Eli Bottom - Week 4 - Muscle Beach Party

This week I was most intrigued by the William Asher movie, Muscle Beach Party (1964). The movie presented the story of Frank and Annette, two beachgoers and their group of friends who had to deal with a bodybuilding consortium next to their beach house. The film has several unique qualities which solidify it as an important representation of surf culture at the time. The first quality is the aesthetics of the film.

Muscle Beach Party was shot on 35mm Pathécolor film which gave it the classic Hollywood look of the time. Colors that we would now consider a part of the retro aesthetic were the most common to film with at the time. The Panavision brand cameras used were top of the line studio cameras outfitted with cinematic style anamorphic lenses. The high quality equipment used would have been time consuming to set up on location, thus nearly all of the film was shot in a studio. Intercuts of a real beach and certain surf maneuvers (including wipeouts) were used to provide a sense of realism to offset the perfectly even studio lighting that makes up the majority of shots in the film. This Hollywood aesthetic helped represent surf culture in a technical way, but the plot of the film also did the same in a different way.

The main crux of the film is based around the rivalry between two Malibu beach groups, Jack Fanny’s muscle heads and Frankie’s teenage surf gang. This rivalry was a comic reproduction of the very serious rivalries between other surf clubs in places such as Hawaii and other places along the California coast. Each club with their unique identity - Fanny’s tanned muscular meat heads and Frankie’s laid back mix of teens, reminded me of the conflict between the Outrigger Canoe Club and the Hui Nalu Club in the early 1900’s. Though both groups in the movie were Caucasian, I feel there is something to be said about how the darker skinned, more physically fit group was presented as less intellectually adept. Though such a stereotype of muscle heads has marginal credit, I couldn’t help but make a connection to the Hui Nalu Club’s native Hawaiian members as a way for the film to show the group as having a lower intellect. Such a comparison again exemplifies the showoff culture that was present in early surf culture.

The objectification of men and women in the film was astounding. The showoff aspect of surf culture was clearly evident in the film, when the contessa Julie travels halfway around the world to meet the famed Mister Galaxy. Additionally, there is no shortage of muscle flexing, booty shaking, and playful touching in the movie among each of the clubs. Zoomed in shots and extended cuts help make these actions as important attributes of the film.

Combined, the Hollywood aesthetic, beach group rivalry, and showoff culture of the film solidify Muscle Beach Party as an important historical representation of surf culture in California. The beach blanket itself even held and important place in the film, giving credit to the accuracy of the film’s depiction of culture at the time.