Beach Ball

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 paid Patton $100,000 to make a beach party film, of which $22,000 (or $25,000, accounts differ) 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.)^[5][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. Patton thought Corman hired Weinrib to direct "because he was a comic and it was a comedy. That was Roger's thinking."^[6]

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 any 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]) Patton claimed "Beach Ball was the last of the struggling attempts to compete with AIP. After that, nobody gave a crap about beach films or ski films or spy spoofs."^[15]

The quality of the film impressed Lew Wasserman at Universal, who signed Patton to a two-picture deal: Wild Wild Winter and Out of Sight (both 1966).^[16]

• List of American films of 1965