The Rosebud Beach Hotel

Low-budget, low-brow comedy from Almi Pictures (and later Vestron Video) boasts Colleen Camp, Peter Scolari, Christopher Lee, and a very funny Fran Drescher in its lineup, but is otherwise a negligible effort (and with T&A asides to boot). Camp inherits a fifth-rate hotel by the ocean and hires second-hand help to run it, but does she know all the bellhops are hookers? "The Rosebud Beach Hotel" is at odds with itself whether to be a goofy frolic or a girl-peeping sex-fest à la "Private School". Apart from a few funny scenes, pretty tacky. For those who stick it out, there's a rock concert on the beach...and Eddie Deezen falls into the pool. * from ****

The 1980s brought us a plethora of bad comedies where sex took the place of laughs...and for that reason alone I score this one a 2 and not a 1! Yes, despite having some respectable actors (who were at their worst here due to terrible writing), the movie fails on almost every level...though the music wasn't half bad.

Tracy (Colleen Camp) is a rich girl who loves Elliot (Peter Scolari), a spineless man who has practically no personality throughout the film. For some odd reason, she wants to marry him despite her father (Christoper Lee) not caring for the guy. Heck, if I were in the father's shoes, I'd rather she marry a ball of lint as it would have more personality. So, to impress her old man, Elliot agrees to run one of her father's hotels...not realizing the father is planning on burning it to the ground.

The film's plot sound like it could have worked...but it never does. This is because repeatedly, when the film could have delivered laughs, women inexplicably take their clothes off. But as a sex film, it needs more and as a comedy, it needs SOME...and what you're left with is pretty dopey....as if written by Bevis and or Butthead. Overall a terrible film with passable original music.

Sometimes, you can't help but wonder...how did this movie get made? What poor saps put up the bucks? Did they read the script? Were they in a financial plight where they could make money by losing money? And while we're speaking of money, presumably enough of it was forthcoming to persuade a few professional performers -- like Christopher Lee, Fran Drescher and Coleen Camp -- to wander through the drivel. The plot centers on a pair of young lovers who inherit a Miami Beach hotel and hire a squad of bell hops -- all hookers -- to work there. Meanwhile, a nutcase is trying to blow up the premises with predictable slapstick results. The movie should get only a one out of ten but I'll throw in an extra point for some very attractive bare breasts.

This is not one of those films that seeks to probe the deep mysteries of the universe. Anyone who has played critic and mercilessly panned or trashed this movie is taking this romp and themselves way too seriously. That said, if you are looking for a way to spend about an hour and a half immersed in pure mindless satirical comedy, this will do nicely. The movie is a spoof of almost any major movie genre you can name with each scene extracting laughter, while setting up a gag for the next. Similar to the Scarry Movie, Naked Gun, and Airplane franchises,a number of well known actors at that time (but not Leslie Nielsen)lent their talents to producing this very funny film parody. Sure, the plot is predictable, the jokes are cheesy, and the overall vibe is cult classic, but this particular recipe works so well that at times, the movie becomes a parody of itself. My wife and I first watched this movie about 10 years ago on late night HBO plus a couple of times after that, and I have to say it gets funnier each time.

This movie is so bad, and the cast, which includes some semi-big names, is so bad in it, you will spend most of the films running time (if you can manage to keep watching) wondering how any of these actors got work again. I can't imagine this ever had much of a theatrical release, and got its only exposure on late night 1980's cable TV, a fate the film certainly deserved. I know they have fans, so if your interested, Cherie & Marie Currie sing a couple of songs that I don't think are available anywhere else. If this wasn't so obscure, it would have to rank pretty high on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Trust me, it's really that bad.