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Every week, we present “ROCK REMEMBERED,” a deep dive into the hidden history of rock & roll, the stories behind the artists and songs that changed the world. Join host, “Boomtown Bill” Cross each Wednesday at 7 pm (Eastern) with an encore broadcast on Saturday at noon (Eastern).
Join us this Saturday as we relive "Catch a Wave - The Rise & Fall of Surf Music!"
Remembering the Beach Party Films
Who would have ever thought that two Italians from New York City would come to represent the “summer blond” California surfing movement?
But that’s what happened when American International Pictures launched one of the most successful series of pictures with Beach Party in 1963. Since then, the names Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello are not only eternally linked to each other, but also to the whole surfing craze of the 1960’s.
Here's the lowdown on the movies that kept us entertained in the mid-1960's.
AIP was famous for producing what we called “drive-in movies.” These were movies that really didn’t get a whole lot of attention from critics…or from their intended audience, if the truth be told. That’s because most of us went to the drive-in to have a place to be alone with our boyfriends/girlfriends. There was a reason we called drive-ins “the passion pit.”
So AIP produced movies that could be made quickly and cheaply and provide just enough entertainment when you were coming up for air between make-out sessions.
Mainly, they dealt in cheap horror films, often with more than a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor – like Buckets of Blood, a whole slew of low-budget Edgar Allen Poe movies, and their most famous film, the original Little Shop of Horrors.
Always quick to cash in on trends, the head of American International, Sam Arkoff, saw the business both Gidget (1959) and Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) had done. So he planned his own low budget surfing movie with a few changes.
First, he added a lot more girls in skimpy bathing suits. Then, he banished any parents. (Think, did you ever see Frankie’s mom or Annette’s dad in a beach movie?) Any adults on screen (and they included Bob Cummings, Dorothy Malone, and Don Rickles) were the object of comedic ridicule. Arkoff also got rid of any moralizing or social consciousness. Viet Nam? Civil rights? They just didn’t exist in this world. The Beach Party films were pure, 100% escapism.
Most movie buffs consider an even dozen films as the “official Beach Party series.” They are:
- Beach Party (1963)
- Muscle Beach Party (1964)
- Bikini Beach (1964)
- Pajama Party (1964)
- Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
- Ski Party (1965)
- How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)
- Sergeant Deadhead (1965)
- Dr, Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
- Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1967)
- Fireball 500 (1967)
- Thunder Alley (1967)
Of course, the success of this series also spawned additional imitators, including Ride the Wild Surf (1964 w/Fabian, Tab Hunter, Barbara Eden & Shelly Fabres), Beach Ball (1965 w/ Edd “Kookie” Byrnes and the Four Seasons), and others.
Not all of the AIP series took place on the beach. Ski Party, for example, is set at a winter ski resort and the final two films focus on car racing, not surfing.
In most of the films, Frankie and Annette played the same characters (Frankie and Dee Dee). They are joined by a regular company of other kids who also played the same characters from film to film. The most memorable of these was unquestionably Harvey Lembeck as the least threatening biker in history, the bumbling Eric Von Zipper.
Due to their other commitments, Frankie and Annette don’t always appear together in these films. For example, Annette appears opposite Tommy Kirk in Pajama Party while Frankie goes it alone in Ski Party. However in both of these films, the missing partner from the team pops up in an amusing, but brief walk-on.
Half of the Beach Party films were directed by William Asher, who was to marry Elizabeth Montgomery and go on to help create and run her successful Bewitched TV Series.
With all those boys and girls in next-to-nothing bathing suits and no adult supervision, you’d think there might have been quite a bit of sexual content in the Beach Party movies. But you would be wrong.
The movie posters and radio advertising for these films always promised way more sex than the actual pictures delivered.
There was also a reason why Annette never wore a bikini in any of the films. It’s because she was still under contract to the Walt Disney Studios and they would only approve her Beach Party appearances if she stayed in a one piece or the most modest of two-pieces.
The films aren’t “musicals” in the conventional sense, but they were always loaded with plenty of tunes aimed at the teenage audience. In fact, Brian Wilson, of Beach Boys fame, was recruited to write many of the songs in the very first Beach Party film. And in Ski Party, you get excellent on screen performances of their hits by James Brown, the Hondells, and Lesley Gore.
While none of these films are Academy Award material, the Beach Party series holds up better than you might expect. Renting or streaming one tonight may bring back fond memories from your teen-age years. That is, if you ever looked up at the screen when you were at the drive-in.
Photographic proof of what we all suspected.
The drug cartel pushing opioids on Riverdale’s formerly clean-cut high school kids was smashed when surveillance cameras caught Forsythe P. (“Jughead”) Jones and a group of his customers, who are visibly going through withdrawal symptoms.
Police have warrants out for two other alleged members of the cartel, Reginald (“The Weasel”) Mantle and suspected ringleader, Waldo (“Killer Bee”) Weatherbee, who is also sought for questioning in connection with a male prostitution ring.
When ABBA stopped recoding in 1982 (they never officially broke up – they just stopped working together), it left many people hungry for any new ABBA material.
As the years have passed, much like the Beatles, the group has gone into the vaults and released a small smattering of previously unreleased material on “Deluxe Editions” and box sets of their classic power pop. But there is one ABBA-related item that may have flown under the radar.
When ABBA first came together in the early 1970s, they were close to being a “supergroup” of Swedish recording artists. Benny Andersson was the most famous of the quartet, having been a member of a very popular Swedish rock group known as the Hep Cats. Björn Ulvaeus had also found some success as a member of a Swedish folk group known as the Hootenanny Singers.
When the two decided to start composing and recording together, they let their girlfriends join the sessions as background singers. Both guys had fallen for women who also had recording careers, albeit not quite as successful as the men. Benny was dating Anni-Frid Lyngstad, while Björn’s main squeeze was Agnetha Fältskog.
Björn & Benny released one album as a duo, Lycka, in 1970. While all of the lyrics are in their native Swedish, you can hear the very beginnings of the sound that would become ABBA because the girls join the boys on most of the album’s tracks. One of the album’s tracks, "Hej, Gamle Man" (“Hello, Old Man”), even became a hit in Sweden.
Following this, the four began working together on more of their individual recording projects. Finally, in 1972, someone (Benny, Björn or their manager Stig Anderson) had the bright idea to let the girls take the spotlight and have the boys handle songwriting (with occasional help from Stig and Agnetha), production and backing vocals. And so, ABBA was born, going on to become one of the most successful recording acts in history with nearly 400 million records/CDs/downloads and counting.
If you’re a hard core fan, check out their beginnings on Lycka, still available on Amazon and other music sellers.
And of course, ABBA delighted their fans and astounded the music world when they released their "comeback" albim, Voyage, in November of 2021, their first completely new music in nearly 20 years. It debuted at #1 on sales charts around the world, racked up sales of several million copies and finished as the 8th best-selling album of the year worldwide.
- Take a 30-minute walk every day
- Get at least 7 hours of sleep every night
- Spend time with a friend or loved one every day - during times of social distancing, a phone call if not a personal visit