Beach Blanket Bingo (American International Pictures) (1965)

PUBLICITY READY TO JUMP — Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello ae set for their first sky dive jump in open door of airplane in scene from American International’s color and Panavision musical co medy “Beach Blanket Bingo”, OPCW Seto ae eis a See at the petit Theatre. 2 COL. SCENE MAT 2-J SURFING BEACH GANG TURNS TO SKY DIVING It’s the increasingly popular and daring sport of sky diving that captures the fancy of the “Beach Party Gang” of surfers in their newest film, American International’s “Beach Blanket Bingo”. The color and Panavision musical comedy, Opening<..2 5.22... at the ee eS ee, Theatre, stars Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley, Harvey Lemback, John Ashley, Jody McCrea, Donna Loren, Marta Kristen and Linda Evans. Co-starring are Don Rickles as “Big Drop” and Paul Lynde as “Bullets” with Buster Keaton, Earl Wilson and Bobbi Shaw as cameo stats. Sky diving joins drag racing, muscle building and the original surfing as skills in which stars Avalon and Miss Funicello participate in this, their fourth “Beach’’ musical comedy. It was all surfing in the original “Beach Party” with muscle men featured in “Muscle Beach Party” and drag racing featured in ‘Bikini Beach.” The youngsters and their friends still ride their surfboards in “Beach Blanket Bingo” to match thrills with sky diving. Of course, there’s also plenty of action in the new film filled with hilarious comedy, romance, singing and dancing. Some of the new sky diving sport’s top jumpers helped to make the jumps of the story vividly realistic. These included Rod Pack, the ‘“miracle jumper’ who made the widely publicized first parachuteless sky dive and landed safely by donning a chute passed to him in midair. Taken all together, “Beach Blanket Bingo” is a fun-filled entertainment package that will appeal to the “young-at-heart’” of every age group. Linda Evans Passes Test For ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’ They say that the true test of an actor or actress is the ability to enact realistically and convincingly a part that is completely out of character to their own personality. Blonde, blue-eyed Linda Evans believes she has met the test successfully with her starring role as singer Sugar Kane in American International's “Beach Blanket Bingo.’ She explains that for the first time in her career she has portrayed someone completely unlike her real self, and a comedy part at that. Also starring in the color and Panavision musical comedy opening ........ Seer ee AY a | o Yos ee aaa ee theater are Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley, Harvey Lembeck, John Ashley,’ Jody McCrea, Donna Loren and Marta Kristen. Co-starring are Don Rickles as “Big Drop” and Paul Lynde as “Bullets” with cameo stars Buster Keaton, Earl Wilson and Bobbi Shaw. The 22-year-old native of Hartford, Conn., who came to Hollywood with her parents, never wanted to be an actress. She took dramatic and speaking lessons as therapy to correct teenage shyness and became an actress by accident — when she went to visit a Hollywood High School sorority sister. The friend was Carole Wells who was then starring in the TV series “National Velvet.” Linda’s natural beauty attracted the attention of director Gerald Snitzer who signed her on the spot to appear in a soft drink commercial. Then came parts in top TV series, including “Bachelor Father’, “Ozzie and Harriett’, “The Untouchables’ and “The Eleventh Hour”. Her performance as a hysterical teenager in the former won her a role in “Twilight of Honor’ and she later won a starring role in Disney’s “Those Calloways”’. Linda’s primary ambition is to be “Beach Blanket Bingo” Has Daredevil Crashes ond Leaps Exciting realism, including the wrecking of a plane and an auto, keynoted LINDA EVANS stars as singer Sugar Kane in American International’s color and Panavision musical comedy ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’; Openini: .:....0 aces at THC ee es Theatre. 1 COL. SCENE MAT 1-D come a first rate actress, with the accent on drama rather than comedy, then later a wife and mother. She loves clothes, horseback riding, dancing and good literature. She prefers motion picture work to television because “they take more time in the writing and the production and everything seems to be more important perhaps because the finished product is to be more enduring.” As for marriage, she’s against early ie ah “not until I'm 27 or 28... after one has lived a bit.” production filming for American International’s newest “Beach Gang’ film, “Beach Blanket Bingo’, opening.......... mene ees ab thie. cet ........5.....0 Theatke, It was all part of a day's work during production of the color and Panavision musical comedy in which the surfers take up sky diving for their fourth picture together. Once more Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello and their friends star, with newcomers Deborah Walley, Marta Kristen. Linda Evans and Paul Lynde added to the group. The plane wreck, a complete loss, was of a craft identical to the candy