Frankie Avalon Movies

Want to know the best Frankie Avalon movies?  How about the worst Frankie Avalon movies?  Curious about Frankie Avalon box office grosses or which Frankie Avalon movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Frankie Avalon movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well, you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Frankie Avalon (1939-) is an American actor and singer.   Avalon had 31 charted U.S. Billboard singles from 1958 to late 1962, including the number one hits “Venus” and “Why” in 1959.   He was a very busy actor in the 1960s, appearing in 23 movies.  His IMDb page shows 51 acting credits between 1957 to 2018.  This page will rank Frankie Avalon movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, cameos, uncredited roles, and movies that we unable to find box office grosses on were not included in the rankings.

1978’s Grease

Frankie Avalon Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

1965’s Beach Blanket Bingo

Frankie Avalon Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies any way you want.

  • Sort Frankie Avalon movies by his co-stars
  • Sort Frankie Avalon movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
  • Sort Frankie Avalon movies by domestic yearly box office rank
  • Sort Frankie Avalon movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Frankie Avalon movie received.
  • Sort Frankie Avalon movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Frankie Avalon

1. Francis Thomas Avallone was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1939.  His father was a United States Civil War veteran

2. In the late 1950s, teen idols were often given roles in films, supporting older male stars in order to attract a younger audience, such as Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo (1959).  Alan Ladd’s daughter was a Frankie Avalon fan, who recommended that he co-star with her father in the Western Guns of the Timberland (1960). Avalon sings two songs, “The Faithful Kind” and “Gee Whiz Whillikins Golly Gee”; both were released as singles.

3.  Frankie Avalon’s movie career really took off when he was paired with former Mousketeer Annette Funicello in Beach Party (1963) and its string of sequels.

4.  The 1980 film The Idolmaker, written by Ed Di Lorenzo and directed by Taylor Hackford, was a thinly-disguised biography of Frankie Avalon (Tommy Dee in the movie) as well as 1950s teenage star Fabian Forte (Caesar in the movie).

5.  Due to the popularity of Grease (1978) and its soundtrack, Frankie Avalon considers “Beauty School Dropout” to be his most popular song.

Check out Frankie Avalon’s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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20 thoughts on “Frankie Avalon Movies”

  1. Watched a whole bunch of beach party movies a couple of years ago. But can I remember which ones?

    Hang on… I’ve seen – Beach Blanket Bingo, Beach Party, Bikini Beach, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Muscle Beach Party, and Fireball 500 (was there a beach party in that one? can’t remember).

    I’ve also seen The Alamo, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Panic in Year Zero,
    Dr. Goldfoot, Grease and Casino (can’t remember him in the Scorsese film).

    So that’s 12 of the 29 films on the chart. Wow I’m a Frankie Avalon fan and didn’t know it! 🙂

    Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up.

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve…..easily the winner of the tally count…as your 12 easily tops Flora and myself. As for Fireball 500….there was no beach scenes in that one..it was one of his attempts to improve his acting skills. As for Casino….he played…Frankie Avalon in that one…but it was a small role. Good stuff as always.

      Reply

  2. I have seen 5 Frankie Avelon movies I know for sure. The only Beach movie I know for sure I have seen is Beach Party. I may have seen more, but I will only count the one I know for sure.

    The HIGHEST ranked movie I have seen is The Alamo.

    The highest ranked movie I have NOT seen is Casino.

    The LOWEST ranked movie I have seen is Panic in the Year Zero.

    Favourite Frankie Avelon Movies:

    Grease

    Other Frankie Avelon Movies I Have Seen:

    The Alamo
    Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
    Beach Party
    Panic in the Year Zero

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora…thanks for checking out our Frankie Avalon page. Tally counts: We are tied with 5…with the exception of The Alamo and I’ll Take Sweden….my other movies seen all start with 1978’s Grease. I want to see Panic in the Year Zero. My other three seen are Back to the Beach (kinda funny) and Casino. Good stuff as always.

      Reply

  3. None of the other pop stars with movie careers that I have listed in Part One ever of course got near Elvis’ status as either a singer or a movie star but Pat Boone had a reasonable run for a short while reaching No 3 in the Quigley popularity charts in 1957 and staying in lower positions in Quigley’s Top 25 for the next 3 consecutive years.

