YMMV / Beach Party

• Adorkable: Bob when he's learning to surf, refusing to disrobe out of a tank top and old-fashioned bathing suit, and doing the calculations beforehand. He looks so giddy to try it out too.
• Awesome Music: "Don't Stop Now" - an energetic, fast-paced number that's accompanied by a fun dance sequence.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Dorothy Malone at the time was singled out by critics for her Genre Savvy, Servile Snarker persona as Robert's witty assistant.
• Fashion Dissonance: The beard that Bob sports for half the film is made fun of by the teens, and he only grew it from his time in the wild. It wouldn't look out of place on an adult or teenager today.
• First Installment Wins: The most memorable and most successful of the beach party movies. Annette Funicello called it her favourite in the series. Only Beach Blanket Bingo might rival it.
  Vulture: "In this mess of parody and self-parody since the genre’s inception, it can be forgotten that the original Beach Party is a legitimately funny movie. Unlike the later films, its laughs are fully intentional."
• Narm Charm: And how! It's full of corny jokes that are So Unfunny, It's Funny, musical numbers that are laugh-inducing, and so much skin on blatant Fanservice. But it's just so fun.
• One-Scene Wonder: Big Daddy finally wakes up...to reveal he's played by Vincent Price. And he drops a nifty nod to The Pit and the Pendulum.
  "Bring me my pendulum, kiddies. I feel like swinging."
• Parody Displacement: The Disney Channel movie Teen Beach Movie (and its sequel) spoofs this and the entire beach party genre, and is probably better known than Beach Party these days.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The film is a perfect time capsule of the early 60s, where surf culture was the popular new thing among California youngsters. The Rat Pack parodies The Wild One (released in 1953), with Harvey Lembeck doing a Mumbling Brando impression. Dolores's hairstyle the quintessential bouffant, while Marianne's short and wavy 'do is an obvious holdover from the 50s. The crew cuts on the teens and the short-back-and-sides on Robert are likewise 50s holdovers. Big Daddy's club is a copy of Cafe Frankenstein - a coffee house with a reputation as a "den of inequity" in the conservative Orange County - and it had closed down and been demolished only a year before the film's release. Dick Dale performs two songs at the height of his early 60s popularity (before the British Invasion would eclipse surf music in the middle of the decade). Likewise is Hungarian sex symbol Eva Six starring - she would make a grand total of two other films (Operation Bikini and 4 for Texas) before retiring.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The conflict between Frankie and Dolores is meant to be Both Sides Have a Point. But Dolores's actions - inviting their friends to what was supposed to be a couple's vacation, and getting a crush on Robert for saving her - pale in comparison to Frankie's. He openly flirts with other girls and messes Ava around just to make her jealous (without a thought to Ava's feelings either). Dolores also ends up being used by Robert for his study.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The central conflict is set up by Dolores inviting her friends to the beach, supposedly to prevent Frankie from thinking he's about to get some. Frankie is so pissed at this he resorts to Operation: Jealousy, and hypocritically gets annoyed at Dolores for doing the same thing. Yet it's Dolores who gets a song literally titled "Treat Him Nicely", and their romance is resolved with minimal of Frankie admitting he was in the wrong.
  • Dolores developing a Precocious Crush on Robert - who's about thirty years older than her - is not seen as anything more than mildly unusual. While Dawson Casting is at play (Annette Funicello was 23), Dolores is unlikely older than 18-19.
  • The boys' prank on Robert - setting his hat on fire - is also seen as harmless fun that only gets a stern look from Dolores.