Muscle Beach

I saw this film many years ago and it blew my mind, and I have never seen film in the same light since. It took a long time for me to realise why. I think every film I had ever seen till then had been narrative, and I didn't know there could be a gripping film that didn't tell a story - that's what films did, tell a story. Muscle Beach is fascinating, but no story. I don't mean it has no structure - it has a very tight structure, but it is like a piece of music, in three movements - allegro, andante, allegro vivace (or something) The film was shot on a beach in ?California, concentrating on a set of (very) amateur athletes and body-builders. The score is written and sung by Earl Robinson, and the words and music complement (and sometimes contradict) the screen action, pithily and wittily (who but Robinson would rhyme 'therapeutical' with 'the body beautiful'?) This film gave me the most influential twenty minutes of my life. Not everybody sees it that way - my friends didn't know what I was on about - but try it and see for yourself.

No Frankie, no Annette in this brief good natured doc about famed "Muscle Beach" in LA (Venice) from 70 plus years back and still going strong today. Accompanied with a bubbly tune strummed an hummed by Earl Robinson it's nearly all fun in the sun as co-directors involve women and children with the strutting beefcake giving it a more leisurely day at the beach appeal. Its well edited moments evoke memories of Olympiad but soundtrack and imagery keeps it light the entire run. An amiable time piece.

The summer air defines this short film, images of men and women and children in different exercises, games, demonstrations of force and muscles and athletic abilities , not ignoring the beach, couples, jokes and the comentary.

The mix of nostalgia and nice bodies, force of ladies and gymnastic of first scenes are the good points of this charming movie , half documentary, half proto feminism , working just inspired like each portrait of ordinary people definitions in period.

Sure, for an East European like me , a nice definition of American life in 1940 s.

For a history teacher, like, again, me, the portrait of heal of war experiences and beginning of peace existences. In short, pretty images with summer air.

I agree with the previous comments...this is a classic. You often see snippets of this film, with the graceful weightlifters and acrobats of Muscle Beach, in documentaries about LA during this period. But I was delighted to see the whole film, with its goofy singing narration, shot at the old Muscle Beach between the Santa Monica Pier and the now-demolished pier at Ocean Park.

"Think like an athlete, cut them apron strings, starve on your own..." This is essentially a very early music video. A vehicle for a 10 minute musical appreciation of the beach. It's all actuality - fit young people using gymnastics apparatus, people sunbathing, kids playing, ice cream, soda pop - all to an accompaniment from Earl Robinson under the gaze of a seagull. At times the lyric is quite observational and witty, but after about four of these nine minutes, it all becomes a bit repetitive. Proof, if it were ever needed, that gym babies were alive and well in the 1940s too!...............