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Surfers loathed them, teenagers flocked to them, critics dismissed them, and producers banked on them. They were surf and beach movies—which were Hollywood's interpretation of the surf culture. For a short period in the 1960s these films were extremely popular with younger audiences—mainly because of the combination of sand and surf, the musical performers, the shirtless surfer boys and bikini-clad beach girls, and the wild surfing footage.

This lavishly illustrated work features profiles on 32 sizzling fun-in-the-sun teenage epics from Gidget to the Beach Party movies with Frankie and Annette to The Sweet Ride plus a few offshoots in the snow. It offers an introduction with an overview of the surf movie genre; film entries with credits, plot synopses, DVD availability, memorable lines, reviews and awards; and biographies of actors and leading actresses who made their marks in the genre. The work also includes behind-the-scenes commentary from such actors as Aron Kincaid of The Girls on the Beach, Susan Hart of The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Peter Brown of Ride the Wild Surf, Chris Noel of Beach Ball, and Ed Garner of Beach Blanket Bingo. Catch the wave!

Thomas Lisanti is the author of McFarland's Drive-in Dream Girls: A Galaxy of B-Movie Starlets of the Sixties (2003), Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962–1973 (2002, coauthored with Louis Paul) and Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema: Interviews with 20 Actresses from Biker, Beach, and Elvis Movies (2001). He lives in New York.