The Girls on the Beach (1965)

The Girls on the Beach? What kind of sleazy soft-core porn is this and why would you want to review it on a family friendly website? Calm down my friends! For you are mistaken about two things:

1.This isn't a family friend website
2.Girls on the Beach is not a sleazy soft-core porn, but rather an obscure Beach movie made in the 60s. How obscure? It’s so obscure that it doesn't even have its own entry on Wikipedia. This is really sad, considering that similarly inept, but far less enjoyable Wild Wild Winter does.

If the film is remembered, it’s for an appearance by the Beach Boys and the three musical numbers they perform throughout the film. The ironic thing is that despite showcasing the Beach Boys, the films plot focuses around a sorority trying to get the Beatles to play at their fundraiser. This is ironic, because the Beatles for all intensive purposes put an end to surfing music and were essentially the Beach Boys number one rivals at the time. Imagine you’re the Beach Boys: you land a gig appearing in a beach movie, you’re revved up about your music being exposed to countless movie goers, only to learn that you’re playing second fiddle to the Beatles in a film that they do not appear in. The Girls on the Beach was made to cash in on the Beatles popularity, yet it features neither the Beatles nor any of their songs. It’s pretty evident that the filmmakers thought the Beatles were a fad, as they often have older characters making discouraging remarks about the band. At one point in the film two waiters have the following exchange:

Waiter: Beatles? Why don’t they go back from where they came from?
Waiter 2: England?
Waiter: No, under a rock!

At another point in the film, when the sorority gets a (fake) telegram telling them that The Beatles will be playing their fundraiser, their housemother Mrs. Winters objects,"What this about beetles? I had this entire placed fumigated."

When the girls correct Mrs. Winters on her mistake and inform her that the Beatles are a band, she replies,"Oh, yes. I saw them on Ed Sullivan. Lovely boys! They certainly could use a haircut."

Little did poor Mrs. Winters realize that in a few years time the Beatles mop top haircuts would seem rather conservative, almost boring compared to the hairstyles that would dominate that late sixties. Again, it’s ironic how the Beatles music has remained timeless through the decades, while movies like this  have been long forgotten. In 1964, AIP released Bikini Beach, in which the surfer community is threatened by the presence of a British rocker called “The Potato Bug.” In it, Frankie and the other surfers  mock him for his overuse of the word “yeah” and essentially are presented as the voice of reason, while the girls swoon over his awful brand of rock. The “Potato Bug” is also presented as being somewhat of a buffoon, who wouldn't last five minutes in the real word, if it wasn't for his tough, female security guard. Like The Girls on the Beach, the filmmakers thought the Beatles were a fad that would be forgotten in a few months time, and like the former, no one really remembers much about Bikini Beach.

We open our exciting story at the Sip N’ Surf, a local beach club where all the college students hang out for a good time. Four bikini clad sorority girls (Selma, Georgia, Cynthia, Bonnie) are sitting back and enjoying the house band The Cricketts (Buddy Holly’s former band) when Georgia points out they are being stared at by three guys sitting at the opposite end of the club. These guys have been staring at them for quite some time, 34 minutes to be exact. This leads to frustration on Georgia’s part and she has the following exchange with the angelic Bonnie, who is donned in a silver bikini and is the prettiest little…sorry….I lost focus for a second, back to the exchange:

Georgia: If they stare at us one minute more, I’ll blow my top.
Bonnie: Oh, their staring bothers you?
Georgia: Sure. They should have been over here by now.

The girls have a good chuckle over Georgia’s witty remark and go one with their business, while the three guys (Duke, Wayne, Brian) are debating on when to make their move. Wayne and Brian are ready to fraternize with the girls, but Duke points out that there are “three of us and four of them” and that it creates a problem. Wayne suggests they flip a coin to see who gets the fourth. Duke will have none of that and reminds his two toadies that, “This is the battle of the sexes. If we’re going to capture the enemy, we got to fight them smart.”
To which Brian replies,” I don’t want to fight them. I want to fraternize.”

