Wild on the Beach

Saw this 4/29/15 via cable on demand. A strange, generally bad movie directed by bad director Maury Dexter. Yet, as Voltaire discovered in Shakespeare, sometimes there are pearls in the manure pile. "Wild on the Beach" earns the comparison to fertilizer with e.g., the Sonny and Cher segment, which manages to combine awful music with clumsy cinematic execution. The pearl? The segment featuring the number "Run Away from Him" sung by Cindy Malone. The bit reminded me of some of the great songs and visuals in "Just for Fun" (1963). Ms. Malone's song would have benefited from Nicolas Roeg's lensing in that movie, but still the segment is surprisingly powerful, and of such high quality it seems out of place in what is in all other respects a thoroughly awful film.

OMG! haha. There are no words to adequately describe how really bad this movie is. I gave it a 3 rating only because it's so much darned fun to goof on. The acting is third rate; the story is second rate; and everything else goes downhill from there. Even the dancers who are supposedly dancing the Frug, the Swim, and other 1965 period dancers are bad.

The oddest element is the incidental music played while people are talking. It's impossible to describe! I guess it was meant to be funny — a la Ozzie & Harriet, perhaps, but it's just so bad and has no real connection to the scenes in which it is played.

Sonny & Cher's performance is typical, but the song, "It's Gonna Rain Outside" is laughable.

This would have been perfect for the old 80s show MST3000, which goofed on bottom-budget movies like this. These days it's probably best for stoners who may or may not recall 1965.

Laughably awkward teen-opus, filmed on the cheap in black-and-white, concerns young male and female college students battling each other over the rights to a swanky beach-house. It's the boys against the girls! (Wouldn't it makes things more interesting for these kids if the pad were co-ed?) Worth a quick peek for the musical cameo by Sonny & Cher down at the local hot-spot (they sing the growly slow-burner "It's Gonna Rain"), but their bit comes early--at the 22-minute mark--leaving nothing but godawful acting and teenage contrivances for the next hour. Positively painful! "Wild on the Beach" makes the A.I.P. "Beach Party" flicks seem Oscar-caliber by comparison. * from ****

Without a doubt the absolute worst beach-party-style rip-off film that I've seen, and there is plenty of competition. Adam (Frankie Randall) and Lee (Sherry Jackson) both rent the same beach house for the summer, and each refuses to give up their claim. Zero laughs and amateur drama ensue. Also featuring Russ Bender, Gayle Caldwell, Jackie Miller, and Booth Colman. If you haven't ever heard of these people, there is a reason for that. There are also performances by Sonny & Cher, The Astronauts, and Sandy Nelson. The Sonny & Cher song, "It's Gonna Rain", may be one of the worst songs in the history of Western Civilization. The entire film is like hammering a railroad spike through your foot.

Way outdated plot (old-timers don't like the idea of boys and girls living together in the same house), brainless script, terrible songs that the producers apparently thought "the kids" would think was cool but definitely weren't, a bland leading man whose singing and acting are on the same level (lousy), chintzy production values (to be expected from a Lippert picture) and some of the unfunniest "comedy" bits (consisting mainly of old people tripping and falling down) in recent memory all combine to make this cheap "Beach Party" ripoff barely watchable. At least the "Beach Party" movies were shot in color so the audience would see nice shots of the beach and the ocean; this thing is shot in black-and-white, so the few scenes where you actually see the beach are bland and uninteresting.

Just about the only things this mess has going for it are Sherry Jackson, who was adorable as a child actress and grew up to be an absolute knockout; and a couple of shots of some cute girls running around a beach house in their nighties. That's it. Period.

Don't waste your time.