Goin' Coconuts

I first saw this movie when I was a young teenager. I recently bought it online in VHS format. I loved this movie when I was a kid, even though I know it was no Oscar contender. I was and am a big Osmond fan.

This is a GREAT family movie. Not too scary for the little ones, enough suspense for the older kids. Mom and dad can enjoy this movie for exactly what it is, more Donny and Marie than you could get in the wonderful one hour weekly TV show in one sitting.

The music is really good, and the Osmonds prove yet again that even if you don't like them, they have fantastic musical abilities. The songs themselves are good and directly relate to the story. The acting isn't bad either. You even get a short preview of Donnys beautiful real life wife at the end of the movie.

This film essentially begins with both Donny Osmond and his sister Marie Osmond boarding a plane to Hawaii where they have a few performances booked for them. Just prior to their flight, a priest gives Marie a necklace he says the children at a local orphanage would want her to have. Although it is obviously not worth that much, Marie accepts the gift only because of the sentiment behind it. What she doesn't realize is that the priest who gave it to him is actually a thief named "Charlie" (Jack Collins) and it holds a secret which other sinister groups also desire. Not only that, but once they find out that Marie now has the necklace, they immediately set their sights on both Donny and Marie--and they are willing to commit murder to have what they want. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I remember watching this movie when it first came out and it didn't leave much of an impression on me at that time. Having now seen it again over 40 years later, my initial impression remains the same as this clearly isn't a first-rate film by any stretch of the imagination. It does, however, have a couple of cute scenes here and there with one particular song-and-dance performance by Donny and Marie in a native Hawaiian setting that I found to be rather entertaining. That being said, while this certainly isn't a great comedy by any means, I don't consider it to be that bad necessarily, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

I saw this movie when it came out in the theaters and I was a fan of the Donnie & Marie Show...However, even though I was only 15 when I saw it, I was shocked and disappointed at how bad this film was. It was so bad, I was embarrassed for them and I walked out of the movie half way through.

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.

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!