As luck would have it Selma is called to the telephone, which evens the numbers for the boys. They get up from the chairs and slowly work their way to the girls table. Just when it looks like they are about to make contact with the opposite sex, Selma comes back and tells the girls they have to go. The boys are absolutely deflated by the cruel cock block that fate has delivered to them. Duke tries to console his lackeys by telling them that there are better fish in the sea. However, Wayne aptly points out that, “There’s better bait than us,” while Brian adds, “Some of these guys have muscles on their muscles.” However, Duke remains optimistic and is determined to hook up with these girls by the end of the week.

The phone call Selma received is from the housemother Mrs. Winter, who has an urgent message for the girls and needs them back at the sorority house immediately. After a depressing drive, in which Georgia laments the fact that the boys were finally going to make their move, the girls arrive at the sorority house to find Lesley Gore singing, “Leave Me Alone.”

She finishes her song and Mrs. Winters urges the other sorority members to go out and enjoy the weather, while she has a discussion with the student council. It appears that the girl’s extension on the mortgage has been denied and they owe the bank 10,000 dollars in two weeks or else they will lose the house. Selma says there’s no need to panic, they can just dip into the “Alpha Beta Treasury Reserve Fund” and pay off the rest of the mortgage; they have been saving up a nest egg for just such an emergency. It seems all their problems are solved, until Mrs. Winters confesses that she has embezzled the reserve fund to help out former Alpha Beta members and a few other less fortunate people she knows. The girls are moved to tears by Mrs.Winters truly selfless act of thievery and Selma speaks for them all when she declares, “You are a thief……and we’re proud of you.”

What? While Mrs.Winters did use the money for noble reasons, the fact remains that it wasn't her money to give. Only in the movies would an act of embezzlement be considered a good thing; in real life the girls probably would have screamed at poor Mrs.Winters for hours, kicked her out of the house, and called the police on her do gooding old ass. However, as this is a fun loving beach movie, no such hostilities take place even if they are justified.

The next day the student council calls an emergency meeting and lets the other Alpha Betas in on their horrible predicament. Selma, ever the calm one, suggests they look through the local newspapers for ideas, because sometimes, “the daily newspapers can be the greatest treasury of them all.” Selma stumbles across contests that might help the girls with their plight and they are:

1.A cake recipe contest.
The first prize is convertible.
The second is a speed boat.
The third is a washer/dryer combo.
“It doesn't matter what the prize is, “as Selma points out, because it will be converted to cash.

2.An Easter Beauty Contest.
The winner will receive 3,000 dollars.
Patricia Johnson, the prettiest girl in the sorority (a debatable point as she does not hold a candle to lovely, enchanting creature that is Bonnie...with her silver…oh sorry) is called upon to enter the contest. She is reluctant to do so, as it might upset her fiancé Frank. Selma resolves this by telling Patricia she will enter the contest under the assumed name of Mary Jackson. It can’t fail.

3.A newspaper puzzle.
The prize: unknown.
Selma calls upon the sorority sex bomb Arlene to seduce nerdy Stu Rankin into solving the puzzle. Arlene says she feels patriotic in her assignment.

And finally there’s the ace in hole: The sorority will hold a big fundraising show and charge five dollars a person to get in. Hey, with artists like The Beach Boys, The Cricketts, and Lesley Gore hanging around, they’re bound to make a fortune. Nope. In fact, the girls only consider letting the Beach Boys play their fundraiser, while completely ignoring Lesley Gore and the Cricketts. They decide the best solution is to scour the entertainment magazines to see if they can find a top flight act for their fundraiser. You hear that Brian Wilson: you’re band is good, but not good enough to headline a sorority fundraiser. The next day we find Selma, Cynthia and Georgia looking at an entertainment magazine on the beach, unaware that they are being spied on through a set of binoculars by Duke and his two Neanderthal pals. Duke sees the entertainment magazine and deduces that the girls’ obsession with celebrities is their Achilles heel and instructs his two mongoloids to name drop big celebrity names as they casually walk by:

Duke: Fellows! Next time we come down here we gotta bring Rock.
Wayne: Why Rock? Why not Troy?
Brian: I’m not sure Mrs. Donahue would approve.

