Catalina Caper is a 1967 comedy

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 musical

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 mystery

Mystery film

Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 starring Tommy Kirk

Tommy Kirk

Thomas Lee "Tommy" Kirk is a former American actor, and later a businessman.-Disney years:Kirk was discovered by talent agents at the age of thirteen in a production of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California...

. It is one of the last (if not the last) in the beach party film

Beach Party film

Beach party movies were an American 1960s genre of feature films created by American International Pictures with their surprise 1963 hit, Beach Party, and copied by virtually every other studio...

 genre. This entry blends the beach format with a standard crime-caper comedy. It was shot on and around Santa Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...

.

The film was also featured in the second season of the movie-mocking television show Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....

(MST3K).

Plot

An ancient Chinese scroll is stolen from a museum in Los Angeles and teenage Don Pringle (Kirk) arrives on Catalina Island simultaneously. Although approximately half of the film involves swimsuit-clad adolescents dancing on yachts in several different dance montages, Pringle and his friends investigate the scroll's theft and discover that the parents of one of the boys is responsible — also while attempting to woo a mysteriously depressed young woman Katrina Corelli (Ulla Strömstedt

Ulla Strömstedt

Ulla Strömstedt was a Swedish-born actress who appeared in several films and television shows. Her credits include The Rat Patrol, I Spy and Flipper, as well as a couple of guest appearances on the 1960s sitcom Hogan's Heroes.Strömstedt studied post-baccalaureate in Stockholm, language and art at...

) from her vaguely threatening boyfriend Angelo (Lyle Waggoner

Lyle Waggoner

Lyle Wesley Waggoner is an American actor and former model, best known for his work on The Carol Burnett Show from 1967 to 1974 and for playing the role of Steve Trevor in the Wonder Woman television series from 1975 to 1979...

). After wrestling the scroll away from Angelo and his cohorts, bent on more dangerous results (in an underwater scuba diving action scene), the boys secretly return the scroll to the museum to the relief of the repentant parents.

Production notes

Both Never Steal Anything Wet and Scuba Party were titles planned for the film, before the makers decided on Catalina Caper (see Music section below).

Tommy Kirk appeared in four other films in the beach party genre

Beach Party film

Beach party movies were an American 1960s genre of feature films created by American International Pictures with their surprise 1963 hit, Beach Party, and copied by virtually every other studio...

: Village of the Giants

Village of the Giants

Village of the Giants is a 1965 science-fiction/comedy movie with many elements of the beach party film genre. It was produced, directed and written by Bert I. Gordon, and based loosely on H.G. Wells's book The Food of the Gods...

(1965); two AIP features, Pajama Party

Pajama Party (film)

Pajama Party is a 1964 beach party film starring Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello. This is the fourth in a series of seven beach films produced by American International Pictures...

(1965) and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini is the seventh of the American International Pictures beach party films and was released in 1966. The entire film takes place in and around a haunted house with no beach in sight, with the teenage gang instead cavorting in and around it and the adjacent swimming...

(1966); and It's a Bikini World

It's a Bikini World

It's a Bikini World is an American musical comedy film released in 1967 starring Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley and Bobby "Boris" Pickett of "Monster Mash" fame. The film features cameos by the music groups The Gentrys, The Animals, Pat & Lolly Vegas, The Castaways and R&B girl group The Toys...

(1967).

Music

The composer for this film, Jerry Long, also wrote the music for another beach party film, Wild Wild Winter

Wild Wild Winter

Wild Wild Winter is a 1966 Universal Pictures comedy film in the beach party genre, starring Gary Clarke and Chris Noel. It is directed by standup comedian Lennie Weinrib and produced by Bart Patton and is notable for featuring Jay and the Americans and the duo of Dick and Dee Dee in their only...

. Both films are his only onscreen credits.

Long also wrote two songs for the film, "Never Steal Anything Wet," heard over the opening/closing credits and performed by Mary Wells

Mary Wells

Mary Esther Wells was an American singer who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s...

; and "Scuba Party," performed onscreen by Little Richard

Little Richard

Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...

, who is also credited as a co-writer on the song.

The Cascades

The Cascades

The Cascades were an American vocal group best known for their single "Rhythm of the Rain", recorded in 1962 and an international hit the following year.-Career:...

 perform "There's a New World," written by Ray Davies

Ray Davies

Ray Davies, CBE is an English rock musician. He is best known as lead singer and songwriter for the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother, Dave...

.

Carol Connors

Carol Connors (singer)

Carol Connors is a retired American singer-songwriter. She is perhaps best known as the lead vocalist on The Teddy Bears' single, "To Know Him Is To Love Him", which was written by her bandmate Phil Spector.-Biography:She was the lead singer of the pop vocal trio known as The Teddy Bears, which...

 performs "Book of Love," which was written by Connors and Roger Christian.

