The Rosebud Beach Hotel

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.

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.

Sometime between "Bosom Buddies" and "Newhart", Peter Scolari starred in this dud of a comedy as Elliot, a soft-spoken weak-willed guy who's badged by his fiancé into taking up the reigns of her father's (Christopher Lee in a thankless role) hotel in Florida, which her dad just wants to burn down for the insurance money. Fran Drescher embarrasses herself as the head bellhop/hooker, and Eddie Deezen is on hand to...well to act like Eddie Deezen, the guy does the same shtick in every film he's been in and is never good. The film attempts to go for low-brow laughs, yet fails to even deliver at that.

Eye Candy: Monique Gabrielle, Julia Always, Durga McBroom, Tina Merkle, Julia Parton, & Paula Wood all show T&A

My Grade: D-

Where I saw it: Netflix online via Xbox 360

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 ****

I've watched this movie probably a half-dozen times over the last 40 years or so (yeah, yeah, a waste of my time/life, whatever), yet I'm at a loss as to why...so much for the idea of age equating wisdom.

It may be due to having seen this first late at night via whatever premium cable movie channel it aired on in the mid-1980's when I was a teenaged horndog on the lookout for a little t & a on television. Sort of a wistful nostalgia for a time when seeing women disrobed wasn't readily available anywhere at anytime with the mere click of a button or swipe of a screen.

I should also say I've enjoyed other flicks lead actress Colleen Camp has been in. I always liked Christopher Lee in the Hammer Dracula stuff. Fran Drescher isn't an actress I've ever much liked, although her appearance in this movie was very early in her career thus she wasn't yet amping up her accent and annoying vocal mannerisms.

I think a lot of it has to come down to The Rosebud Beach Hotel just being a film I couldn't make sense of. It wouldn't be inaccurate to define it in the strictest terms as an 80's sexploitation comedy except for the fact that it was neither stimulating nor was it funny. There is a bare-bones plot which I'm fine with in that I never really required the boner comedies I enjoyed in my teen years to have intricate storylines.

I didn't find the amount of characters and subplots (of which there were many) by default to be either confusing or inhibiting. It just all came down to the sight gags and one-liners failing to connect with me. Very dumb jokes on a very juvenile level that failed to amuse me when I was 15 years old back in 1985. Then again, what else does one expect when your movie has Eddie Deezen as the onscreen comic relief? As another reviewer elsewhere mentioned, even the nudity here feels forced and out of nowhere, as if the director or producer or whomever suddenly decided mid-film that it was time to show some boobies. Mind you, I had no objections then (nor do I now) about nudity on film, but nudity on film is one of those things where if it isn't approached with at least some eroticism the result is awkward, as is the case here.

Let's see, what else? The movie was shot on what appears to be a cheap grade of film. Pretty grainy, visually. In addition, the movie barely rounds out at 83 minutes and I'd wager a good 10 minutes of those involve the opening and closing credits that recycle footage shown again during the movie to list the cast and crew over. About the only positive aspect I enjoyed circa 2024 was seeing and hearing Cherie and Marie Currie sing several tunes that certainly screamed mid-80's hair metal pop rock.