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Beach Party movies were an American 1960s genre of feature films which often starred Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. The films, which combined music, romance, and slapstick comedy, were notable for portraying wholesome, fun-loving teens cavorting and living in beach houses free from intrusive parents or authority figures. The films helped popularize surfing, surf music, and often included performances by well-known pop groups.
Veteran movie stars regularly cropped up in cameo roles while larger supporting parts were given to up-and-coming personalities such as Don Rickles and Paul Lynde. The various beach films also provided an early look at many actors who would soon go on to greater fame in popular television programs. These include: Tina Louise and Bob Denver (Gilligan's Island), Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie), Marta Kristen (Lost in Space), Linda Evans (The Big Valley), Yvonne Craig (Batman), Meredith MacRae (Petticoat Junction), and Peter Lupus (Mission Impossible).
The films were originally intended as a low-budget imitation of both the Elvis Presley musical and the Doris Day romantic comedy, aimed at the teen market, but they ended up taking on a life of their own. The "classic" series of seven films was produced by American International Pictures (AIP), and imitated in turn by numerous other studios.
The earliest youth-oriented beach film goes back to the 1959 Columbia Pictures release Gidget, starring Sandra Dee as a teenage surfer girl. This was followed by Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), starring Deborah Walley and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) with Cindy Carol. (Deborah Walley would go on to appear in three AIP beach films.) There are many similarities between the Gidget films—including a character named Moondoggie—and the AIP series which followed it in 1963.
Annette Funicello was still under contract to Walt Disney in 1963 and Disney's lawyers threatened to sue AIP if their now voluptuous star appeared in Beach Party, or any of the other films, in a bikini. AIP capitulated—an unimaginable act for the company prior to this, before the stakes were raised. Annette initially dressed conservatively in the films and spent a surprising amount of time repressing the sexuality of the other kids, especially in the first two pictures. However, by the third film (Bikini Beach) she was expressing a more agressive attitude and is seen wearing a bikini (SOURCE: http://www.beachpartymoviemusic.com/TheMythoftheHiddenNavel.html)
Few if any of the principal actors were actually teenagers. Frankie Avalon was in his mid-twenties, married and had children when he made Beach Blanket Bingo.
Many of the movies were made at Paradise Cove in Malibu, California. To meet the release schedule, most of the movies had to be filmed during the winter months—when hardly anyone wanted to run around a beach in a swimsuit, or go in the water.[citation needed]
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Storylines
The storylines typically revolved around boyfriend and girlfriend Frankie and Annette trying to make one another jealous with newcomers, as they and their friends had adventures (on and off the beach), with someone breaking into song every few minutes. The main cast usually had running roles (though their character names sometimes changed from picture to picture), and with the exception of Muscle Beach Party, the villains of the story were usually biker Eric Von Zipper (played by comic actor Harvey Lembeck as a parody of Marlon Brando in The Wild One) and his inept gang the Rat Pack, or "Rats & Mice" (which included Alberta Nelson, of The Andy Griffith Show).
Cameo actors and musical groups
Another feature to the series was its unending series of cameo appearances by longtime actors (such as Buster Keaton, Vincent Price, Elsa Lanchester, Boris Karloff, Dorothy Lamour, and Peter Lorre in his penultimate film appearance), plus musical guest-stars like Stevie Wonder, Nancy Sinatra, Donna Loren, The Supremes, The Beach Boys, The Animals, Little Richard, The Righteous Brothers, The Kingsmen, and surf-n-car groups The Pyramids, The Hondells, and Dick Dale and The Del-Tones. Original songs performed by the cast were largely written by Gary Usher and Roger Christian, or by Guy Hemric and Jerry Styner.
Production staff
Toni Basil served as choreographer for many of the movies' dance sequences (also appearing onscreen), and several future or up-and-coming stars (Teri Garr, Don Rickles, Bobbi Shaw, Dan Haggerty, Meredith MacRae, and members of the Beach Boys) appeared in supporting roles or as extras. Silent-movie star Buster Keaton had featured roles in several of the movies. Don Weis and William Asher directed the films in the AIP series, with Asher's then-wife Elizabeth Montgomery making a voice cameo in Bikini Beach, and appearing on camera in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini spoofing her character from the Bewitched TV series.
