Hot Picks

- There's No Such Thing as Zombies 2020

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Frankie Freako 2024

- The Texas Witch 2025

- Cannibal Mukbang 2023

- Bleeding 2024

- No Choice 2025

- Nahual 2025

- Bitter Souls 2025

- A Very Long Carriage Ride 2025

- The Matriarch 2024

- Oxy Morons 2025

- Ed Kemper 2025

- Piglet 2025

- Walter, Grace & the Submarine 2024

- Midnight in Phoenix 2025

- Dorothea 2025

- Mauler 2025

- Consecration 2023

- The Death of Snow White 2025

- Franklin 2025

- ApoKalypse 2025

- Live and Die in East LA 2023

- A Season for Love 2025

- The Arkansas Pigman Massacre 2025

- Visceral: Between the Ropes of Madness 2012

- The Darkside of Society 2023

- Jackknife 2024

- Family Property 2: More Blood 2025

- Feral Female 2025

- Amongst the Wolves 2024

- Autumn 2023

- Bob Trevino Likes It 2024

- A Hard Place 2025

- Finding Nicole 2025

- Juliet & Romeo 2025

- Off the Line 2024

- First Moon 2025

- Healing Towers 2025

- Final Recovery 2025

- Greater Than 2014

- Self Driver 2024

- Primal Games 2025

- Grumpy 2023

- Swing Bout 2024

- Dalia and the Red Book 2024

- Project MKGEXE 2025

- Two to One 2024

- Left One Alive 2025

- Burgermen 2020

- Conspiracy of Fear 2025

- The Haunting of Heather Black 2025

- The Caller 2025

- Android Re-Enactment 2011

- Night Call 2024

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

Beach Party

USA 1963
produced by
Lou Rusoff, James H. Nicholson, Samuel Z. Arkoff (executive) for AIP
directed by William Asher
starring Robert Cummings, Dorothy Malone, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Harvey Lembeck, Jody McCrea, John Ashley, Morey Amsterdam, Eva Six, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, Delores Wells, Valora Noland, Candy Johnson, Bob Payne, Andy Romano, Duane Ament, Yvette Vickers, Sharon Garrett, Vincent Price (cameo)
written by Lou Rusoff, music by Les Baxter, songs performed by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies, Eric von Zipper

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dick Turpin

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kamen Rider

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

Available on DVD!

To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)

Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!


Summer vacation, Malibu Beach: While Frankie (Frankie Avalon) tires to have a moment alone with Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) for you-know-what but she refuses to get more intimate before they are married, the 2 of them and their friends (among them Jody McCrea as Deadhead & John Ashley), surfers all, are observed by bearded antropologist Professor Sutwell (Robert Cummings), who tries to compare these teenagers' behavioural patterns to those of the aborigines in New Guinea - & he soon is impressed by Dee Dee, who stands out as a monument of virtue between her girlfriend of loose mores ... which even pisses Frankie off, who soon starts to date (& make out with) Ava (Eva Six), the Hungarian waitress of Cappy's (Morey Amsterdam) bar.

Soon incompetent biker Erich Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) & his gang arrive at Cappy's as well, to stir up some commotion, & Erich is hell-bent top make out with Dee Dee, but when Sutwell saves her from his evil clutches, Dee Dee sees the perfect opportunity to pay back Frankie's infidelity, & she agrees to help him with his research, assuming this is just a clever pick-up line.

For a while, Frankie & Dee Dee's game to make each other jealous is just a harmless tit-for-tat, but it gets somewhat out-of-hand when Sutwell saves Dee Dee from Erich Von Zipper (once again), who has broken into her bedroom, but is found by Frankie & gang, assuming quite something else when they find those 2 sitting on Dee Dee's bed together (& you can guess what).

Sutwell decides to break up with Dee Dee - whose affection he did enjoy - for good by letting her find him kissing his attractive assistant Marianne (Dorothy Malone), whom he of course always loved but never realized it until now, but that's when Dee Dee, Franky & gang find out they have only been an object for the professor's studies , & want to beat him up ... the professor, a learned man of course, can bring them to see reason & thus escape a sound beating, but that's when Erich Von Zipper & gang show upm, & everything culminates in a big barroom brawl at Cappy's place with the customary cream pies thrown in  (& around) just for good measure. Of course our surfer-heroes win & at the end, Vincent Price (who has spent the movie sitting around & sleeping under a hat obscuring his identity) wakes up & sums the film up rather incongruently "The Pit ! Give me my Pendulum, Kiddies, I feel like Swinging !" (if you haven't guessed, yes, it's an allusion to his Pit & the Pendulum, made by AIP  in 1961.)

Candy Johnson plays a girl who can knock guys off their feet (or surfboards) just by shaking her bootie.

 

This first of the Frankie & Annette-Beach Party-movies (the others are Muscle Beach Party & Bikini Beach from 1964, & Beach Blanket Bingo & How to Stuff a Wild Bikini from 1965, all directed by William Asher) pretty much set the tone for the rest of them: teen boys & girls on the beach, doing a lot of surfing (& much of it filmed in the Blue Box), amidst them Frankie trying to break down Annette's defenses, which leads to sillier & sillier plotlines, song & dance numbers interrupting the proceedings at appropriate & inappropriate moments, very unfunny comedy & some stars on AIP's payroll doing a cameo at the respective endings of the films (here it's Vincent Price, later Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre & Buster Keaton [!] would follow).

From today's point of view, these movies are of course pure camp & as such harmless & nostalgic fun ... if not exactly for the intended reasons.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find Beach Party
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find Beach Party here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai


Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!