Zuma Beach

Not bad for a tv movie of the week..Has a real nice 70's feel..Like the guys howling at her driving thru the mountains(You'd be arrested today)Rosanna and Kimberly never looked better.

Hi people. Hey, this movie came out when I was about 21 and I remember feeling about the same way everyone did in this movie. I was in Los Angeles (Hermosa Beach-Hi Terry) and was unsure of myself as were most of the people in this cute movie. O.k, it lacks critical substance and Ms. Sommers seems to glide throughout the movie like her acting is similar to her character of not knowing what is up with her life. But, hey, who hasn't been there, done that, and wondered where there next step in life should be or as in the proverbial saying from my brother in law, Nick, if 'if's and but's were candy and nuts, oh what a wonderful Christmas we would all have. This simply means just watch the movie and quit trying to blame yourselfs for everything in life you did right or wrong which is what all of the characters are trying to cope with here. It is a good movie and a clean one from the long gone year of 1978 and will always remain true to my heart since I live in a land commonly now hated by the Dixie Chicks called Lubbock Texas.... Hey, you all, watch it on a late evening channel and enjoy!!!!!!!

I was 15 when this ABC movie of the week came out. Miss Somers being hot off the second season of Three's Company and growing in popularity, was adorable in this beach movie. Shot on the West Coast, the scenery was breathtaking. In 1978, i'm sure that executives at ABC must have wanted to capitalize on this 'Blonde of the hour' but giving her this role. Her acting in this movie was fine. It wasn't a comedy like Three's company, but it was more on relationships and the coming of age with these teenage kids. I liked the way she talked to the teenagers, she was some kind of mother figure to them. Anyway she was real pretty and really approachable. I like Suzanne Somers, i think of all the sex bombs of the 70's she's the one that aged most gracefully.

Suzanne Somers was 30 years-old playing a fading rock singer who goes to a beach in Malibu to find inspiration amidst the youths, mostly high school kids. It's a fun drama that addresses some heavy things amidst the frolics rather than a goofy beach party flick, like those from the '60s. Speaking of which, people forget that the originator of the "beach party film" genre was 1959's "Gidget" (the movie with Sandra Dee, not the TV series with Sally Field), which was a beach drama with moving depth and not zany at all.

So, this is more along the lines of the 1959 version of "Gidget," just mixed with the '70's vibe of Sam Elliott's "Lifeguard" from 1976. It's basically a TV version of "California Dreaming," which debuted seven months later. While it's the least of these due to being a television production, it has its points of interest. For one, viewing it makes you feel like you've spent the afternoon at a beach in SoCal.

Whilst Suzanne never looked better, she never tripped my trigger. I prefer voluptuous blonde Kimberly Beck, who plays Cathy. Other familiar faces in their youth include Mark Wheeler, Michael Biehn, Rosanna Arquette, Tanya Roberts and PJ Soles. Janus Blythe is listed in the credits as Jennifer, but the role is so peripheral that I missed her. You might remember her as the feral Ruby in "The Hills Have Eyes" and Lynette in "Eaten Alive."

It runs about 1h 40m and was shot at Paradise Cove, which is 2.5 miles east of the actual Zuma Beach, on the other side of Point Dume, which you can see in the background. Point Dume happened to be where the iconic climax of "Planet of the Apes" was shot.

GRADE: B-/C+

Pop singer in Los Angeles is told the record business has forgotten her--she had a hit single two years ago, but her last album lost money. She responds to this rejection by driving to the beach--her childhood sanctuary--to play in the sand and flirt with the impressionable 18-year-olds. History repeating itself: a sun-kissed 1970s update of the beach party genre, which hadn't been in vogue since the mid-'60s. Although written by John Carpenter (in his salad days) and William Schwartz, from a treatment by John Herman Shaner and Alvin Ramrus, this TV-movie has sunshine and wet sand to spare but doesn't have the canny lingo of hormone-crazed teenagers down right. Suzanne Somers, still riding high with "Three's Company", shows polish in the lead, but the younger players are hit-and-miss. Rosanna Arquette needs help rolling a joint, P.J. Soles is tired of playing volleyball, Timothy Hutton is training to be a lifeguard, Michael Biehn (as "J.D.") ruins Suzanne's sandcastle, and Tanya Roberts (with a belly-chain) is a knockout pretending to be just another dateless chick in the crowd. Not credible for one instant, and embarrassing when it tries for seriousness, but at least the scenarists keep it relatively clean. These kids want romance! How's that for a beach come-on?