Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Muscle Beach Party Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 21, 2015

For such a relatively small entity, American International Pictures had a somewhat outsized impact on the film scene of the 1960s. Not only did the studio reinvigorate the horror genre including with its iconic Edgar Allan Poe entries, most courtesy of Roger Corman (many can be found in The Vincent Price Collection and The Vincent Price Collection II), it was also responsible for fostering one of the odder genres of this era’s cinema offerings, the so-called “beach party” film. When the suitably named Beach Party became American International’s top grossing film to date in 1963, it didn’t take a genius to predict there would be follow-ups, especially since the films were relatively low budget affairs without the need of much in the way of production design or other niceties—no, instead legendary showman Samuel Z. Arkoff could just have writer-director William Asher plop a camera, crew and cast down on any scenic Los Angeles area beach and let the kids sing a few tunes, then sit back and watch the box office receipts pour in. Muscle Beach Party was the second film in this brief but (for a while at least) lucrative franchise, and it more or less follows the template its progenitor had created whole cloth (whole sand?) the year before. Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello are back as occasionally squabbling teenagers in love, with a gaggle of other “teens” providing backup (both spoken and sung), while a number of odd, even outré, comedy elements spill into the proceedings like an errant wave. This film jettisons franchise regular bad guy Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck) in favor of a martinet body building coach named Jack Fanny (Don Rickles). While the kids attempt to frolic on the beach, Fanny and his crew of oiled and muscled hunks (including future Mission: Impossible co-star Peter Lupus, billed here as Rock Stevens) try to keep them off the sand. Another subplot involves a beautiful (if scheming) Countess (Luciana Paluzzi, Thunderball) filling Frankie’s head with dreams of teen idol superstardom while Dee Dee (Annette Funicello) fumes from the sidelines.

Aside from no menacing motorcycle gang, one of Muscle Beach Party’s other singular differences from its beach party siblings is almost immediately apparent, as Frankie, Dee Dee and a coterie of both regulars and guest stars tool down the Pacific Coast Highway on their way to one of their favorite surfing destinations (eagle eyed viewers will catch the fact that this rather large and rowdy group actually turns off Highway 101 onto a lane distinctly marked “Private Driveway”). Frankie and Dee Dee and the gang are crooning a tune called “Surfer’s Holiday,” and it has a distinctively “authentic” sound and groove that sets it apart from a lot of the ersatz fodder that tended to musically fill the beach party films. This opening song, along with several others in Muscle Beach Party’s enjoyable score, was co- written by none other than The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and the obvious flexing of songwriting (ahem) muscle makes the musical portion of this film unusually enjoyable.

Another kind of weird element in this film is the fact that Frankie regularly addresses the audience, breaking the filmic fourth wall and supposedly providing wry commentary on the goings on. That gives a patently bizarre “meta” feeling to some of the film, something that plays somewhat anachronistically against the much simpler, even naive, approach that the rest of the plot takes.

In fact it's that innocence—whether real or faked—that is part of Muscle Beach Party’s charm. When the kids all get together for a sleepover, for example, there’s some good natured kidding (with maybe just the barest hint of a double entendre or two) when it turns out the girls have decided not to go “co-ed,” separating themselves via a rather flimsy hung blanket. The generally chaste ambience of Muscle Beach Party may not be especially realistic, but it’s sweetly quaint and provides a bit of winking fun along the way.

The beach party series always relied more on sight gags than verbal humor to whip up its farcically comedic stance, and in that regard, Muscle Beach Party’s offerings can be kind of on the slim side. A lot of the schtick has to do with Rickles’ Jack Fanny character and the big lugs who tool about the beach. Rickles’ hyperbolic mugging doesn’t help some of the lamer jokes, and from a pure humor standpoint, a lot of Muscle Beach Party is either flat or forced. (It's an unusual situation where someone like Buddy Hackett, playing a kind of fat cat involved with the Countess, can seem downright subdued when compared to Rickles' over the top performance.)

Whatever problems the film may have from a “narrative” standpoint, they disappear when confronted with the natural ebullience of musical performances like Stevie Wonder’s wonderfully energetic “Happy Street” (an admitted case where beach party franchise songwriters Guy Hemric and Jerry Styner hit a home run). Legendary surf guitarist Dick Dale is also on hand with the Del-Tones, including in the Wonder sequence. There are some fun if again bizarre turns sprinkled throughout this film, including Peter Lorre in one of his last film appearances as Mr. Strangdour, a perhaps surprisingly quick reference to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The Kubrick film would have opened probably just when Muscle Beach Party was filming, and this discursive reference is one of a handful of oddly portentous elements in the film that sometimes eschew frolicking on the beach in favor of musing about the end of the human race courtesy of "the bomb."

Muscle Beach Party Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Muscle Beach Party is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. (The opening credits sequences is strangely windowboxed. I never owned this film on DVD, nor saw it theatrically, so can't comment on whether this is a new anomaly or not.) Much as with the simultaneously released Beach Blanket Bingo, this is by and large a great looking transfer that boasts excellently vivid and well saturated color. There are similar age related issues on display here to those discussed in the Beach Blanket Bingo Blu-ray review, none major enough to cause any serious concern. This film has a bit more process photography, stock footage and some (pretty lame looking) rear projection, and those sequences can look fairly raggedy when compared to the bulk of this presentation. There are no issues with image instability and no problematic compression artifacts. Once again Olive has delivered a "hands off" release which preserves a healthy grain layer along with occasional damage to the elements.

Muscle Beach Party Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Muscle Beach Party's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix is surprisingly robust during the musical elements, though some baked in mixing anomalies are unavoidable (why, for example, are Frankie and Annette mixed so low at times in the opening "Surfer's Holiday" number?). Dialogue is also presented perfectly clearly in this problem free track.

Muscle Beach Party Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on this Blu-ray disc.

Muscle Beach Party Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Muscle Beach Party struggles at times, especially with some overly forced "comedy" that never quite produces enough laughs. That deficit is probably more than offset by the film's really enjoyable music, which taken as a whole is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, song scores of any of the beach party films. Technical merits are, as with Beach Blanket Bingo, surprisingly strong and Muscle Beach Party comes Recommended.