Cast

• Tommy Kirk.....Don Pringle
• Brian Cutler.....Charlie Moss
• Venita Wolf
  Venita Wolf
  Venita Wolf is a retired American actress who appeared in the Star Trek episode "TOS: The Squire of Gothos" as Yeoman Teresa Ross. Other than that, she had only a short stint on popular television from 1966 to 1969, including guest roles on The Flying Nun, The Monkees, Gunsmoke and The Beverly...
  
  .....Tina Moss
• Ulla Strömstedt
  Ulla Strömstedt
  Ulla Strömstedt was a Swedish-born actress who appeared in several films and television shows. Her credits include The Rat Patrol, I Spy and Flipper, as well as a couple of guest appearances on the 1960s sitcom Hogan's Heroes.Strömstedt studied post-baccalaureate in Stockholm, language and art at...
  
  .....Katrina Corelli
• Lyle Waggoner.....Angelo
• Del Moore
  Del Moore
  Del Moore was a comedian, a television and movie actor, and a radio announcer.Born Marion Delbridge Moore in Pensacola, Florida, he began his career in radio before moving to television. In 1952, he appeared in the first of several So You Want To . . . Warner Bros. comedy shorts with George O'Hanlon...
  
  .....Arthur Duval
• Sue Casey
  Sue Casey
  Sue Casey, born April 8, 1926, in Los Angeles, California, was an American actress and Hollywood extra who appeared in over 75 productions between the years 1945 and 2002....
  
  .....Anne Duval
• Peter Duryea
  Peter Duryea
  Peter Duryea is an American actor. He is best known for appearing in the original pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series "The Cage" portions of which were reused in "The Menagerie," as Lieutenant Jose Tyler...
  
  .....Tad Duval
• Jim Begg.....Larry
• Mike Blodgett
  Michael Blodgett
  Michael Blodgett was an American actor, novelist, and screenwriter. Of his many film and television appearances he is best known for his performance as gigolo Lance Rocke in Russ Meyer's 1970 cult classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls...
  
  .....Bob Draper
• Robert Donner
  Robert Donner
  Robert Donner was an American actor who made many appearances in television series and films in a career spanning more than 40 years.-Early life and career:...
  
  .....Fingers O'Toole
• Lee Deane.....Lakopolous
• Peter Mamakos.....Borman
• The Cascades.....Themselves
• Carol Connors.....Herself
• Little Richard.....Himself

Characters

• Don Pringle - A friend of Charlie Moss' from college. Don is used to living in a desert environment, and Charlie's decision to bring him to Catalina Island is the first time he's seen the Pacific Ocean. He develops a crush on Katrina.
• Charlie Moss - A friend of Don's, whom he met in college. A resident of Catalina, Charlie happily takes Don to have fun. Charlie is also a rather popular ladies' man, and has a group of 3 girls fawning over him the moment he returns to the island.
• Tina Moss - Charlie's sister. Assigned to show Don a good time, she takes him scuba-diving, and develops a crush on Don. Grows jealous about his affections toward Katrina.
• Katrina Corelli - Visits Catalina to be with her boyfriend, Angelo. Don meets her on the boat ride over. Something about her also makes her appealing to a number of guys on the island.
• Angelo - Katrina's boyfriend who is on Catalina under the employ of Borman and Lakopolous. Has a quick temper, and is willing to kill to get the scroll for his employer.
• Arthur Duval - "Vacations" on Catalina with his wife and son. Plans to pass a fake scroll off to Lakopolous.
• Anne Duval - Arthur's wife. Plans to use her art skills to duplicate the stolen scroll.
• Tad Duval - Arthur and Anne's son. Suspects that his parents are on Catalina as part of a shady scheme, even though his parents deny it.
• Larry - The Duvals' henchman. A baseball fanatic who steals the scroll that Arthur and Anne plan to create a duplicate of.
• Bob Draper - A member of the Catalina Island Harbor Patrol who is caught up in the scheme of the Duval's. Works with Don and Tad to hatch a plan.
• Fingers O'Toole - A pratfalling agent who tails Larry to Catalina Island, hoping to catch Arthur Duval red-handed with the stolen scroll.
• Lakopolous - A wealthy foreign man with a thick accent, who is known to collect plenty of rare antiquities. Comes to Catalina to retrieve the scroll from Arthur Duval.
• Borman - Lakopolous' assistant. Tries to obtain the scroll from Duval without taking payment.

DVD releases

• The MST3K version of the film (accompanied by the uncut version, included as a bonus feature) was released by Rhino Home Video
  Rhino Entertainment
  Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
  
  as part of the Collection, Volume 1 DVD set, which is now out-of-print as of January 2010.