“Nothing is greater than the sand, surf, and song
We’ll unrack our boards just as soon as we get there
Stack ‘em in the sand while they’re breakin’ just right
We’ll be surfing all day and a-swinging all night
Vacation is here, beach party tonight!”
Starring the famed duo “Frankie and Annette”, Beach Party is the first film of the “beach party genre”, pioneered by American International Pictures and copied by virtually every other studio throughout the 1960s. The film features the summer fun of a group of teens, their surfing exploits, and the minor relationship problems of main characters, Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Dolores (Annette Funicello). Beach Party features an anthropologist (Robert Cummings) writing a report comparing the “developmental biology” of teenagers with that of foreign tribes. The premise of the relationship entanglement is that when Frankie’s invites Dolores to his parents’ beach house alone, she invites “the whole gang” over since she doesn’t want to be considered “just another girl”. Frankie gets offended and the two proceed to make each other jealous throughout the rest of the film.
The opening sequence and first musical number of the movie take place in what appears to be a yellow model T Ford on the way to the beach. The combination of the car, the clothes, the hair, and the seriousness of it all was jarring and delightfully strange. Throughout the film I had the feeling of stumbling into an old Archie comic come to life, except less dynamic and without as much character development. I was familiar with some of the slang, thanks to my childhood Archie obsession.
The opening sequence and first musical number of the movie take place in what appears to be a yellow model T Ford on the way to the beach. The combination of the car, the clothes, the hair, and the seriousness of it all was jarring and delightfully strange. Throughout the film I had the feeling of stumbling into an old Archie comic come to life, except less dynamic and without as much character development. I was familiar with some of the slang, thanks to my childhood Archie obsession.
Beach Party proves to be slightly more risqué than a made-for-TV Disney movie, but fluffier, if such a thing is possible. Again, the film is about as realistic as an Archie comic. The film was wildly popular, but doesn’t have a lot of substance: fun for the 1960s audience, with a storyline that only seems to be there to allow for multiple wild body-shaking spastic dance numbers set to surf-rock tunes supplied by the Del Tones. The surf-rock music, when compared to the music of a movie of similar popularity, High School Musical, is vastly superior. The best part of the movie is the music, the opening sequence, and to a modern viewer, the retro bathing suits and hairstyles. The film’s pastel palette is refreshing and contributes to the overall feeling that Frankie and Dolores exist in an innocent and unrealistic alternate universe.
It’s likely that the infectious music, energy, spastic dancing, and appearance of “Frankie and Anette” added up to irresistible fun for teens of the 1960s. To me, some of the humour fell flat, possibly because pie-throwing and a gang led by Eric Von Zipper with lame false accents don’t constitute my idea of choice comic relief. The previous sentence sounds funnier than the movie actually was.
The main reason the movie suffered from a 2011 viewing is because, by modern standards, there are some pacing problems, which, before viewing Rebel Without a Cause, I thought to be characteristic of older movies. Doors open and close onscreen repeatedly, and people walk through doors and make lengthy exits in the way soap operas are staged today. The action moves slowly and the movie feels every second of its 101 minute runtime.
It is possible that I have overstated the negative qualities of the film. I was frightened of having to defend it as a classic, and at times, felt as alien to the action of the movie as the anthropologist analyzing the teens’ behaviour. One scene paralleled my reaction very closely: when the anthropologist was looking through a telescope and listening in to a dance on the beach, while repeatedly “hmming”. Overall, I don’t entirely regret watching the film, but I certainly wish it were shorter.
Rating: 
2/5 Surfboards
2/5 Surfboards
The Verdict: I would judge Beach Party to be a classic because it:
a) captured a slice of life in a different era, despite no longer holding the same attraction to today’s teens
b) started the massively popular string of “beach party movies” in the 1960s
c) was the first pairing of notable and undeniably talented duo of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.
d) contains great “surf-rock” music
Should You Watch it?
Would I recommend Beach Party for a good time? Maybe, after a long day at the beach, when you would likely fall asleep before the end anyway. The film isn’t meant to be taken seriously. The only way I could have seen myself watching this film of my own volition (other than for blogging purposes), would be digging this out of a cabinet in a cottage in the summer with my siblings or cousins and having a jolly good time poking fun at it, but the film would still be unbearably slow in parts.
Director: William Asher
Writer: Lou Russof
Starring: Annette Funicello
Frankie Avalon
Robert Cummings
Dorothy Malone
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