By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the sunny 1978 comedy drama Zuma Beach, starring Suzanne Somers, P.J Soles, Mark Wheeler, and Steven Keats.
Beach movies – filled with sun, sand, music, bathing-suit-clad teens, and all-round good times – have a long history in American cinema, even stretching their salty tendrils into the movie cultures of other countries, with the likes of Australia (Puberty Blues) and England (Blue Juice) offering up their own very distinct (and different) approaches to this seaside sub-genre of the youth flick. It’s in America, however, that the “beach party” flick has really thrived, and you can read all about it in FilmInk’s extensive look at the sub-genre by clicking here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.
Though largely pitching their proverbial sun umbrella on the big screen, the telemovie also scored an invite to the beach party sub-genre in the very comely form of the 1978 comedy drama Zuma Beach. But likely because the vintage telemovie of the 1970s and 1980s was particularly popular with more mature audiences, that sizeable sector of the viewing populace gets a proxy in Zuma Beach, with the sandy shenanigans seen through older eyes, rather than solely through the dewy lense of the teens, as the original beach party flicks were.
Pretty much the only adult on Zuma Beach is TV superstar Suzanne Somers, then at the height of her fame with the hugely popular sitcom Three’s Company, on which she’d become a small screen sex symbol to rival even Charlie’s Angels’ Farrah Fawcett. Proving herself enjoyably adept at light, sexy comedy on Three’s Company, Somers stretched herself a little with Zuma Beach, which represented not just the beautiful actress’s first telemovie leading role, but also her first foray into slightly more dramatic territory in a major way.
In a fresh, fetching, sweet-natured performance, then 32-year-old Somers plays Bonnie Katt, a moderately successful singer/songwriter dropped by her management company when her album sales start to slide. Adrift, lost and disappointed, Bonnie hits the road and ends up at Zuma Beach in Malibu off the famous Pacific Coast Highway, a “happy place” from her childhood where she wants to relax and unwind. This is, however, the late 1970s, and – dressed in a dazzling electric-blue one-piece purchased at a roadside boutique – Bonnie is soon the centre of attention for the male teenagers on the beach.
This is also, however, a vintage telemovie of the late 1970s, so things remain decidedly chaste and innocent throughout. Zuma Beach certainly doesn’t shape as a blueprint for the far raunchier brand of teen flick that took grubby hold throughout the 1980s, when the likes of Porky’s, Fraternity Vacation, The Last American Virgin and their risque brethren took over cinema screens and video stores. In this flick, Bonnie hangs out with the kids in a distinctly platonic way, and definitely not lurching into the sexy-older-woman-younger-man territory later populated by flicks like 1981’s Private Lessons and 1983’s My Tutor.
Sure, all the teens in Zuma Beach are pretty horny, but there are no sleazy pranks here, the males are only semi-predatory, the females have a lot more agency and depth than they would in later teen flicks, everyone keeps their swimsuits on, and there’s a lot of talk about feelings, emotions, matters of the heart, future plans, and the nature of friendship, as Somers’ sensitive Bonnie takes on a motherly role, offering sage advice and a (bare) shoulder to cry on, all over the course of one single day on the titular beach. The screenplay is surprisingly thoughtful, and even offers a few pithy lines here and there, courtesy of co-scribes William A. Schwartz (a very hard-working TV mainstay) and John Carpenter.
Yes, that John Carpenter…the creative genius writer/director behind genre masterpieces like 1982’s The Thing, 1981’s Escape From New York and 1978’s Halloween. Carpenter’s work on the script likely happened after his first two cult hits Dark Star (1974) and Assault On Precinct 13 (1976), but before his 1978 breakout with Halloween. “I wrote it for a producer who just said he wanted a beach movie,” Carpenter later explained. “I was going to direct it, for about ten seconds, but one of my mentors, Richard Kobritz, helped me see I didn’t want to do it. It was vastly rewritten, so I really shouldn’t have taken credit for it, but I was a little asshole in those days.”
Shot almost entirely on location, Zuma Beach benefits enormously from its blue-sky, sun-surf-and-sand vibe, and despite some obvious padding (a poorly staged beach volleyball match feels like it goes on for hours) and awful music (Ms. Somers does a nice job on the main theme song, but the rest is all terrible Beach Boys soundalikes), director and TV movie veteran Lee H. Katzin (who also directed a few interesting features, including Steve McQueen’s Le Mans and the post-apocalyptic thriller World Gone Wild starring Michael Pare and Adam Ant) does a pretty good job with the material.
What Zuma Beach really has going for it is quite possibly the most attractive, easy-on-the-eye cast ever assembled for a TV movie. And while there is certainly a fair bit of male-gaze type stuff going on, the boys in the film are no shrinking violets, with their tiny boardshorts and bare chests more than a match for the abundant bikinis on display. This was all, of course, before plastic surgery and spending hours in the gym became de rigeur, so the cast is refreshingly natural and exceedingly healthy looking.
And what a cast it is. All youthful exuberance and perfect skin, the gorgeous likes of future indie star Rosanna Arquette, cult legend P.J Soles (Halloween, Rock’n’Roll High School), the late Tanya Roberts (Charlie’s Angels, That 70s Show) and TV regular Kimberly Beck (Dynasty) give fresh, funny performances, while the wonderfully feather-haired and shirt-free Mark Wheeler (a fave in this column with appearances in 1978’s Cotton Candy and Police Story: A Chance To Live) and a pre-Terminator Michael Biehn (as the film’s only really mean spirited character) are equally eye-catching; even Timothy Hutton appears in an early role as a goofy trainee lifeguard. The only other “adult” in sight is character actor Steven Keats, who plays a sleazy beach bum in charge of the seaside parking lot, and offers a momentary romantic interest for Bonnie Katt.
At Zuma Beach’s centre, however, is the delightful Suzanne Somers (who sadly passed away in 2023), her beauty almost blinding at times and her on-screen presence a low-key joy. Along with the rest of the cast, she makes this an easy, undemanding and very enjoyable day at the beach indeed.
Availability: Zuma Beach is very easy to find online, and in great audio-visual form to boot.
If you enjoyed this review, check out our other vintage telemovies The Third Girl From The Left, Snowbeast, Stagecoach, Terror On The Beach, Strange Homecoming, The Possessed, Memorial Day, That Certain Summer, Elvis And The Beauty Queen, Scandal In A Small Town, Victims For Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story, The Seduction Of Gina, Blue Murder, The Brotherhood Of Justice, The Wave, The California Kid, The Cracker Factory, Night Terror, Inmates: A Love Story, The Shadow Riders, CHiPs: Roller Disco, Dawn: Portrait Of A Teenage Runaway, Young Love, First Love, Escape From Bogen County, The Death Squad, Hit Lady, Brian’s Song, The Defiant Ones, A Cry For Help, Trilogy Of Terror, Policewoman Centerfold, Smash-Up On Interstate 5, Something Evil, Savage, A Step Out Of Line, The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission, A Very Brady Christmas, The Gladiator, Elvis, The Rat Pack, Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story, Terror Among Us, The Hanged Man, Hardcase, Charlie’s Angels: Angels In Vegas, Vanishing Point, To Heal A Nation, Fugitive Among Us, To Kill A Cop, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Police Story: A Chance To Live, Murder On Flight 502, Moon Of The Wolf, The Secret Night Caller, Cotton Candy, And The Band Played On, Gargoyles, Death Car On The Freeway, Short Walk To Daylight, Trapped, Hotline, Killdozer, The Jericho Mile, Mongo’s Back In Town and Tribes.
