Tonight, the Egyptian is doing a double feature of Muscle Beach Party and Beach Blanket Bingo, and you really should go, really, really, you should.  Some people (ie: my roommate) claim that the Frankie and Annette beach party movies are terrible and unwatchable but I vehemently maintain that this is not the case.  No, beach party movies are glimmering, delicious nuggets of 1960s camp and I LOVE THEM.  In beach party movies, Southern California is a magical place where everyone wears high-waisted bathing suits all the time, and hangs out on the beach doing the watusi with Don Rickles.  Clearly, they are amazing and wonderful.

Watusi aside, however, what I really love about these films are the soundtracks and the musical numbers.  They were scored by Les Baxter, king of exotica , and usually have all kinds of great musical guests:  Muscle Beach Party happens to include the film debut of a (very, very young!) Little Stevie Wonder, as well as Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, and Frankie and Annette’s songs were co-written by Brian Wilson; while Beach Blanket Bingo has an appearance from surf rockers The Hondells.  Donna Loren, who appears as a vocal soloist in both movies (and later did a few episodes of Batman!) will be at the Egyptian to do a live set between films.

Anyhow, I am so excited about this and I will probably be hanging out in the first row of the balcony tonight, wearing my best go-go dress.  The show starts at 7:30.