Beach Party
| Beach Party | |
|---|---|
Original film poster
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| Directed by | William Asher |
| Produced by |
Executive producer: Samuel Z. Arkoff Associate producer: Robert Dillon Producer: James H. Nicholson and Lou Rusoff |
| Written by |
Lou Rusoff William Asher (uncredited) Robert Dillon (uncredited) |
| Starring |
Bob Cummings Dorothy Malone Frankie Avalon Annette Funicello |
| Music by | Les Baxter |
| Cinematography | Kay Norton |
| Edited by | Homer Powell |
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Production
company |
Orion Pictures
Alta Vista Productions |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures (AIP) |
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Release date
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Running time
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101 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $300,000 |
| Box office | $2,300,000 (US/ Canada) |
Beach Party is a 1963 American film which was the first of seven beach party films from American International Pictures (AIP) aimed at a teen audience. This film is often credited with creating the beach party film genre.
An anthropologist, Professor Robert Orville Sutwell is secretly studying the "wild mating habits" of Southern California teenagers who hang out at the beach and use strange surfing jargon. After he temporarily paralyzes Eric Von Zipper, the leader of the local outlaw motorcycle club, who was making unwanted advances on Dolores, she develops a crush on the Professor. Her surfing boyfriend Frankie becomes jealous and begins flirting with Ava, a Hungarian waitress. Meanwhile, Sutwell's assistant Marianne further develops her crush on the Professor. Von Zipper and his gang plot to bring down Sutwell, only to be thwarted in the end by the surfing teenagers.
In the summer of 1962 Samuel Arkoff and Jim Nicholson were watching films in Italy with a view to purchasing some for release in the US. They saw one about a middle-aged man who falls in love with a young woman who spends all her time at a beach resort. They did not like the movie but were attracted by the setting, and commissioned Lou Rusoff to write a film set at the beach. The film was announced in July 1962. It was part of AIP's policy of "mass entertainment on a frankly escapist level."
Rusoff's script was apparently more in line with AIP's traditional fare of children getting in trouble with their parents. It was shown to William Asher who agreed to make the movie if it became more of a musical comedy about teenagers having a good time and not getting in trouble. Arkoff and Nicholson agreed so Asher rewrote the script with Robert Dillon. He was asked not to take credit by Samuel Arkoff who told them that Lou Rusoff was dying of brain cancer. Asher agreed and Rusoff has sole credit; he died in June 1963.
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Wikipedia