MovieChat Forums > Beach Party (1963) Discussion > Where are the parents?

Where are the parents?

posted 17 years ago by JanieJane96
16 replies | jump to latest

OK, I know this is just a silly movie and not to be taken seriously (and I don't, believe me). However, just out of curiosity, how old are the characters? It says they are teenagers, but are they college age (18, 19) or high school age (under 18)? The reason I'm asking is that it would seem odd that, if they were underage, their parents would allow them to take a beach vacation on their own, living in co-ed beach houses, and this being 1963! However, if they were college students on spring break, I can totally see this happening, and it would be more realistic. One clue I can see that Frankie is at least 18: he drinks beer at the bar (the drinking age was 18 back then). Yes, he could have had a fake ID or the bar was really lax about that sort thing, but more likely he was supposed to be 18. On the other hand, Dolores/Dee Dee says to her friend that she wants to be seen as less a girl and more of a woman to Frankie (or something to that effect). The friend reminds her that she ISN'T a woman yet. So would this imply that she was under 18? I'm confused. Can anyone shed some light onto this? Also, did people living in the 1960's when this came out find this movie (and the other beach movies) riske?

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] rossneville2003 17 years ago

As you point out this was 1963 and things were often very vaguely implied compared to current movie dialogue.I think this often provided more comic oppertunities.There were often ines of dialogue which would be interpreted one way by children and another way by adults.It's almost like talking in code! This was true in Disney movies like The Parent Trap and Bon Voyage which had risque inuendos which would have gone right over the head of children.I was 11 in 1963 so I speak from experience and often see things in old movies I hadn't noticed before. The scene your refering to has very clever dialogue open to several interpretations. Most youngsters at the time would think that "you're not even a woman" means she's only 16 or 17.but the blonde realy means she's "not a woman" because she hasn't had sex.Like wise De De's reply "I'm close" implies that they've come close to having sex,"but I'm not getting any closer until I'm a wife" This was quite risque(riske?) at the time. Annette was 20 in real life Frankie a little older.I think the age of the charecters was deliberately left vague so if younger kids thought they were their age they could. Ross

[–] JanieJane 17 years ago

Thanks for your reply Ross! You had some very good insights.

[–] rossneville2003 17 years ago

Hey Janie,i've got another observation for you on this point.It's important to note that Annette Funicello actually had her first kissing scene in this movie even though she stared in a couple of movies in which she had onscreen "boyfriends"and a couple of made for TV movies and several epesodes of "Zoro"in which she was persued by suitors. She still managed to make it to age 20 without being publicly kissed! In a way this made Beach Party more "riske" because of Annette's "Disney Image". To see Annette in a bare midrift bathing suit,and discussing sex was startling!LOL

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] JanieJane96 16 years ago

Well, you were 18 so that was OK. I was wondering if the characters in the movie were under 18 or not, since their specific ages were never revealed. I'm guessing they were 18/19 since they all seemed to be on their own, doing what they want to do without parental supervision. If you watch "Gidget", who is 15 or 16, her parents are definitely in the picture and she's not staying overnight at the beach in a coed sleeping situation. So I'm going to guess that the "Beach Party" folks are legal. :)

[–] bmovies 16 years ago

"Frankie is at least 18: he drinks beer at the bar (the drinking age was 18 back then). Yes, he could have had a fake ID or the bar was really lax about that sort thing, but more likely he was supposed to be 18."

Actually, the legal drinking age in 1963, in California, was 21 years old. It was raised from 18 in 1953. I kind of doubt that Mr. Goody Two shoes Frankie used a fake ID. You will notice that they are serving beer to pretty much everyone. Cappy would have lost his license, and would have risked jail for serving alcohol to underaged minors. No way is he going to take that chance.

[–] JanieJane96 16 years ago

Thanks for the clarification! I thought the drinking age was 18 everywhere in the U.S. up until the early 1980's, when it was bumped up to 21. I guess that would mean Frankie (the character) was supposed to be at least 21. (Frankie Avalon himself was almost 24 when the movie was released.)

[–] bmovies 16 years ago

In the US there was no federal drinking age up untill 1984. Before then, every state set its own minimum drinking age. So, before 1985 (the year the new federal law took place), it varied from state to state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act

"The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (Title 23 U.S.C. §158) was passed on July 17, 1984 by the United States Congress as a mechanism whereby all states would become thereafter required to legislate and enforce the age of 21 years as a minimum age for purchasing and publicly possessing alcoholic beverages. Under the Federal Aid Highway Act, a state not enforcing the minimum age would be subjected to a ten percent decrease in its annual federal highway apportionment."

