Movies were a big part of a teen's life -- both as a form of entertainment and as a romantic escape from the world of adults. When we entered Lincoln High School, "The Music Man" was the #1 movie and "Flipper" was the leader at the box office the week before we started our junior year. The top grossing movie of our sophomore year was the epic film, "Cleopatra" starring Richard Burton, Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Taylor. Although it was the highest grossing movie, it still lost money due to staggering production costs. "How the West Was Won" was also of the epic genre and that one had an all star cast with Henry Fonda, Karl Malden, Jimmie Stewart, John Wayne, Debbie Reynolds, Thelma Ritter, etc. It was narrated by Spencer Tracy and divided into five parts: The River, The Plains, The Civil War, The Railroad, and The Outlaws. It was filmed in Cinerama -- a wide screen process using three projectors and a curved screen. For sophistication, we had the history of "Lawrence of Arabia" and the literary appeal of "To Kill a Mockingbird." For terror we had "The Birds." For sex appeal we had "Irma La Duce." For sheer entertainment and adventure we had "The Great Escape." Bye Bye Birdie was one of the more teen oriented movies of the year. Adapted from the Broadway play, it starred Ann Margaret, Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke and Bobby Rydell. Inspired by Elvis Presley's induction into the army (actually back in 1959), the movie centered around a publicity stunt in which rock star, Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson), was to bestow a "last kiss" on a selected teenage fan, Kim McAfee (Ann-Margaret). But the most significant teen movie of the year made it to the screen in the summer of '63 and catapulted the surf scene of California into national attention. "Beach Party" starred teen idols Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. It had a goofy plot about an anthropologist, played by Robert Cummings, studying the surfer culture and coming into conflict with a biker gang led by Eric Von Zipper. The appeal of the movie certainly wasn't the plot, and it might have been the music, except the real surf music wasn't on the soundtrack -- at least not what most teens were listening to in the summer of '63. There was no Beach Boys or Jan & Dean; no Surfaris or Ventures. There was Dick Dale, but not even his best stuff. But as bad as the movie was, especially when considering how much better it could have been, it had a huge impact. It represented teenage freedom. It provoked a feeling of what the Beach Boys would eventually name their greatest hits album some years later -- an "endless summer." It made us all sing along with the Beach Boys: "We'll all be gone for the summer. We're on safari to stay. Everybody's gone surfin' -- surfin' USA."