Beach party film
[7] Generally comedies, the core elements of the AIP films consist of a group of teenage and/or college-age characters as protagonists; non-parental adult characters as antagonists and/or comic relief; simple, silly storylines that avoid any sober social consciousness; teen trends and interests (such as dancing, surfing, drag racing, custom cars, music, irresponsible drinking, etc.
"[16] Additionally, 1960's Where the Boys Are, from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and perhaps to some degree 1961's now-obscure Gidget imitator, Love in a Goldfish Bowl, from Paramount Pictures, are two films that established a tone of light-hearted adolescent sexuality that would be exploited by AIP in Beach Party.
[21] AIP's premiere Beach Party took the Gidget idea, removed the moral lesson and the parents, added more young talent with fewer clothes, and followed the studio's usual format of pandering to teenage filmgoers with popular trends, original songs and music.
[22] Regarding the idea of adding more music – and specifically the kind that attracted a teenage audience – film and music historian Stephen J. McParland writes: AIP was more concerned with what was happening on the streets rather than what such sanitised copy as Billboard and Cashbox was interested in promoting – and this was obviously reflected in the product the studio was renowned for; AIP was a rebel and in reality, a leader; unlike the monolithic and respected Columbia Pictures Corporation.
[6] Arkoff was able to get 1956 Academy Award winner Dorothy Malone (who had appeared in his first picture for AIP, The Fast and the Furious) and the popular Bob Cummings as adult supporting characters, but he needed a couple of names for the lead teenagers.
CinemaEditor magazine summed it up this way: In Frankie and Annette, teenagers now had their own version of Rock Hudson and Doris Day as the 'bedroom farce' was moved to the beach and made a little younger, a little dumber, and stuffed full of wild music'[25]Beach Party was able to use Ashley as Avalon's sidekick; picked up Jody McCrea and Eva Six from AIP's own Operation Bikini; and secured "red-hot" surf music pioneer Dick Dale and the Del-Tones (whose second and third albums would be released by Capitol Records in 1963) to bring in their usual demographic.
As mentioned above, in addition to Avalon and Funicello appearing in nearly every film, AIP employed several newer actors, who were either relatively unknown or on the rise at the time.
The following cast members showed up in at least three or more films: John Ashley, Dwayne Hickman, Jody McCrea, Deborah Walley, Bobbi Shaw, Salli Sachse, Luree Holmes, Michael Nader, Valora Noland, Andy Romano, Susan Hart, Jerry Brutsche and Linda Rogers.
[38] A few actors – such as Fabian, Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley and Nancy Sinatra – appeared in beach party films made both by AIP as well as from other studios.
Other golden-age stars included Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Elsa Lanchester, Mickey Rooney, Dorothy Lamour, Brian Donlevy, Eve Arden, Cesar Romero, Gale Gordon and Basil Rathbone.
An up-and-coming Nancy Sinatra acts and sings a song in Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (two months after her hit record "These Boots Were Made For Walking" was released), backed up by the also-yet-to-break Bobby Fuller Four.
All seven of the major studios of the 1960s managed to release at least one film that would later be deemed part of the 'beach party' cycle, either big-budget affairs that they produced themselves, or low-budget knock-offs that they picked up for distribution.
With the exception of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Girl Happy (an Elvis Presley vehicle) and United Artists' For Those Who Think Young, none of these were able to duplicate the box-office success of the AIP product.
The aforementioned and rarely screened Love in a Goldfish Bowl, Paramount Pictures' answer to Gidget, (with Tommy Sands and Toby Michaels as knock-off versions of James Darren and Sandra Dee) was released in July 1961.
[48] Starring Troy Donahue and Stephanie Powers as collegiate types on a group vacation, it was released in November four months after Beach Party.
United Artists released only two films in the genre, the Hugh Benson-produced For Those Who Think Young in June 1964, a college-based comedy with unusually little music; and the critically panned Elvis Presley vehicle, Clambake in December 1967.
Embassy released the sci-fi Village of the Giants in 1965, starring Tommy Kirk (who appeared in four films in the genre, including two for AIP) as the older brother of kid-genius Ron Howard, who accidentally invents a substance that enlarges living things, with music acts provided by The Beau Brummels and Freddy Cannon.
Catalina Caper is generally cited as 'the last beach party movie,'[4][5][49] although that distinction should probably go to Allied Artists' English-dubbed version of the 1966 Gaumont Czechoslovakian production Ski Fever (originally titled Liebesspiel im Schnee), released in the U.S. in 1968.
[50] Like AIP, both the major studios and independents loaded their films with a decent sampling of trendy (and not-so-trendy) pop music acts and stars, who either appeared onscreen as themselves or sang theme songs offscreen.
[5][49] Before the summer of 1967, the outlaw biker film had become the major genre, of which AIP's own surprise 1966 hit The Wild Angels (with Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Nancy Sinatra) proved to be the leader.
[51] Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas writes, "the 'Beach Party' movies...spoke the secret cultural language of their day, providing a unique interface between such timely interests as rock 'n' roll, skimpy swimwear, surfing, other surfing movies, the 'Gidget' series, drag racing, motorcycles, MAD magazine, Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth and CAR TOONS magazine, Don Post horror masks, and of course, American International Pictures itself.
"[11] In the Encyclopedia of Surfing, Matt Warshaw writes, "The cartoonish beach movies were reviled by surfers in the '60s, embraced in the '80s as ironic camp, then – for some – cherished in the '90s and '00s as silly but likable tokens of a more innocent past.
"[12] John M. Miller of Turner Classic Movies writes, "Beach Party and its successors in the series managed to simultaneously chronicle and be a part of a particularly vibrant moment in American popular culture.
