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."
