High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Beach party movies were an American 1960s genre of feature films created by American International Pictures (AIP) with their surprise 1963 hit, Beach Party, and copied by virtually every other studio. Precursors to the genre were Columbia Pictures 1959 release Gidget, starring Sandra Dee as teenage surfer girl Gidget and James Darren as her beau Moondoggie; 1961`s Gidget Goes Hawaiian starring Deborah Walley as Gidget; and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) starring Cindy Carol as Gidget. American International`s films took the Gidget idea, added more music and far more bikinis, and removed nearly all references to parents.