Saturday, March 30, 2019

Movie review - "The Girls on the Beach" (1965) **1/2

The beach party movie with the Beach Boys in it, and they are the best thing about the movie, along with Lesley Gore. Both sing a couple of catchy tunes - I really like title track from the Beach Boys and also "Little Honda".

It's odd though that the plot concerns the Beatles - to wit, a couple of guys pretend to know them, and one impersonates Ringo on the phone. Actually the set up has a group of girls raising money for their sorority house - the boys try to con them by pretending to be the Beatles.

The same writer also did Beach Ball which was about people trying to raise money and had three girls and three boys. (Both films were financed by Roger Corman on the sly and distributed by Paamount and had Dick Miller in a small role and Aaron Kincaid in a bigger one). But that was better because the lines were clearer - the girls were nerds, the guys were cool and in the band - it also had star power via Edd Byrnes.

Here it is really hard to tell the girls apart and the guys. I just remember Aaron Kincaid is one and a guy losing his hair is another.

And while some of the Beatles stuff was cute - impersonating Ringo and also the girls dressing up at the end being the Beatles (the audience buy it for a big which stretches credibility) - it's annoying because we know we're never going to meet the Beatles... and the Beach Boys are right there! I mean, why not make it about the Beach Boys???

Anyway it's bright, colourful and has good tunes and it always trying to entertain. Lana Wood is one of the girls.

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