Bikini Drive-In (4 Stars)

One of my pet hates is Wikipedia's film reviews. They don't shy away from giving spoilers, even for newly released films. I've followed for and against arguments in the talk pages, and the consensus is that Wikipedia is a dictionary, so it should contain all the relevant information about a film. If anyone doesn't want spoilers, he shouldn't read the Wikipedia article.

There's no need to worry about "Bikini Drive-In". The Wikipedia page says:

"A girl inherits a drive-in movie theatre".

That's all. It goes to the other extreme. It says almost nothing about the film. The only additional information is a cast list.

When I reviewed "Bikini Drive-In" three years I only included screenshots of Nikki Fritz, because she had recently passed away. She's only one of many beautiful women in the film, despite appearing as a Plain Jane who slowly steps up and realises she's beautiful.

This is what she looks like on the DVD.

And this is what she looks like on the remastered Blu-ray. I managed to make a screenshot of the exact frame on both discs. The picture isn't perfect, considering it was a low budget movie made in 1995, but I'm sure you'll agree that it's an improvement.

There's something I didn't mention about Nikki when I wrote about her films in 2020. In 1998 she was the first woman to make a website with photos of herself, and only herself, for paying customers to look at. The URL was www.nikkifritz.com, but the site has long since ceased to exist. It might sound like nothing special today, but it was revolutionary at the time. There were already sites such as www.playboy.com (founded 1996) which contained photos of lots of different naked women, but Nikki made the first site dedicated to one woman.

Here are the photos from the free area of her site in 1998.

That's the original size. I expect that the nude pictures in the members area weren't any bigger. Remember, in the 1990's almost everyone had a dial-up connection, so large photos weren't acceptable. I was one of the early birds. In 1995 I had my first Internet account, with a 14,400 bits/sec modem. The telephone costs in Germany were phenomenal. This dictated my work. When I wanted to write an email I logged out, wrote the email, then logged in again to send it.

At some point I bought a 28,800 bits/sec modem. In 1999 I had my first taste of speed. I had a modem with 1.5 Mbit/sec, and it was on a dedicated phone line for which I paid a monthly flat rate. It still wasn't enough to display large photos at an acceptable speed. Today my Internet speed is nominally 1000 Mbit/sec, although I rarely get more than 200 Mbit/sec, because I'm connected by Wifi, not directly to the modem itself.

"Bikini Drive-In" is best known for the appearance of Michelle Bauer. What a woman!

She's the sort of woman who makes men stand and stare. Not necessarily in that order.

And she even signed the back of my Blu-ray. No, I won't sell it on Ebay. I'll hang on to this disc for the rest of my life.

And there are other beautiful women. The woman on the left isn't listed in the credits. but it's Becky LeBeau. She's not only beautiful, she sings most of the songs used in the film.

She's also an expert with a whip.

I still haven't said what the film's about. A girl inherits a drive-in movie theatre. She finds out that it's $25,000 in debt, and if she doesn't repay the money within three days the bank will possess it. So she has a brilliant idea. She'll have a film evening where she and the rest of her female staff will be dressed in bikinis. Even Susan the concessions girl, played by Nikki Fritz, is encouraged to show what she's got.

It helps that the projectionist has a good selection of classic films lying in his booth.

Here's a question for my readers. Three of the films are fictional. One is a real film. Which film really exists?

I can't resist the temptation to show two more before and after photos of Nikki Fritz.

Now you know why I prefer Blu-rays.

The Blu-ray I bought this week is a limited edition. It's not sold by Amazon, but with a little luck you can buy it from Makeflix.