Okay, leave your brain behind. After all, this is the first installment of moviedom's biggest celebration of mindless fluff. Okay, no one's expecting Oscar bait from a title like Beach Party, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. Between the sunny swimsuit foreplay and California's sand, sea, and surf, it's the peak of pre-Vietnam hedonism. And a heckuva lot of fun it is for those unashamed to say so. Annette and Frankie, Frankie and Annette, he loves her, she loves him. But first they have to find each other amid all the other shaking' and wigglin' going on. And, oh yes, there's one-finger warrior Bob Cummings to carry the acting load, along with a perfectly groomed Dorothy Malone to keep him company. Add a goofy Jody MacCrea and a fractured Harvey Lembeck, and there're chuckles aplenty. Then there's perpetual motion Candy Johnson. Hook her up to a power plant and she'll light up LA. And catch those sunsets over the glorious Pacific. Hard to believe there was ever a carefree time like this for teens. But then, isn't this what the Hollywood Dream Machine is for. Here, it's hitting on all eight, and happily so. (It seems not fair to rate this ad for Surfin' USA on the usual scale. But on the Fluff Meter it rates a '10'.)

Beach Party (1963)** 1/2 (out of 4) Professor Sutwell (Robert Cummings) is hiding out in a location near a beach where he plans on getting information for a book he's writing about teenage sexuality. Before he knows it the professor is caught up in the fight between couple Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Dolores (Annette Funicello).I'm sure BEACH PARTYY was just meant to be another AIP low-budget, no-brainer that could be made for a little money and get a small profit back. What it ended up doing was becoming a huge hit and it kicked off an entire series, which to this day remains quite popular. Of course, if you're looking for high art then you won't find it here.For the most part this is exactly the type of film you'd expect from AIP. It's certainly cheap and corny and full of rather bad songs but it does perfectly capture a certain era and there's no doubt that there's something mildly amusing about these beach antics. Cummings and Dorothy Malone are certainly the best thing about the picture other than a surprise cameo at the end, which I won't spoil who it is. Both Avalon and Funicello are serviceable in their roles.BEACH PARTY certainly isn't an Oscar-winner or even anything good. It's a decent little comedy that shouldn't be taken too serious.

This is the first of AIP's "Beach Party" movies, but actually the fifth I have watched. Frankly, the main reason I was drawn to them was because of the cameos of famous stars – even here, we get Vincent Price, who appears through most of the running-time (playing a character called "Big Daddy"!) but spends it asleep slumped in a chair…waking up at the very end just enough to reference his last Corman/Poe appearance in PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) and then return to his slumber! As would be the case with the other ageing Hollywood veterans (such as Buster Keaton, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre), his name is listed only during the closing credits, where the company also takes the opportunity to pump his upcoming release of THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963; which though advertised as the next Poe adaptation, it is actually derived from the work of H.P. Lovecraft!).Anyway, here we get what would become the stock company of surfer studs and beach babes: Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (who, as always, spend more time trying to make one another jealous than they do together!), Jody McCrea as the goody "Deadhead", Morey Amsterdam as an eccentric local and, best of all, Harvey Lembeck's motorcycle thug Eric Von Zipper. That said, the real protagonist here is Bob Cummings (yep, who would have thought that he and Frankie would have subsequently gone to Europe to work for Harry Alan Towers and with the likes of Maria Rohm and Klaus Kinski?) as a scientist who, having been given the cold shoulder due to his youngish age, decides to hide his features behind a bushy beard (though he later takes it off)! He is intrigued by the phenomenon of modern youth, whose amorality he equates with Prehistoric Man, and so he has set out to study their habits, first from a beach hut through a telescope but then up close and personal (so much so that Annette becomes infatuated with him, though he is secretly loved by devoted secretary Dorothy Malone!). Of course, Frankie tries to interrupt their affair even if is he has himself taken up with a foreigner when Annette states that she would like to keep her virtue intact until marriage. She also catches the eye of the pompous Von Zipper but Cummings steps in and 'gives him the finger', that is to say, rendered immobile by the simple touch of an acutely sensitive nerve (which eventually becomes a running-gag and is resumed in subsequent outings as well!).Neeedless to say, we get a lot of songs, energetic but silly dancing (especially from one particular girl, whose all-stops-out jives apparently so caught the imagination of the film-makers that we are treated to a {cringe-inducing} encore throughout the concluding credit roll and, if I am not mistaken, she gets similar showcases in some of the various follow-up films), comedy, romance and surfing acrobatics…very little of which is appealing to this viewer and all of it feels so bland and dated that the series comes off now like the "Police Academy" of its day! For what it is worth, I have one more of these to watch, SKI PARTY (1966), which at least proposed a change of locale for novelty value...

I was five when this movie came out in '63, and didn't see it until a TV showing in the mid '70's. It was already dated and unreal at THAT point. I just caught a second viewing on TCM and I must say, it has not aged well. No thought is required to watch, as the whole thing is completely predictable, although watching pretty girls shake their T&A while dancing hasn't become less interesting. And watching Candy Johnson dance is quite an experience. She was only in a few films in the mid '60's, always dancing the way she does in this film, like a human hurricane. I can understand her short career, as I'm sure she must have blown out a hip in very short order, dancing like that. In fact, she's listed in the IMDb credits only as "Perpetual motion dancer".There is some dated material that's kind of interesting to see, like being able to drive on the beach in Malibu, or the surfboards that were the size of small boats, and guys were doing handstands on them and putting girls on their shoulders while they surfed. And these kids were surfing 15 to 20 abreast, about a foot apart. I wonder how many shattered shin bones they racked up filming those scenes.The comedy is of the "groaner" variety, and I think today's teens might have some trouble getting through it, what with the cartoon sound effects and all. I was rolling my eyes a bit myself as I re-watched it. This was fairly popular with teens at the time, but I don't think our 21st century teens, pierced and tattooed, will appreciate it. As for those of us a little older, Beach Party does have some nostalgic appeal.