“The Beach Girls” (1982)
Studio: Crown International Pictures
Starring: Debra Blee, Val Kline, Jeana Tomasina, James Daughton, Adam Roarke
Directed by: Bud Townsend
Rated: R
Running Time: 91 min.
Synopsis: A bunch of teenage girls have a wild party at a beach house.
REVIEW
Chris Woods
Another disappointment from Crown International, which in my opinion, can’t put out a good product if they tried. Most of the films I’ve seen from their collection range from fair to just plain poor. This one is a little bit different from the others I’ve seen, which were mostly action dramas. This one is a sex comedy in the tradition of Hardbodies and Screwballs. The 80’s had some classics in that category, but what The Beach Girls lack and the others have is somewhat of a solid story and some likeable characters. This film does not have any of those.
The movie is about this uptight teenage girl, who invites two of her wild girlfriends to her uncle’s beach house for the whole summer. Her friends end up throwing a crazy party inviting almost everyone in town. When her uncle gets home, he is first upset with the wild party going on, but is seduced by his niece’s two friends and lets the party continue for the next few days.
The film itself is just a bunch of stuff happening (which is not exciting or worth watching) and no real story and no interesting characters. The only thing worth watching in the film is the T & A. Other than that the rest of the film is a turkey. There’re very bad lame jokes and puns, dumb characters throughout, and they even have the stereotypical Hispanic gardener, who always gets busted for checking out the chicks when they’re popping their tops.
There are even some ridiculous sub plots going on in the movie, like the cool guitar-playing hitchhiker who befriends the uptight teenager and tries to get her to have an open mind to things and is also trying to get her to open her legs. There’s another one where there’s a Coast Guard ship of gay sailors trying to track down drug pirates. These characters don’t really come into play until the end of the film, where the pirates throw their pot overboard when they get busted and the next day the girls find it washed up on the shore and decide to give it to their guests at the party. The gay sailors then track it down and invade the party on the beach then some chaotic nonsense happens.
Actually, the whole setting of the film would’ve been prefect for an 80’s music video. It has all the great elements for that. I can see David Lee Roth popping out of nowhere with a drink in one hand and a girl in the other. The movie would have been better suited for that than a feature film. The Beach Girls could have been one of those sex comedy classics, but it was just a flop.