The girls can’t believe what they heard; they debate whether or not if these guys really know these big name celebrities and then come to the conclusion that it is worth the risk if it can help them out. Just then Duke walks over and asks,“Any of you girls got a watch? We’d like to know the time.”
Georgia replies,"No! We haven’t got any watches, but we got plenty of time.”

This is the time for me to point out that Georgia is far and away the most likable character in Girls on the Beach. This is mainly due to the fact that Gail Gilmore is the best actress out of the four and is able to inject lots of energy and enthusiasm into her characterization of Georgia, while the other actresses often seem to be going through the motions. Whenever there’s a scene in which the Beach Boys are performing a song, the other characters look lost and just stand around, while Georgia is dancing up a storm and having what looks to be a genuinely good time. It’s to Gilmore’s credit as an actress that her lines (like the preceding one) are often funny as opposed to being suicide inducing.

We interrupt the main story for a comic interlude involving two Alpha Beta girls working on a Chocolate Pecan flavored cake. The girls have a taste test and determine that the frosting is just tad bit too sweet, so the nerdy one of the bunch says she can render it right by adding 1/10 centigram of the formula to the cake. She sprays on the formula and the cake EXPLODES. This is recurring gag throughout the film; the girls work on a cake and it explodes. My theory is that the cake exploding scenes were added when the producers realized that their film was running five minutes too short and needed some filler. They saw the first cake exploding scene, deemed it a work of genius, and ordered the director to film two more cake explosions.

Back to the main story line……nope…first we get a brief musical interlude of The Beach Boys singing “The Lonely Sea.” Every one sits around, while Brian Wilson sings. However, my eyes are focused on Bonnie standing behind Brian Wilson in her flashy silver bikini. SWWWOOOOOON! Oh Lana Wood! You can’t act, but you surely are wonderful to look at. Must concentrate on film review! Hilarious hi-jinks pursue as Arlene asks Stu if he thinks the moon is romantic and he responds by stating all sorts of facts about the moon and the solar system; Arlene shuts up him by giving a nice long kiss on the lips. She finally manages to reduce the poor sap into a quivering mold of jelly. That newspaper puzzle is as good as solved now that Stu has been seduced, as Duke would say, by the enemy. With that musical interlude out of the way, we are back to our main story already in progress….. oh wait….another Beach Boys musical number set inside the Sip N’ Surf. This time the band performs “Little Honda.” Dennis Wilson has a hard time concentrating on the drums as his eyes are focused on the button cute Georgia dancing right next him. It easily the most fun musical number in the entire film; the exchanges between Dennis Wilson and Gail Gilmore are entertaining to watch, certainly compared to the other music numbers in which every one just sits around and stares at the performing acts.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled story line already in progress: Selma tells Duke that she’s considering having The Beach Boys play her fundraiser and remarks that they’re almost as good as The Beatles. Duke starts laughing and says the boys (meaning The Beatles) will be amused by her comments. This leads to another cringe worthy exchange between Selma and Duke:

Selma: You know the Beatles personally?
Duke: Doesn’t everybody?

Selma doesn't believe Duke and thinks he’s joking. Duke is adamant in his claim and sets to silence Selma’s skepticism by calling Ringo on the telephone. Just when you think it’s absolutely impossible for this movie to get any more idiotic, it proceeds to prove you wrong, shattering your belief system and forcing you to question your faith in humankind. OK, it’s not that bad. Duke's scheme for fooling the girls involves the following:

1. First he finds a payphone outside the Sip N Surf
2. He tells the Lot Attendant to enter the Sip N Surf in five minutes and to make the following announcement, “Will the owner of the black 61 convertible please move it?” He pays the guy for his trouble.
3. He then tells one of the waiters (Roger Corman regular Dick Miller) that he’s expecting a call from from London, England and he wishes to be paged when it comes through.
4. He sits down and tells the girls that he just put his call through and that it will take a few minutes.
5. Just then the lot attendant enters the Sip N Surf and makes the announcement about the black 61 convertible. Duke gets up to “move” his car.
6. Duke walks to the payphone outside and dials the Sip N Surf’s number. The waiter answers and in a bad British accent asks, “Is there a Duke Powers there?”
7. The waiter pages for Duke Powers. Wayne gets up to answer the phone, Duke tells him all about his scam and to put Selma on the phone.
8. Selma answers the phone and is completely fooled by Dukes horrible Ringo Starr imitation. To replicate the sound of long distance static, Duke crumples a sheet of paper in front of his mouth.

