Goin' Coconuts

I saw this movie when I was a kid and just watched it again for nostalgia's sake. My reaction on both occasions was to think "What happened here?" They couldn't have come up with a lazier, lamer vehicle for these kids if they'd tried. I mean, it was a theatrical feature film featuring a talented duo with a hit tv show ant hit records. And it's like they put almost no money--or, more importantly, zero effort--into the movie. It's not even as good as a TV movie from back in the day--the two part Brady Bunch Hawaiian episode was better quality. Howard Morris has directed good films before this, but Coconuts seems to have not been directed at all. SO many endless long shots, bad sound--like they just set up a camera in one spot and told the actors to do the best they could with no retakes. Kenneth Mars tries desperately to be funny--SO desperately. Donny and Marie are pleasant and natural, but they're so relaxed they seem to think that they're just doing a rehearsal. There's a happy, "Yeah, whatever...when's lunch?" attitude which could have been funny if played up on purpose. But I think they really just had no idea what was going on. This doesn't seem like it was directed by someone who doesn't know how to direct a movie, but by someone who has never even SEEN a movie before. The cheezy disney movies of the day like Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo put this film to shame. How could so many talented people produce something so LAME?

Ps-- I recently read that Donny and Marie passed up on roles in Grease in order to do this movie--Marie would have been Sandy and Donny cameoed as an angel. They supposedly chose this project because it was more "family friendly," which is kind of strange seeing as how it has murders and racial "humor."

Alright...so it's a 70's nightmare by some standards, but it's Donnie and Marie! You gotta love it lookin' at it from a 21st century standpoint. This is the goofy stuff Austin Powers was built on! And to think that they got away with this brand of humor on G-rated material! Also take note of the very clever and difficult task of using 5 bumbling villains instead of the standard one or two. Again, Austin Powers owes a lot to the precedents set by a flick like this and I for one am fallin' in love again!

When I was 7 and 8, I was a HUGE fan of the Donnie and Marie show. After their movie came out and went to Home Box Office, I saw it every chance I got. I'm sure I saw it at least 5 times. It's amazing the things that will entertain an 8 year old. I had never seen Donnie in a suspenseful role so I was impressed with his talent to combine suspense and comedy. I was hoping for a sequel or a series of movies to come from Donnie and Marie but that didn't happen. Then I turned 10 and Donnie and Marie didn't seem that great anymore. My tastes went to teenage comedies like 'Fast Times' and 'Porkies'. Donnie and Marie was for the pre-pre-teen audience.

Jewel thieves in Hawaii are after necklace worn by visiting pop star. Imagine being outsmarted by Donny & Marie Osmond! Blandly cute semi-musical may spark fond memories for fans of the duo's TV variety show, but is otherwise an unpolished comedy of embarrassments. Aloha! *1/2 from ****

Donny and Marie Osmond (playing themselves) and their tightly wound manager Sid (Herb Edelman ) are off to Hawaii for a concert, but when a stolen Jewel winds up in Marie's possession hi-jinks ensue.

Produced during the annual hiatus for Donny & Marie's variety and financed and distributed by The Osmonds, Goin' Coconuts was supposed be a test of of Donny and Marie Osmond's celebrity status by seeing if they could open and carry a feature film. A critical and commercial dud upon release, the movie has been mostly forgotten, and rightly so because it's a pathetic excuse for a movie that is ineptly directed and acted.

Despite allegedly being the focal point of the movie, Donny & Marie are often relegated to the background while we focus on an assorted of TV character actors engaging in pratfalls, double takes, or other limply played comic gags that don't raise so much as a snicker let alone a laugh. The movie is directed by veteran sitcom director Howard Morris and can't maintain comic momentum or edit scenes to give the gags any life or punch. None of the scenes involving the crooks are funny, but they are at least slightly more engaging than the Osmonds themselves. Donny and Marie have no stage presence when it comes to acting, they basically have one mode in this movie and it's wide eyed smiling niceness, while that can sometimes be used for comic effect here it isn't because more often than not Donny and Marie are blissfully unaware of most of the farcical scenes surrounding them so there's no comic friction played off their unnaturally smiley demeanor. The movie is rated PG for reasons I can't discern as I've seen G Rated Disney comedies from around the same time like No Deposit, No Return or Snowball Express that felt way edgier than this.

Goin' Coconuts is a failure. It's a failure to extend the Osmonds repertoire to feature films, it's a failure as comedy, it's even a failure as a travelogue to Hawaii because the movie has a very flat look to it that doesn't capture the state's natural beauty and is instead focuses on limp wristed attempts at comic caper cliches that are ineptly done with no drive or impact. It's just a waste of everyone's time for all concerned.