[–] Mahukane 16 years ago

One would assume this movie is set in California, and the drinking age was 21. I think the point most of you are missing is, this whole film is a farce and a fantasy. It is suppose to be fun, and not based on reality.
Planes don't land and take off in the sand, surfboards aren't really clean and shiney, and Von Zipper wouldn't have lasted two minutes on the beach.
I won't even go into the pie fight in a beach bar............

[–] cyninbend-149-610489 9 years ago

Thank you. These movies were a massive mystery to kids in Southern California. As you say, it's hugely illegal to land a plane on the beach, and same for driving a car there. There are no beach shacks--at least in my lifetime and I'm in my 60s. It's illegal to have alcohol on the beach as well--and there are cops patrolling, lifeguards with telephones. That's at any age--even though it's been legal at 21 all my life. Only Huntington Beach ever allowed fires--and then only in cement fire things you had to reserve. The chemicals from fires would pollute the water if it was inside the tide line.

They have to film all these crazy beach scenes, including the Rockford Files, at Paradise Cove--a private beach. No state beach would ever allow this stuff!

You'd never have seen people with black leather jackets at the beach--those, with the black hair greased into pompadours or teased way up like Annette's is were called "Greasers" in the 1960s--as opposed to "Surfers"...and they never went near the beach. Here they are mixed-up with beat-niks, which were a 1950s phenomena...a city thing...night clubs...not surf boards.

Those of us who grew up in Southern California saw these movies as a money grab by old men in studios. I think Frankie Avalon was in his late 30s with 5 kids when he made these movies.

[–] krisbit-1 15 years ago

I was 18 in 1963. No, we didn't think this movie was risque
at all. If anything, these people were amazingly well behaved
and not normal. As far as the drinking goes, it seemed okay to
us since NY had a drinking age of 18. We didn't much care what
the actual CA drinking age was. And it wasn't that unusual for
a group of teenagers to rent a beach cottage or a ski chalet
by themselves. Parents trusted their kids. And, with a large
group like that it wasn't so easy for a couple to find privacy.
When we were 18, we were girls. "Women" were our mothers and
teachers and grown-up neighbors and friends.

[–] JanieJane96 15 years ago

krisbit - Thank you for your insight!

[–] KlutzyGirl 12 years ago

Wow, JanieJane, I am so curious about how old you are and where you live. Do you think American teens party with their parents? They don't now and didn't then! I was 15 in '63. (No, the movie didn't seem risque. The music was very bad, but it was fun with Frankie and especially Annette. It also helped lure many kids to California.) The following summer, when my friends and I had our driver's licenses, we left the house in the morning, hung out at the beach all day, and spent the evenings at a beach house rented by a group of college boys. We drank beer (usually one can), danced, BBQ'd, played card and board games, talked--all very innocent. The boys, who we had crushes on, treated us like little sisters, much to our disappointment! We went home for our curfews, which ranged from midnight to 1am. Parties like the ones depicted today, where high school kids get roaring drunk, trash the house, and have sex with whatever walks by, didn't happen back then, and I doubt they happen much now, either. More realistic would be the relationships in "American Pie," where most of the kids are hoping to have sex for the first time. By the time we graduated from high school, we were hoping to have sex sometime soon, too. The only problem is we were raised, pretty universally, to wait until marriage. Of course not everyone waited, but woe to the girl who got pregnant. You saw a lot of young marriages back then, usually kids who didn't go to college. College kids tended to have their first time while in school, or marry right after graduation.

Teen drinking isn't new. In "It's a Wonderful Life," dad admonishes the boys to not drink too much at the dance. Andy Hardy comes home drunk one night and is tended to by his father. Richie Cunningham, same thing (set in the 50's). These were all good kids. Their parents trusted them and didn't get hysterical about every little slip-up. Teens are on the verge of adulthood: they're pulling away, experimenting; they will make mistakes. Wise parents understand this and warn them away from the real dangers, like drunk driving, addictive drugs, unprotected sex, and peer pressure.

[–] JanieJane96 12 years ago

KlutzyGirl - thanks for your story! I was a teen in the 90's, but I was goody-goody church girl, so my teen experience didn't involve drinking or sex. ;) I also live very, very far from the beach in the cold, cold north.

You describe being home by curfew - as I recall, the character in the movie (and it's been a few years now) all spent the night in a co-ed beach bungalow. The movie didn't portray them going home to their parents after a night at the beach. Also, the drinking was done in a bar establishment, where supposedly they would have been ID'd. I'm sure many teens snuck in their own beer to the beach as you described. But the movie shows them drinking openly at a bar, so I was curious as to their ages. I wasn't saying that NO teens drank AT ALL.

[–] baran_erik 9 years ago

The drinking age in California wasn't 18 in 1963.