomes involved with a femme fatale robot (Hart) accidentally. She's one of several creations originating from the warped brain of Goldfoot (Price), the mad doctor of the title. He's somewhat typical of a Bondian villain wannabe, but Price is best known for his mad scientist roles in typical horror films of that time, so he's kind of a combination of both. Though a mad genius in the comical sense, his goal is nothing more than making some bucks off his robots, so he's actually a futuristic pimp, running a wild & crazy con artist/prostitution ring.

The plot is pretty amusing and Price hams it up shamelessly, mugging for the camera and even indulging in that cliché - the sinister mad chuckle. His assistant, Igor, is a complete idiot, a further parody of the mad scientist's aid from the "Frankenstein" movies, existing solely as an ego-boost for the mad scientist, to make him look even smarter - presumably why Goldfoot 'returned' him to life (see also the Luthor/Otis relationship from the "Superman" movies). How much a viewer likes any of this depends on how much patience one has for all the slapstick stunts and silly overplaying by the actors. Igor is the most extreme example, but everyone else also behaves like an idiot. The one surprise is actress Hart, who, besides being easy on the eye, proves to be quite talented, required to act with several different accents, besides other things. She virtually disappeared from the movie business soon after this, unfortunately. The entire premise of robotic babes, a commentary on male attitudes of that period, was repeated in later similar fare - "Some Girls Do" for example, not to mention the obvious "The Stepford Wives" in the seventies. Also note the use of musical sound FX in one scene from a couple of famous sci-fi pics of the fifties, "War of the Worlds" and "Forbidden Planet." Goldfoot and S.I.C. would return in the Italian "Dr.Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs" the following year. Hero:4 Villain:5 Femme Fatales:7 Henchmen:3 Fights:3 Stunts/Chases:4 Gadgets:5 Auto:4 Locations:6 Pace:5 overall:5

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Going for the Gold Bikini, 2 May 2012

Author: wes-connors from Earth

Diabolically hammy mad scientist Vincent Price (as Dr. Goldfoot) has a dozen beautifully-shaped young female robots. They wear gold bikinis for underwear and are not shy about parading around for the camera. Lead "robot" Susan Hart (as Diane, #11) succeeds in Mr. Price's mission, to seduce handsome millionaire Dwayne Hickman (as Todd Armstrong). Also turned on by Ms. Hart, rival agent Frankie Avalon (as Craig Gamble, #00 and ½) tries to foil Price's plot to mate more millionaires with his sexy robots. The Supremes sing the title song, but do not appear. A couple of cameos help liven up the dungeon sequence. When compared to the infinitely better "Get Smart" TV series created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, this spoof of "James Bond" spy films fell flat - fortunately, the women weren't.

*** Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (11/6/65) Norman Taurog ~ Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Susan Hart

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Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, 24 April 2012

Author: Scarecrow-88 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Vincent Price is a mad scientist named Dr. Goldfoot (his Ali Baba shoes are gold and his fembots wear gold bikinis!) who uses beautiful female robots to seduce rich bachelors to swindle them! Frankie Avalon is one of the worst secret agents imaginable, only hired at his agency because his long-suffering uncle is over the operations (the government hates them, though!). But Avalon's Craig Gamble (he is so dire at his job, that his code number is a fraction!) stumbles (literally) onto Goldfoot's criminal enterprise when he becomes fixated with one of the fembots, Diane (Susan Hart, stunning, bubbly, and full of energy), ordered by her master to deplete wealthy executive Todd Armstrong (Dobey Gillis himself, Dwayne Hickman). When Gamble and Goldfoot have a tug of war for Diane, her hand comes off (this was the final jolt needed for Craig; earlier in the movie she was "spouting milk" and this failed to convince him that she wasn't quite human!). Will Goldfoot, who has created many fembots in his laboratory, be successful in bilking riches from dopey, lust-struck bachelors or can Gamble clumsily stop him? This is perhaps best viewing for those who love seeing Price poke fun at his villain parts, while slapstick (Avalon tries to mimic Buster Keaton) and sexist humor (…so prevalent during the 60s) are primarily the objects of comedy throughout this entire film. This movie tries damn hard, I'll give it that, and the cast seem to be really enjoying themselves. I guess what you find funny will determine if this succeeds or not. The cast play for as many laughs they can, but seeing Avalon go cross-eyed, fainting at the sight of a robotic hand ripped from his beloved Diane or being trapped in a folding bed in a closet (or being bopped by a filing cabinet drawer that opens with a thrust) is what constitutes as comedy in this film…trying to prepare you, just in case this kind of humor doesn't suit your fancy. One scene has Hickman's convertible backed up a phone poll as he smooches with Diane while a police officer writes him a ticket. Hickman later signs his signatures to stocks merely at the proposal of Diane even after she refused to give him a little somethin'-somethin' on their honeymoon night. Price constantly ridicules his assistant, Igor, a corpse he brought back to life to help him continue his work on fembots—Igor's mistreatment is also played for laughs throughout, such as when he tries to remove an ice cube from a club patron's blouse, instead removing her bra, or when a fembot (with a deep, manly voice) performs martial arts on him due to a disagreement. My favorite part of the film is when Price takes his uninvited guests (now prisoners in his mansion), Hickman and Avalon, on a tour of his medieval dungeon, full of torture contraptions (some amusing cameos appear from those bubble-headed Beach Blanket Bingo movies). There is also a protracted chase through San Francisco, where landmarks like those long, winding roads and hilly streets, as well as the historic trolley cars, are all put to use (a lot is obvious green screen and sets, but locations are still used effectively). Price applies devious eyes and a demented cackle to his mad scientist, even having a Pit and the Pendulum Torturer moment that is inspired with poor Hickman laying under the swinging blade. I think this might be a bit too irresistible to some, in the mood for dumb fun, while I'm certain others will find "Dr. Goldfoot" silly in the extreme to the point of obnoxious. With John Mullaney and Fred Clark co-starring as Igor and Avalon's Uncle respectively.

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