Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies."

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's movie is the most memorable of the American International sun and surf beach movies, 1965's "Beach Blanket Bingo."

It was directed by William Asher, who also collaborated on the screenplay with Leo Townsend.

The cast of beach party regulars includes Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Deborah Wally, Harvey Lembeck, John Ashley and Jody McCrea, with Donna Loren, Marta Kristen, and Linda Evans.

Providing adult support are Don Rickles, Paul Lynde, newspaper columnists Earl Wilson, and Buster Keaton.

On a sunny Southern California beach, Frankie, Dee Dee, and their group of gals and guys watch as a young woman parachutes from a plane and lands in the ocean nearby.

They see a motorboat stop near her, but shortly afterwards it speeds off, leaving her in the water.

The gang heads out on their surfboards to rescue her, with Frankie reaching her first and bringing her into shore.

What they don't know is that the whole thing is a publicity stunt dreamed up by a press agent, Bullets, to promote the career of his newest client, a young singer named Sugar Kane.

In fact, the young woman who jumped from the plane was not Sugar, but Bonnie, an experienced skydiver.

She was picked up by the motorboat after the jump while Sugar took her place in the water.

On shore, Bullets has a flock of reporters take photos of Frankie and Sugar to accompany a newspaper story about the heroic rescue.

The whole incident leads Frankie and the gang to visit the local skydiving school run by a guy named Big Drop, where Bonnie persuades Frankie to try out skydiving.

Bonnie plays up to Frankie to make her boyfriend Steve, who also works at the school, jealous.

But Dee Dee is jealous too, and Frankie only makes things worse when he tries to talk her out of taking skydiving lessons with him.

While they bicker, the beach gang's perennial nemesis, Eric Von Zipper, shows up with his motorcycle gang The Rats and he is soon smitten by Sugar.

Meanwhile, Bonehead has had a bad fall off his surfboard only to be rescued by a mysterious young woman named Lorelei.

Between their budding romance, Bullets stunts to promote Sugar Kane, Frankie and Bonnie skydiving while Dee Dee steams, and Eric Von Zipper's attempts to get Sugar for himself, it will take a lot of time and trouble, not to mention surfing, singing, dancing, and wiener roasts, to get everything worked out for a suitably happy ending.

The beach movie craze of the early '60s was kicked off when "Where the Boys Are" starring Dolores Hart, George Hamilton, and Yvette Mimieux was released by MGM in 1960.

It followed the adventures of four college girls during spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The film's popularity with teenagers made it a hit and spawned imitators from the major studios as well as a host of independent film producers.

Over 100 films focused on attractive young people enjoying sun, sand, surfing, bonfires, dancing, and rock and roll were released in the five years between 1961 and 1966.

As Harvey and Michael Medved wrote about 20 years later in 1986, "These films presented "a strangely sanitized view of adolescences.

"The romantic leads engaged in nothing more steamy "than light kissing and volleyball, "while the audience enjoyed an excuse "for watching whole squadrons of starlets "exposing their bodies in a socially acceptable setting."

The preeminent beach party couple, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, appeared as Frankie and Dee Dee in three other beach movies before they starred in "Beach Blanket Bingo."

All four were directed by William Asher and released by American International Pictures.

Frankie and Annette's first pairing was in 1963's "Beach Party," which also introduced Harvey Lembeck as Eric Von Zipper and Jody McCrea as the character formerly known as Deadhead.

Its success led to the further adventures of Frankie, Dee Dee, and the gang in "Muscle Beach Party" and "Bikini Beach," both featuring musical numbers by Little Stevie Wonder and released in 1964.

All these films offered a mix of comedy, music, dancing, and narrow escapes from the schemes of meddling adults.

And bikinis.

Lots and lots of bikinis.

American International Pictures was an independent production company that focused most of its attention in the fifties, sixties, and seventies on producing double features intended to appeal to teenagers.

It was founded by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z, Arkoff who served as executive producers, and notably featured the work of producer and director Roger Corman.

The working strategy for most of the company's movies was based on the reasoning that a younger child would watch anything an older child would watch, but an older child wouldn't watch everything a younger child would watch.

Similarly, girls would watch anything a boy would watch, but a boy wouldn't watch everything a girl would watch.

As a result, the company's movies were generally aimed at appealing to a 19 year old male.

What would appeal to that theoretical 19 year old male varied over time.

Although American International produced many different kinds of movies, the company became well known for certain types of films at specific times.

In the fifties, the vogue was for science fiction and horror films, often with a teen slant.

Like, "I Was A Teenage Werewolf," with Michael Landon and "I Was A Teenage Frankenstein," both released in 1957.

Between 1960 and 1964, Roger Corman produced a series of eight films based on stories by Edgar Allen Poe, featuring established horror film stars like Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Peter Lorre.

American International Films also gave an early boost to the careers of future stars like Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson.

The Beach Party movies followed in 1963, and quickly established a particular formula.

In addition to the romantic entanglements of Frankie and Dee Dee, the plot would involve an adult male authority figure whose business somehow brings him into conflict with the young people just trying to have fun at the beach.

In addition to songs and dancing, the plot would involve some hot new trend that was intriguing to teenagers, surfing, bodybuilding, skydiving, or hot rod or motorcycle racing.

And part of the story would involve the antics of the beach kids' nemesis, Eric Von Zipper and his motorcycle gang, The Ratz with a Z. Eric Von Zipper was portrayed in the Beach Party movies by veteran actor, Harvey Lembeck.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1923, Lembeck graduated from New York University.

after serving in the Army during the Second World War.

He most often played military roles on stage, in films, and on television, most notably as Corporal Rocco Barbella in the Phil Silver Show, later known as Sergeant Bilko between 1955 and 1959.

Eric Von Zipper was a dimwitted parody of Marlon Brando's character Johnny in 1953s, "The Wild One."

Von Zipper was subjected to a series of humiliations throughout the Beach Party films, including various sorts of slapstick mayhem, giving rise to his off repeated question, why me?

Why is it always me?

As the fourth Beach party movie in two years, Beach Blanket Bingo shows some signs that the series was drawing near to its natural end.

While continuing to focus primarily on the ups and downs of Frankie and Dee's romance, the movie offers several subplots involving attempts to kidnap Sugar Cane and Boneheads doomed romance with a mermaid.

Both Paul Lynde and Don Rickles are given ample opportunity to show their comedic chops.

While Lynde makes snide comments about Frankie's height, Rickles offers a brief version of his standard insult comedy routine, making his series of jokes about Frankie's age.

Frankie Avalon was 25 when the movie was made and more than ready to graduate to more adult roles.

The end credits for Beach Blanket Bingo include a title card reading, "Watch for, How To Stuff A Wild Bikini," the follow-up film released later that summer.

But Frankie appears for only seven minutes in that film on the pretext that he's stationed in Tahiti while serving on the Naval Reserves.

Back home, Dee Dee, once again played by a now 23 year old Annette, has a tentative romantic relationship with Dwayne Hickman instead.

Throughout the film, Annette favors loose tops and shots carefully composed to hide the fact that she was more than five months pregnant while the film was being made.

In the event, "How To Stuff A Wild Bikini" was the Last of the Beach Party movies.

As the sun and surf trended, American International gave way to spy spoofs and more serious films exploiting an entirely different kind of youth culture.

Instead of clean cut surfers and beach bunnies, those films featured bikers, hippies, rock music, social protests, and psychedelic drugs.

Please join us again next time for another Saturday Night At The Movies.

I'm Glenn Holland, goodnight.