cane-striped one seen in the picture. The craft was ditched into the sea near Malibu’s famed Paradise Cove with the pilot parachuting to safety before the crash. Other sky diving sequences featured Rod Pack, the daredevil who jumped without a chute and donned same in mid-air after receiving it in mid-air from a fellow sky diver. The car was wrecked as part of the exciting chase sequence in which, as usual, Eric Von Zipper and his Rat Pack get all the lumps. The vehicle, a 1960 convertible, was sent flying off a cliff near Malibu Beach. The surfing, rock and water sequences were filmed by Academy Awardwinning Director of Photography Floyd Crosby at a new spot for the beach films, Leo Carillo State Park Beach, about ten miles north of Malibu and named after the late character actor. Seen in “Beach Blanket Bingo” as the airport and site of Big Drop’s Flying School is the Los Angeles area’s famed Whiteman Air Park. The hangar used belongs to, believe it or not, Coffin Flying Service — owned by a man named Coffin — but there were no mishaps there. OUTNUMBERED BY BEAUTY — Jody McCrea doesn’t seem the least bit nervous as he copes with beach bunnies in American pidge ic color and Panavision musical comedy “Beach Blanket BD 5 ORC TIPE eos Theatre. Beauties are, from left in the front row, Linda Opie, Mary Hoches Patti Chandler (half-hidden), Sally Sachse and Mary Sturdivant. In the rear row are, from left, Laura Nicholson, Pam Colbert, Chris Cranston, Stephanie Nader and Joanne Zerfas. 3 COL. SCENE MAT 3-M Feeding Beach Film Gang Terrifies Filmland Caterer When a motion picture company puts on the feed bag, the boys in the old chuck wagon always find themselves virtually knee-deep in mashed potatoes, afloat in steaming black coffee and tormented to the point of distraction by the wild, divergent demands of a hundred ravenously hungry actors and dieting, lettuce-nibbling actresses. But feeding the cast and crew of a picture such as those made by American International’s now famous teenage beach gang and a crew made up of their ulcer-ridden elders can be an even more terrifying experience, according to operatives of Michelson’s Catering Service who hang out a shingle anywhere a Hollywood film company may go. When they rolled up the canopy of their catering truck at the Malibu Beach site of AIP’s new musical comedy “Beach Blanket Bingo”, for instance, they found they had to satisfy the appetites of a comedian from the silent film days who is a vegetarian, his St. Bernard dog who likes his ground beef well done, a brace of cuties who prefer only lobster and lettuce, a battalion of surfers who prefer their ground beef raw, and a crew consuming 300 half pints of milk daily lest their nervously rumbling innards ruin the sound track. “There is absolutely no way to anticipate what actors will demand when hunger strikes them,” says Alan Steinhurst, a warmup cook with 14 terrible, tortured years of location feeding behind him. “We lay out what we have and steel ourselves for es snide remarks and abuse, that’s all. From the abuse, the caterer has learned to provide 1,000 paper nap‘kins, 1,000 hot and cold paper cups, 1,000 stir sticks for hot coffee, two plates, two trays and two sets of silverware for each of 150 persons who normally make up a film’s cast and crew. They also drink lots of coffee, chew lots of meat, sop lots of gravy, slurp lots of soup and nibble lots of lettuce. Lunch food and service material wagon loaded one day for AIP’s “Beach Blanket Bingo” company of 150 performers and technicians, plus assorted unexpected guests and freeloading rubberneckers came to something like this: 150 pounds of mashed potatoes, 10 gallons of vegetables, 200 pounds of pork chops, 6 gallons of salad dressing, 60 heads of lettuce, 70 pounds of tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and other fresh produce, two gallons of olives, 10 pounds of butter and 25 loaves of bread. In addition there were 200 rolls, 30 pounds of cottage cheese, 6 gal lons of pickles and a whopping 40 gallons of hot soup. For dessert, the Michelson men brought along 40 pies, two sheet cakes and 200 individual pints of ice cream packed in 400 pounds of ice. And after the midday gorging was over, the caterers left behind in three stainless steel thermoses 90 gallons of coffee, 25 gallons of hot chocolate, four gallons of cream, 8 pounds of sugar, 200 donuts and 100 Danish rolls to keep the cast, crew and visitors from starving before the work day was over. As they left, they took away with them 20 8-foot-long ‘tables, 200 chairs, six overflowing garbage cans, a dozen dirty aprons and 40 soiled towels. Manpower required for operation chowtime on the “Beach Blanket Bingo” location site was eight stalwart souls whose biggest headache, they said, was satisfying four shapely beach beauties who stood there in the sun and sand at high noon demanding broiled lobster and Japanese lettuce. American International producers, who film their hit musical comedies for teenagers in a swift 17 days, spent 9 of them on location at Malibu, and, according to Michelson, every day was like every other one: TERRIFYING!