Beach Party

It's the film that launched a genre and an iconic screen pairing as Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello team for the first time! Professor Robert Orville Sutwell (Robert Cummings) – with the help of his assistant Marianne (Dorothy Malone) -- decides to study the "wild mating habits" of the teenagers of Malibu, California who seemingly have nothing better to do than hang out at the beach and speak in a nearly unintelligible surfer-ese. But after saving Dolores (Funicello) from unwanted attention from local thug Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck), Sutwell finds himself the subject of a teenage crush which makes her boyfriend Frankie (Avalon) none too happy and sets him on a course of making Dolores jealous by flirting with Ava (Eva Six), a voluptuous Hungarian waitress! It's sand, surf, fun and rock-and-roll down at the "Beach Party."