Here’s just some of the brilliant dialogue that Duke vomits out while doing his best bad Ringo impression:

Duke: Hello? I say I can’t hear you too well! Who is this?
Selma: Is this really Ringo?
Duke: It jolly well is. I’ll prove it. (starts singing) Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Selma, completely elated that she is talking to THE Ringo Starr, boldly asks him if the Beatles will headline the Alpha Beta Sorority Fundraiser. Duke hesitates to give her an answer, but finally tells her that they might be able to play the fundraiser, though it's a complete long shot. Selma tells the rest of girls and just the very idea that the Beatles might play their fundraiser blows them all away.

Duke, realizing he can score big time if he can deliver the Beatles, goes to the telegram office the next day and has the messenger send a fake wire from London, England that says the Beatles will be playing the fundraiser. Wayne and Brian are at first reluctant to go along with Duke’s scheme and even question his ethic. However, Duke wins them over with the following argument:

You guys want to score with these chicks, don’t you? When they read this telegram we’ll be
their idols, we’ll be their heroes. They’ll do anything we want them to do.

Brian then wonders what will happen when the Beatles fail to show up on Saturday. Duke put his fears at ease when he says, “Come Saturday and no us will be here.” It’s Tuesday, which gives them a few days to “enjoy the spoils.”

Back at the sorority home, Mrs. Winters apologizes for all the trouble she has put the girls through, but Selma won’t hear any of it and insists that, “This is real fun! It’s like being in a movie or something.” Before the audience has time to groan over Selma’s statement, the telegram messenger arrives with Duke’s fake wire from London, England. Selma reads it and excitedly tells all the girls that the Beatles will be headlining the fundraiser. The place erupts with squeals and thunderous applause. The day is saved, or so it appears.

Cut to a scene involving Patricia and her fiancé Frank at an outdoor restaurant:

Frank: Two yogurts!
Patricia: Frank, I don’t like yogurt.
Frank: But it’s good for you.

While waiting for the yogurts, Frank starts thumbing through the newspaper, when all of a sudden Patricia sees a picture of herself in the first round of the beauty contest. At first, she tries to cut the picture out of the newspaper before Frank can see it. When that fails, she takes a match and sets the paper on fire. Frank demands to know what happened; Patricia blames it on a discarded cigarette butt. Frank grabs Patricia by the hand, gets up, and tells the waitress, “I will not eat in a place where people smoke.”

The boys stop by the sorority house, where they learn from Mrs. Winters that the girls are out, “Advertising, distributing leaflets, selling tickets, and renting the Sip N Surf for the Beatles.” Duke and his cronies feel like complete heels for fooling the girls into believing the Beatles are coming. Just then the messenger arrives with another telegram for Selma. Mrs. Winters takes it and brings it inside. Duke asks the messenger what the telegram says and he tells them the telegram is from London, England and that Selma is getting sued by the Beatles management for “fraudulent misrepresentation.” The boys realize they’re in trouble, but rather than tell Selma the truth, Duke convinces his underlings to climb up to Selma’s room and steal the telegram. His plan is to keep Selma in the dark long enough so he can get laid and then he will return the telegram, so that when she does find out, he and his bumbling sidekicks will have safely left town. It can’t fail! Right?

Before the guys can sneak into Selma’s room, we cut to a scene of Patricia in the second round of the beauty contest: the talent show. Patricia’s talent is apparently shaking her hips and boobs in a provocative manner, while occasionally smacking her butt against the judges table. However, the judges are impressed and Patricia goes on to win the 500 dollar talent award. The girls can now afford to rent out the Sip N Surf for their awesome Beatles filled fundraiser. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Back at the sorority house, the guys climb up a ladder that is conveniently located outside of Selma’s room. And not surprising, after the third one (Brian) climbs into Selma’s room; he sneezes and kicks over the ladder. The guys snatch the telegram and are about to walk out the front door, when the entire sorority comes bursting in. The guys retreat up to Selma’s room to think up an escape plan and I bet you can guess what it is.....
 If you said dressing up in drag, then give yourself a pat on the back. The boys don girls wigs and clothing, and slowly make their way to the front door to avoid any sort of suspicion. The girls seem to fall for the ruse and one even makes the comment that Brian is a "cute girl." The boys reach the front door, victory is within their grasp, but just then a group of random male party goers come crashing in through the door. Naturally, the male party goers start hitting on the Duke and company, while ignoring the far more attractive (and genuine) women in the house.  We are then treated to some very funny exchanges (and I’m not being sarcastic at all when I write this):

Male: Don’t I know you from some place?
Duke: (in a high pitch girly voice) I bet you say that to all the girls.

Male 2: Hey babe, how about a kiss?
Brian: Brute! My mother doesn’t believe in kissing.
Male 2: Yeah! But I don’t want to kiss your mother.

The boys finally successfully escape the sorority house, but not before Wayne’s cover is blown when he loses his wig after a flipping a frisky male over his shoulder. Then we are treated to the most awkward piece of exposition ever present on celluloid: A young couple that we haven’t seen before are sitting on the beach talking about the upcoming Beatles show, then the girl mentions that the sorority Sigma Phi is initiating Freshmen this week and for their initiation the girls have to bring back a lock of Beatles hair. Hmmm! I wonder if this is going to come back later in the story. No way!

It’s time for the show and the Beatles are nowhere to be seen. The rest of the girls are worried, but Selma has a feeling they’re on their way right now. Just then Duke arrives; Selma is excited and tells him he has to pick the Beatles up at the airport. Duke finally reveals his lie to Selma:

I didn’t hear from the Beatles and they are not coming. Selma, I’m the world’s youngest dirty old man.

He apologizes for misleading her, but Selma screams at him to get out of her face. He walks away, while Selma regroups with the girls and hatches up her own hair brained scheme: Georgia will drive to the costume shop, pick up four Beatles costumes,then the girls will dress up in them and pretend to be the Beatles. Sounds like a fool proof plan to me! To distract the crowd until Georgia gets back, Selma has Patricia go up onstage and do her “exotic” form of dancing. This works for a few minutes, until Frank shows up and starts cat calling, unaware that it's his fiancee' dancing; he starts shouting, “We want more. That’s want we want. More. More.” Patricia grabs an acoustic guitar and smashes it over his head, upset over the fact that he didn’t know it was her dancing.

Georgia finally arrives with the costumes and in a blink of an eye the four sorority council members get on stage decked in Beatles garb, singing a non-Beatles song:

This feeling from my heart
Has been there from the start.

And then they throw in a few “yeah yeah yeahs” for good measure. Despite looking and sounding nothing like the Beatles, the audiences buys into the con and all is going to smoothly until the Sigma Phi initiates storm the stage and grab the girls bad mop top wigs. The girl’s have been exposed and just when it looks like the angry mob is about to lynch them, Duke intervenes and points out that they liked the music the girls were playing. He then calms the crowd down by explaining,"You liked them because they were good.” The crowd realizes he is right and demand that the girls play more songs. The girls oblige, get up on stage, and start singing “I Want to Marry a Beatle.” Everything is right with the world...well except that lawsuit that the filmmakers have conveniently overlooked. The End.

Phew! I had not planned on writing an epic film review of The Girls on the Beach, but you never know the hand life will deal you. In my experience there are films that transcend the label of  good or bad and belong in in a completely separate category; The Girls on the Beach is that type of film. Yes, I know the story line is ridiculous and the filmmakers are often very lazy in their presentation, but despite these flaws (or because of them) The Girls on the Beach is a very entertaining film. What strikes me the most about it is how innocent it is compared to similar modern day comedies; if a studio were to take a film called The Girls on the Beach today, you can bet there would be lots of gratuitous nudity and sex scenes, where as in 1965 just the sight of attractive girls in bikinis was enough to satisfy most male moviegoers' carnal desires.

The most surprising thing about Girls in the Beach is the depiction of the girls themselves; they are intelligent and independent. When Mrs. Winters confesses she stole the reserve fund, the girls don’t panic, but rather hold an emergency sorority meeting to figure out a solution to their dilemma. The girls make their own luck, rather than relying on some outside force to bail them out: when Duke confesses he lied about the Beatles, Selma pushes him aside and instructs Georgia to run down to the costume shop to pick up four Beatles costumes. This is surprising behavior for a woman in a Beach film; usually they are either air headed floozies only interested in having sex, or prudes only interested in settling down with their deadbeat surfer boyfriends (see all the Frankie and Annette Beach movies for further reference). It’s not to say that the lead female characters in The Girls on the Beach aren’t interested in romance (they are), it’s just not their top priority. In many ways Selma’s intelligence is the most problematic aspect of Girls on the Beach, because there is absolutely no way a smart girl like her would ever fall for Duke's horribly transparent ruse. If she was presented in a flakier manner,then maybe it would be easy to accept the sight of her swooning over Duke’s bad Ringo impression.

The other MAJOR flaw (there are a lot of minors flaws as well) is the music numbers by The Cricketts, Lesley Gore, and The Beach Boys; by themselves they are energetic and entertaining (especially the “Little Honda” number by the Beach Boys), but they also take away much of the urgency that the story line requires. You never feel a sense that the girls are in any danger of losing the sorority house, because they spend a good deal of film sitting around with huge smiles on their faces, while a rock n’ roll band belts out one of their hit songs. It’s not until the last ten minutes (when Georgia is sent to costume shop to pick up Beatles uniforms) that time starts to play a factor in the story. Will Selma be able to distract the audience long enough until Georgia gets back? Will Georgia get back? What will the audience do when they realize that Beatles aren’t coming? It’s very reminiscent of the 1985 Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo in which the main characters are told they have a month to save their recreational center from being torn down, but spend the majority of the film dancing and goofing, waiting until the last ten minutes to do anything about it.

The best known actor out of the bunch is probably Lana Wood and that’s mainly for two reasons:
1.She is Natalie Wood’s younger sister. Unfortunately, she does not possess the same great acting skills as her older sibling, but then again the script really doesn’t give too much do, except stand around in a bikini (which she excels at).
2.Her brief appearance in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, where she plays the aptly named Plenty O’ Toole. It’s often regarded as one of the worst entries in the series by the James Bond purists, thought I must admit I have a rather soft spot for it.

The other cast members (with the exception of Dick Miller, who is in practically every other film ever made) did not go on to have such distinguished careers. Aron Kincaid (Wayne) was a pretty popular Beach movie actor in the day, but his star eventually faded; though he would later go on to voice The Killer Croc in Batman: The Animated Series, so at least he can brag about being part of the best super hero cartoon ever made. And to his credit, he is a rather energetic and fun performer, certainly a lot better than the actor (Martin West) that plays Duke.

Gail Gilmore, the true bright spot of the film, retired from acting in the 70s and lived with famed humorist Terry Southern for the rest of his life. 1965 proved to be a busy year for her as she co-starred with Elvis in the wonderfully absurd Girl Happy and Beach Ball,a slightly better beach movie (If such a thing is possible) in which she virtually plays the same character.

The Girls on the Beach is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Sure, there are moments in the film where I cringe (the name dropping bit in which the guys make reference to Rock Hudson and Troy Donahue; the condescending attitude the film has towards the Beatles), but it’s hard to hate a film that is so good natured. In a way, I’m almost sad that these types of films went out of style, because they’re certainly preferable to heavy sermonizing seen in the raunchy comedies of today (see the American Pie films and The Hall Pass for example…on second thought don’t).

Credits

The Girls On the Beach (1965)
Cast: Noreen Corcoran(Selma), Martin West(Duke), Gail Gilmore, a.k.a. Gale Gerber,(Georgia), Linda Marshall (Cynthia), Aron Kincaid(Wayne), Lana Wood(Bonnie), Steven Rogers(Brian), Sheila Bromley (Mrs.Winters), Anna Capri (Arlene), Linda Saunders(Patricia),Peter Brooks (Stu), Arnold Lessing (Frank), Dick Miller (Waiter), Leo Gordon (Waiter 2), Lesley Gore, The Beach Boys, the Crickets.

Director: William E. Witney
Screenplay: David Malcolm.
Running Time: 80 min.