| Beach Ball | |
| Director: | Lennie Weinrib |
| Producer: | Bart Patton Gene Corman |
| Starring: | Edd Byrnes |
| Cinematography: | Floyd Crosby |
| Editing: | Karl Ward |
| Studio: | La Honda Service Productions, The Patton Co. |
| Distributor: | Paramount Pictures |
| Runtime: | 83 mins |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $125,000[1] or $137,000[2] |
| Gross: | $1 million |
Beach Ball is a 1965 American beach party movie starring Edd Byrnes and partly financed by Roger Corman.[3]
It features appearances by The Supremes, The Walker Brothers, and The Righteous Brothers.[4]
Tom Lisanti called it "arguably the breeziest and most enjoyable Beach Party clones. It is also the most blatant rip off."[5]
Dick Martin manages a rock and roll group, The Wigglers (Bango, Jack and Bob). They are told by music store owner Mr Wolf that the group owes him $1,000 for their instruments and have to raise money. Martin tries to convince Susan, the credit union manager for a local college,
The film was produced by Bart Patton, an actor who did some production work for Roger Corman. Corman gave him $100,000 to make a beach party movie, of which $22,000 was already earmarked to Edd Byrnes. Patton wanted to direct but Corman did not let him having already hired comic Lennie Weinrib to make his debut as director. (Patton and Weinrib would later form a production company.) [6]
According to Filmink"Roger Corman was never a great one for making musicals – he disliked the genre on the whole, and there are few on his CV. However, the profits made in the mid-‘60s by beach party movies were too alluring for him to ignore and he kicked in a few bucks for some of those."[7]
Stephanie Rothman worked on the movie as a production assistant, shooting second unit for the car chase scene with Aaron Kincaid.[8] Gary Kurtz was assistant director.
In November 1964 Tommy Kirk was originally announced as male star along with Noel Edmonds.[9] In December 1964 Chris Noel signed and Kirk was still attached.[10] Kirk eventually dropped out of the film and was replaced by Edd Byrnes.[11]
Byrnes called it "a typical mindless beach movie in the spirit of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello" and said he was "continually offered this type of film after I was released from my contract at Warner Brothers. However, the producers of Beach Ball were going to give me so much money, it would have been ridiculous to turn down Paramount’s generous offer." Byrnes enjoyed making the film calling it a "romp" but he refused to make anoy more beach moves.[12]
Noel says Byrnes was "a jerk" during the making of the film although the two of them later became friends.[13]
The Supremes were paid $2,500 to appear in the film. The Righteous Brothers got $500 and the Hondells $400.[14]
Corman pre-sold the film to Paramount for $350,000 and it made $1 million at the box office.[1] (Another account says the film was made for $137,000 and sold to Paramount for $225,000.[2])