Beach Blanket Bingo

No one expects A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) from Frankie and Annette. So anyone catching this celebration of carefree hedonism should know what they're getting from the git-go. All in all, the movie's a time capsule of those pre-Vietnam years when jobs were plentiful, prosperity was on the rise, and the only thing white middle-class teens worried about was a date to the prom. The movie perfectly captures the silly innocence of those teen years. And what better place to celebrate than the land of eternal sunshine and surf: Malibu, California.

But watch out for Timothy Carey's grotesque South Dakota Slim. In retrospect, he's like a forewarning of the Vietnam-Watergate calamities to come— a menacing figure crashing the beach party's beautiful bodies. It was an inspired piece of casting and happenstance. Now, I'm not about to mock the movie's silliness since my own preference runs toward The Three Stooges. At the same time, it looks to this drop-in like the film's probably as good as any of the Beach Party bashes of that long ago sunny era. For many, the movie's got to be a trip down carefree nostalgia lane.