The "classic series"
American International Pictures produced a series of seven beach films, starting with Beach Party:
| Film | Release date | Also starring: |
|---|---|---|
| Beach Party | 7 August 1963 | Bob Cummings, Dorothy Malone and Morey Amsterdam |
| Muscle Beach Party | 25 March 1964 | Peter Lupus, Luciana Paluzzi and Buddy Hackett |
| Bikini Beach | 22 July 1964 | Keenan Wynn and Martha Hyer |
| Pajama Party | 11 November 1964 | Jesse White and Ben Lessy |
| Beach Blanket Bingo | 14 April 1965 | Paul Lynde, Linda Evans, Marta Kristen and Timothy Carey |
| How to Stuff a Wild Bikini | 14 July 1965 | Mickey Rooney, Beverly Adams, Len Lesser, Irene Tsu and Brian Donlevy |
| The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini | 6 April 1966 | Basil Rathbone, Benny Rubin and Francis X. Bushman |
The 1965 AIP film Ski Party (with Dwayne Hickman, Yvonne Craig, Lesley Gore and James Brown) is also notable for employing many of the same actors and schticks, only transplanted to a ski resort in the Sawtooth National Forest.
Regular cast members included John Ashley, Luree Holmes, Jody McCrea, Salli Sachse, Michael Nader, Candy Johnson, Johnny Fain, Valora Noland, Andy Romano, Susan Hart, Jerry Brutsche and Linda Rogers.
Other beach films
The success of the AIP movie series spawned many imitators. In 1964 there was Surf Party with Bobby Vinton and Jackie DeShannon, Ride the Wild Surf with Fabian, Barbara Eden and Shelley Fabares, and For Those Who Think Young with James Darren, Pamela Tiffin, Tina Louise, Bob Denver, Nancy Sinatra and Paul Lynde. Darren had co-starred in all three of the Gidget movies. Lynde also appeared in AIP's Beach Blanket Bingo in 1965.
The number of beach movie releases peaked in 1965. Many were packed with well-known musical acts. These include A Swingin' Summer with Raquel Welch (who also performs one song) and music by The Righteous Brothers and Gary Lewis & The Playboys, Beach Ball with Edd Byrnes, The Supremes, The Four Seasons, and The Righteous Brothers, Girls on the Beach with The Beach Boys and Lesley Gore, and Wild on the Beach with Sonny & Cher and "Daytona Beach Weekend" with Del Shannon.
1965 was also the year in which producers began to extend the theme by producing teen-oriented musicals set in non-beach locations, often with scripts that blended music with non-comedic storylines. These included Village of the Giants (which merged the "beach" genre with science fiction), Beach Girls and the Monster (a horror-themed musical), One-Way Wahini (music and mystery set in Hawaii) and Get Yourself A College Girl, a relatively lavish MGM production set on a campus and featuring the first appearances in a U.S. produced teen musical by British Invasion acts The Animals and the Dave Clark Five.
With at least six beach films released in 1965, the genre reached the height of its popularity. That year the 1959-1963 Gidget film series was also remade into a television sitcom starring 19-year-old Sally Field as the titular California surfer girl. The show ran for one season (1965-1966).
Following in the trail of AIP's Ski Party, the ski-resort formula of replacing sand with snow was duplicated in Winter a Go-Go (1965) and Wild Wild Winter (1966), with music by The Beau Brummels and Jay and the Americans. Another 1966 release, Out of Sight, from Universal Pictures, tried to blend beach films, hot rods, and rock 'n' roll into a silly spy spoof. The cast includes a pre-Land of the Giants Deanna Lund and music by Gary Lewis & the Playboys, The Turtles, and Freddie and the Dreamers.
Although American International folded up its beach towel by the end of 1966, a late entry, Catalina Caper (1967) with Tommy Kirk and music by Little Richard, attempted to blend the beach concept into a crime-mystery comedy. This film is generally acknowledged as the "last gasp" of the genre, the final beach-themed film with music. It was also lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000. Earlier in 1967 It's a Bikini World came out with, once again, Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley. This movie was actually produced in 1965 but due to contract and music licensing issues was held from release for almost two years. In addition, early 1967 saw C'mon, Let's Live A Little — a teen-oriented musical featuring Jackie DeShannon and Bobby Vee. Like Catalina Caper, this film tried to merge the beach party theme with another genre (in this case, emerging Vietnam-era inspired campus protest). The general failure of all three of these films at the box office confirmed that the teen-oriented "beach party" musical trend had passed. It was replaced by a new crop of youth-oriented drive-in movies centered around car racing, motorcyle gangs and escapist spy adventures.
