I first saw this movie in Hawaii of all places,on HBO in the early eighties. I grew up in the 70's, so I love the fashions. This is just a fun, harmless, beach movie, where you don't "contemplate the meaning of it", you just put your brain "on hold" for an hour and a half, and enjoy it.
A piece of trivia. The town of "State Beach" was actually the town of Avila Beach, just outside of San Luis Obispo, on the Central California Coast. I'm from Northern California, but I think the Central Coast blows away LA LA land and south. (The movie theater where they saw the surf flick was in San Luis Obispo, and they also drive by "Morro Rock" in Morro Bay just north in one scene.
Anyway, the town looked just like it did in the movie up until the late nineties. A good old funky beach town. Unfortunately, the tanks you see at the very beginning of the movie, were actually fuel tanks that belonged to Union 76, and over the years, fuel leaked under the beachfront strip. To clean it up, they had to tear down almost all of downtown. They were able to save and "store" two historic buildings, and move them back to the strip afterward, but one business, the restaurant that you see advertised on the side of the cab driving around town, "The Old Custom House", (Which WAS actually a custom house in it's time), as historic as it was, was too fragile to be moved, and had to be torn down as well. The "NEW town of Avila beach now looks like your generic California beach town. It's a total shame. A great little town, basically wiped from the map.
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