Frame By Frame: 1960's Beach Movies

Wheeler Winston Dixon Author

07/26/2012 Added

1317 Plays

Description

UNL Film Studies professor Wheeler Winston Dixon dives into director William Asher's campy beach movies of the 1960s.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:13.044]Hi. I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[00:00:19.006]and going from the sublime to the ridiculous, today I want to talk about beach party pictures.
[00:00:24.065]These were a 1960s staple. Mostly cranked out by a company called American International Pictures,
[00:00:32.023]and most of them directed by William Asher.
[00:00:34.076]I had the great pleasure of interviewing William Ahser,
[00:00:38.057]who started out directing "I Love Lucy," as a matter of fact,
[00:00:41.007]and was also a surfer earlier in his career, so he took to it with great aplomb.
[00:00:46.074]People generally agree the first beach party picture was in 1963, and it was called "Beach Party,"
[00:00:52.061]and it starred Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, who were in most of them...
[00:00:56.092]and Morey Amsterdam and Bob Cummings. What a cast!
[00:01:01.046]This was followed by "Muscle Beach Party" in 1964...
[00:01:05.023]"Bikini Beach" in 1964...
[00:01:08.033]"Pajama Party" in 1964...
[00:01:11.097]"Beach Blanket Bingo" in 1965....
[00:01:14.094]"How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" in 1965. As you can see, they were coming fast and furious.
[00:01:22.004]And finally, "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini," which crossed haunted house films with beach movies.
[00:01:29.028]But as Frankie Avalon correctly observed, they're all the same.
[00:01:33.086]And if you watch one, you've really seen them all.
[00:01:36.096]But one of the interesting things about them, talking to William Asher, who directed them...
[00:01:41.000]they were usually made with the most minimal script.
[00:01:44.003]They were shot in 9 to 10 days. They cost about $300,000.
[00:01:49.009]They were all shot in (Cine)Scope and color, so they have much better production value than you'd think...
[00:01:54.071]The other thing that was really interesting about these, and I think quite good...
[00:01:59.021]was the fact that William Asher was a fan of early comedy,
[00:02:02.060]and so Buster Keaton pops up in a lot of these, and he also designed a lot of the gags in them as well...
[00:02:09.009]And as he told me, you'd be a fool not to take advantage of somebody like Buster Keaton...
[00:02:13.023]if you're doing slapstick.
[00:02:14.083]And all of these films involved surfing, singing, beach partying...
[00:02:20.059]and then they alway wind up with a huge slapstick chase between the beach party kids...
[00:02:25.014]who were the "clean-cut American kids," and Eric Von Zipper and his RATS, played by Harvey Lembeck...
[00:02:29.034]who were the motorcycle gang eternally tormenting them.
[00:02:32.031]And he would always be saying "Why me? Why me all the time?" right before a huge disaster.
[00:02:39.092]ERIC VON ZIPPER: "Why me? Why me all the time?"
[00:02:46.024]Okay, they're junk. They're part of American cultural history,
[00:02:50.091]and they're fun and entertaining for an afternoon's viewing,
[00:02:55.020]but don't go in expecting anything great because you're not going to get it. Okay?
[00:02:59.042]That's beach party pictures, and I'm Wheeler Dixon, and this is Frame By Frame.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Frame By Frame: 1960's Beach Movies

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments