What year did the movie “Beach Party” starring Annette Funicello debut?”
Surf’s up! Frankie and Annette sure have their hands full at a “Muscle Beach Party,” as gym owner Don Rickles and his strongmen try to take over the beach, lovesick heiress Luciana Paluzzi tries to snare Frankie, and Little Stevie Wonder stops by to perform “Happy Street.” With Morey Amsterdam, Buddy Hackett, Peter Lorre. Next, Frankie trades in his board for some slats and hits the slopes with Dwayne Hickman to find why their gals are swooning over ski bum Aron Kincaid. ..with the guys resorting to dressing up as girls! “Ski Party” also stars Deborah Walley, Yvonne Craig, Robert Q. Lewis, and musical guests James Brown and Lesley Gore. 186 min. total. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: English, French, Spanish; theatrical trailers.
Beach Party (1963) was the first of seven beach party films from American International Pictures (AIP) aimed at a teen audience. It was directed by William Asher and written by Lou Rusoff. The main actors included Robert Cummings, Dorothy Malone, Frankie Avalon, and Annette Funicello. This film is often credited with creating the beach party film genre. One of the unique aspects of the AIP beach films is the absence of parents or any other authority figures. This gang of independent, fun-loving teenagers (portrayed by actors in their 20s) are free to do whatever they want and live on their own terms in summer houses along the beach. This first film includes a romantic sub-plot about two adult characters (Cummings and Malone) that was only repeated once in subsequent films, in 1964’s Bikini Beach.
On this day in 1963, Beach Party, starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, debuts. The film was the first of several such frothy beach films for the pair-they also starred together in Muscle Beach Party (1964) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965). Funicello started out as one of the Mouseketeers on the TV show The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. Avalon was a popular singer. The pair reunited for Back to the Beach in 1987.