End of the genre
The final entry in the original AIP series was The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, released in 1966. The end credits for the 1965 AIP spy-spoof Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (with Frankie Avalon), advertises this film with its original title (The Girl in the Glass Bikini) and intended stars, Funicello and Avalon. However, both actors passed on this film, appearing instead in AIP's car-racing themed Fireball 500. The lead roles were given to Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley, with an almost all-new supporting cast (including singer Nancy Sinatra). This time the "formula" did not work. The movie—which was more of a haunted-house comedy than a proper beach film—bombed at the box office and the series was retired by AIP. Fireball 500 was followed by another racing film, Thunder Alley, also starring Funicello.
Avalon and Funicello starred in Paramount Pictures Back to the Beach in 1987, playing off their original roles and subsequent careers. The movie became a hit, and there was talk of making a sequel, but with the beginning of Funicello's trouble with multiple sclerosis, this never came to be.
Influence on popular culture and parodies
- The Batman TV series spoofed the beach films and surfing culture in the third season episode: "Surf's Up! Joker's Under" from 1967. Here, the Joker (Cesar Romero) challenges Batman to a surfing contest. Yvonne Craig, who was also in Gidget, appears as Batgirl.
- In 1978 Saturday Night Live did an extensive parody sketch of the beach movies entitled "Beach Blanket Bimbo from Outer Space." Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, wearing thick black wigs, imitated the Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello characters. John Belushi played biker Eric Von Zipper, and Dan Aykroyd played a curiously effeminate Vincent Price. Guest host Carrie Fisher, dressed in a gold bikini, reprised her Princess Leia character from Star Wars.
- Without mentioning a specific film, The B-52's 1978 song, "Rock Lobster" relied on 1960s beach party movie imagery and featured a surf guitar sound, with lyrics referencing 60s dances like the Frug and the Twist, as well as bikinis, surfboards, flippers, flexing muscles, and tanning butter. The song ends with a list of sea creatures, culminating in the fanciful Bikini Whale, whose name is greeted with a shriek of hysteria from the band's female members. During the late 70s, female bandmembers completed the period effect by donning bouffant wigs and clothing from the early and mid-60s and doing 60s dances like the Pony and the Swim during performances.
- The Revillos 1980 song, "Scuba Boy", also featured 60s beach movie-influenced lyrics and sounds, with its chorus of "Scuba! Scuba!" and lyrics expressing the lead singer's desire to join her scuba boy "in the deep". A repeated drum flourish within the chorus is so authentic-sounding that one almost expects Candy Johnson to pop up and send men flying with her hips. The accompanying video showed band members wildly doing the Swim.
- The 1996 movie That Thing You Do! touches briefly on the phenomenon, with the fictional music group The Wonders making an appearance in a beach party movie called Weekend at Party Pier.
- Psycho Beach Party is a 2000 film based on the off-Broadway play of the same name, directed by Robert Lee King. Set in 1962 Malibu Beach, this is a parody of beach movies and Gidget.
- The "Beach Blanket Bizarro" episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch from 2001 also paid homage to the series with Frankie Avalon appearing as himself. Concerned about her plans for a wild spring break weekend in Florida, her aunts use their magical powers to send Sabrina and her friends into the alternate reality of an innocent '60s beach film. Series regular Beth Broderick ("aunt Zelda") was also in Psycho Beach Party.
- Camping Cosmos is a Belgian parody on the classical Beach Party films and Baywatch. Miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari) is C.J. Parker and Harry, the lifeguard ( Arno), is Mitch Buchannon. The movie starts with the evergreen song Maria Elena and the view of a bird overlooking the campsite on the beach. Lolo Ferrari coming out of the sea as an Aphrodite with the song of Vera Lynn ( is the Land of Hope and Glory : Belgium?) and having her first orgasm with the comic strip Tintin in the Congo, is focused on as a central figure, but the movie treats all characters with the same interest (in this movie Lolo Ferrari has the looks of Brigitte Bardot).
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