Return to Muscle Beach

Girl Fight! Girl Fight! -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I wanted a light-hearted, fairly short movie to download to my iPhone -- just something to show people how movies look on it. I found the perfect movie with 1964's Muscle Beach Party, the 2nd in a series of five beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. The movie was directed by William Asher (also known for Bewitched) and like many 60's era movies it shows teen behavior from a hilariously square adult viewpoint. I'm reminded of Brady Bunch where Sherwood Schwartz thought that "groovy" was a perfectly good word for a 1970's teen. By 1970, "groovy" had been deprecated to a terribly square phrase of the unhip. The kids in the cast tried to tell Schwartz to no avail. Thus, part of the giggle factor when watching beach movies or Brady's are things like "Johnny Bravo", songs like "A Boy Needs a Girl", and the word groovy.

A couple of things strike me immediately w/ Muscle Beach: Frankie and Dee Dee are supposed to be teens, but both are well into their mid-20's. Avalon is a heart-throb leading man, but is so petite he's barely taller than half the women in the cast. Like Mad, Mad World, there are some social sea changes since 1964 that would make much of the dialog and plot devices unlikely today. The women are sitting around mooning and pining over their men; they even have the occasional cat fight over a man. Nowadays, it's decidedly uncool to depict a woman in that way. Current day plots more frequently have the woman in the driver's seat -- leaving a man, attracting a man, or doing whatever she might do to a man in the active mode. From a purely stylistic standpoint I have to observe that Dee Dee (Funicello) has the highest hair I’ve ever seen, where it wasn’t intended as a self-parody. It was easily 5 inches high.

Don Rickles plays Jack Fannie, a gym manager on the beach. I forgot that in his late 30’s Rickles was not yet an obnoxious, fearsome insult-meister. He was perfect as the low-IQ and oddly vulnerable gym manager. His muscle men are depicted as preening divas wearing satin trunks (alternately pink or purple) with white thongs on their feet. Attitudes toward body building have evolved – it’s more mainstream now. The very concept of a “muscle beach” could evoke laughter in 1964, and would more likely get straight-faced queries of interest in 2007.

Last but not least in this movie was Luciana Paluzzi playing an Italian Contessa, Julie, who is smitten with Frankie. Her Italian accent is alternately charming and funny. The “cat fight” between her and Dee Dee makes the movie worth watching all by itself. Buddy Hackett is perfect as Julie’s business manager – Hackett was in his comic prime, having recently done Music Man and Mad, Mad World.

In sum, Muscle Beach Party is the perfect diversion if you want to laugh and have purely a good time. The simple stereotypes and implied “truths” might annoy people nowadays – most girls don’t aspire just to be “Johnny’s Girl”. The music, except for one song by a 13 year old Stevie Wonder, is largely forgettable tripe that leverages off of the styles of Leslie Gore or the Beach Boys (take your pick). The dialog is hilariously contrived; nobody would say these words, ever. For a 90 minute guilty-pleasure laugh fest, that should not be a problem. Pick up a copy of this movie and indulge yourself in a blast from the past.

© 2007 blogSpotter