Malibu Beach (1978)
Enjoyable time capsule of bygone era
1 April 2011
This is one of the few 70's drive-in movies I actually remember seeing in a 70's drive-in--well, sort of. My older female cousin had actually taken us to another drive-in movie, but she was occupied with her boyfriend, so my younger cousin,my brother, and I got out of the car to wander around and we saw bits of this movie showing on another screen--namely the recurring scene with the dog stealing girls' bikini tops. It's pretty tame and goofy in retrospect, but it sure is pretty memorable when you are ten years old.

Seeing the entire movie years later, I can't help but have some misbegotten affection for it. It is one of those free-spirited, anarchic late 70's teen films with no real plot to speak of except for a bunch of California teens cruising around, partying, and having sex (ironically, pretty much what the young drive-in audience at the time was probably also doing). The lead Kim Lankford, who plays a female lifeguard having her first sexual experiences, never really appeared in anything after this, but she was an appealing beauty and quite memorable here. Co-star Tara Stroheim was involved in a lot of Roger Corman-type 70's drive-in fare like "Hollywood Boulevard" with Candice Rialson. The actress with the most interesting career, however, is no doubt Susan Player who was in "The Pom-Pom Girls" (a somewhat more famous drive-in movie a lot like this), but she also appeared in Italian sex comedies like "Cugini Carnal" ("Carnal Cousins")and the British-Italian exploitation film "The Adolescents" with Koo Stark.

You don't need to know any of that to enjoy THIS movie though. It's no cinematic masterpiece by a long shot, and it's fairly tame as far as sexploitation flicks go, but is an enjoyable time capsule of a bygone era.
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