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Beach Party
AIP Studios and the creative force behind the ABC sitcom Bewitched came up with a winning formula when they created a 1963 piece of fluff called Beach Party, which was such a surprise hit that it inspired six more films, including the first sequel which came out later the same year, not to mention creating the most charismatic screen team since Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
Robert Cummings stars as Professor Robert Sutwell, an anthropologist, who with help of his attractive research assistant (Dorothy Malone), has decided to write a book about the sexual habits of teenagers. Sutwell has set up residence in a beach house with a lot of fancy equipment which allows him to not only watch everything these teenagers do but also provides an audio feed that makes it possible for him to listen to the kids' private conversations.
Sutwell's work severely affects the relationship between a kid named Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and his girlfriend Dolores (Annette Funicello) who through a series of silly misunderstandings, assume that they are cheating on each other and spend the rest of the running time trying to make each other jealous. Frankie pretends to be mad about a Hungarian waitress in a coffeehouse (Eva Six), while Dolores pretends to be fascinated with Sutwell.
On the surface, this film is beyond silly creating a teenage world that had to look pretty appealing to the 18-34 demographic buying movie tickets in 1963. Frankie and Dolores and the rest of their gang seem to have a pretty cushy life that was probably hard for teen moviegoers to resist. These kids did nothing but surf all day and sit in front of beach campfires all night, wiggling their asses to that crazy rock and roll music. These kids don't go to school, they don't seem to have parents, part-time jobs, and the words "study", "semester", and "flunk" are utilized in the first five minutes of the film and never uttered again.
What made this film such a monster hit was the hard-to-ignore onscreen chemistry between singer Frankie Avalon and former Mousketeer Funicello that pretty much burns a hole through the movie screen and director William Asher capitalizes on it beautifully by keeping the pair apart for the majority of the running time, only making the chemistry even stronger. He also throws in some terrific comic relief in the form of a nutty motorcycle gang, led by the equally nutty Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and it is through these characters where Asher gets to display a lot of his skill at producing laughs, whether on the big screen or small. Watch Von Zipper's opening scene where his motorcycle gets away from him and the camera stays glued on the gang and their reactions to what's happening to the bike...great comic moment that only works because of a solid directorial eye for what's funny. Yeah, there's a lot of seriously dated stuff here, but as part of cinematic history, definitely worth a look.
AIP Studios and the creative force behind the ABC sitcom Bewitched came up with a winning formula when they created a 1963 piece of fluff called Beach Party, which was such a surprise hit that it inspired six more films, including the first sequel which came out later the same year, not to mention creating the most charismatic screen team since Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
Robert Cummings stars as Professor Robert Sutwell, an anthropologist, who with help of his attractive research assistant (Dorothy Malone), has decided to write a book about the sexual habits of teenagers. Sutwell has set up residence in a beach house with a lot of fancy equipment which allows him to not only watch everything these teenagers do but also provides an audio feed that makes it possible for him to listen to the kids' private conversations.
Sutwell's work severely affects the relationship between a kid named Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and his girlfriend Dolores (Annette Funicello) who through a series of silly misunderstandings, assume that they are cheating on each other and spend the rest of the running time trying to make each other jealous. Frankie pretends to be mad about a Hungarian waitress in a coffeehouse (Eva Six), while Dolores pretends to be fascinated with Sutwell.
On the surface, this film is beyond silly creating a teenage world that had to look pretty appealing to the 18-34 demographic buying movie tickets in 1963. Frankie and Dolores and the rest of their gang seem to have a pretty cushy life that was probably hard for teen moviegoers to resist. These kids did nothing but surf all day and sit in front of beach campfires all night, wiggling their asses to that crazy rock and roll music. These kids don't go to school, they don't seem to have parents, part-time jobs, and the words "study", "semester", and "flunk" are utilized in the first five minutes of the film and never uttered again.
What made this film such a monster hit was the hard-to-ignore onscreen chemistry between singer Frankie Avalon and former Mousketeer Funicello that pretty much burns a hole through the movie screen and director William Asher capitalizes on it beautifully by keeping the pair apart for the majority of the running time, only making the chemistry even stronger. He also throws in some terrific comic relief in the form of a nutty motorcycle gang, led by the equally nutty Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) and it is through these characters where Asher gets to display a lot of his skill at producing laughs, whether on the big screen or small. Watch Von Zipper's opening scene where his motorcycle gets away from him and the camera stays glued on the gang and their reactions to what's happening to the bike...great comic moment that only works because of a solid directorial eye for what's funny. Yeah, there's a lot of seriously dated stuff here, but as part of cinematic history, definitely worth a look.