Beach Party *** (1963, Robert Cummings, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, Vincent Price, Dorothy Malone) – Classic Movie Review 4918

It’s all here – the Sixties, slapstick, songs, satire, sand, sun, sea, surf, and of course sex! What more can you ask for? Oh, subtlety and sophistication, I suppose.

Director William Asher’s 1963 American International Pictures romantic comedy musical is the first of a long series of profitable beach-party movies – eight in all – mostly starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.

Written by Lou Rusoff, Beach Party may not be very good exactly but it is still an amiable romp through the lazy, hazy, crazy days of the Sixties beach party.

Old timer Robert [Bob] Cummings gives a competent turn as anthropology professor Robert Orwell Sutwell, probing teens’ sex lives. Dorothy Malone also stars as Sutwell’s secretary Marianne, and there is a surprise cameo by Vincent Price as Big Daddy.

But all eyes are on the cute, fun Funicello-Avalon pairing as surfing teens Frankie and Dolores (Dee Dee) as they sing, dance battle the motorbike boys, The Ratz and The Mice.

Also in the cast are Harvey Lembeck as bike leader Eric Von Zipper, Jody McCrea as Deadhead, John Ashley, Morey Amsterdam as Cappy, Eva Six, musicians Dick Dale and the Del Tones, David Landfield, Dolores Wells, Bobby Payne and Candy Johnson.

Sequel: Muscle Beach Party (1964). Bikini Beach (1964), Pajama Party (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965) and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1965) followed from American International Pictures.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 4918

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Dorothy Malone, born 30 January 1925, retired after Basic Instinct (1992).