    Avalon went on to make a string of beach/bikini/pyjama movies which I always regarded as a bit of a nonsense for the most part and to the best of my knowledge the 2 Ladd/Wayne flicks mentioned In Part One are the only Avalon movies that I have ever seen. I don’t anticipate getting much argement from The Work Horse for my expressing such opinions because for once one of The Big Guns is on my side-

    “In terms of his singing Frankie Avalon is a little better than Fabian; in films he is a cut above Annette Funicello. These are questionable virtues, but it is difficult to assess a man;’s ability to act on the basis of Avalon’s second-rate filmography.”

    There are no prizes for viewers of THIS site guessing what professional cutthroat back in 1983 wote that piece of savagry [join the club Frankie!]. However I am a kinder and gentler soul and I reckon that for the youthful effort of his heyday alone Avalon deserves his Cogerson page [and Wikipedia credits him as still going strong] – so “Voted Up!” Celebrity Net Worth site reckons Frankie has a current net worth of $30 million. Let’s wish him [now at the age of 80] every continuing health to spend it.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob…as you wrote…Joel was not a huge fan of the acting skills of Frankie Avalon. Joel has him ranked 405th of 410 rated stars. Thanks for the kind words about our page and for sharing his net worth. Good information on the box office stats on Pat Boone. Good stuff.

      Reply

  4. As Bruce touches on in Interesting Fact 2 above the Late 1950s seemed to be the time for successful pop stars attempting to start/ build on careers in the movies as well. Elvis led the way with one of the most prolific stand-alone careers ever to be seen in movies: his name was alone above the title in around 30 of the 34 of his movies that were released in cinemas; and even established movie Greats like Barbara Stanwyck were not permitted to have equal billing with him -“Elvis” on his own screaming out from the marquees was enough !

    Others who followed Elvis were (1) Pat Boone (2) Ricky Nelson who had appeared in a couple of movies as a youngster aged 10/11 in the early 1950s and who got himself the 3rd lead in Wayne’s 1959 Rio Bravo as Bruce hihglights above (3) Fabian[Forte] landed roles in the Duke’s North to Alaska and Jimmy Stewart’s Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation as well as Jimmy’s Dear Brigitte (4) and Bruce’s latest subject Frankie Avalon started with a bang by appearing in his first few years in Ladd’s 1960 Guns of the Timberland; Wayne’s The Alamo the same year; and a couple of lesser movies.

    Until the Work Horse mentioned it above I hadn’t known before about Ladd’s daughter influencing her father choice of Frankie for Guns of the Timberland [Alan’s own company producted the film] but as I have demonstrated The Duke and his movies seem to have been the common denominator for these young singing wannabe movie stars though Elvis did mange to land two roles that Brando turned down – King Creole and Flaming Star!

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob….glad you enjoyed our interesting facts on Frankie Avalon. Apparently Ladd announced he was going to produce a movie starring Avalon and his daughter…but it never got made. I agree with you about Boone, Nelson, Fabian and Avalon trying to follow the success of Elvis in theaters. The same thing still happens today….as people like John Mellencamp, Prince, Justin Timberlake and so many other musicians try and become a movie star as well. Good stuff.

      Reply

      1. HI BRUCE: Thanks for the feedback. Laddie had a lot of big plans for that production company of his. The proposed teaming of Alavlon with Alan’s daughter is again more new information for my own archives [thanks for sharing it]; but I’ve mentioned before that Ladd wanted to do The Cavalrymen which by his description of the script at the time sounded to me like a remake of the Wayne/Fonda/Shirley Temple Fort Apache with Laddie/Brando/Eva Marie Saint respectively in the roles of those 3 earlier popular stars.

        Laddie also had suggestions for himself and my Doris to do a repeat of the Hudson/Day teaming; except Rock and Doris did only 3 movies together whereas Laddie wondered aloud wehther he and Doris might do 8 or 10 – 2 “blondes” together!

        It was all too late for him though as by the earliy sixties his heyday as a star was finished without any road back; and physically he was going dowhill fast with his looks fading and his energy visibly depleting.

        All that’s academic anyway because Doris too in the early 1960s was in the last decade of her career and even if she and Ladd had both retained YOUR Work Horse capacity they wouldn’t have had the time left to get 8-10 movies in: he died prematurely in 1964 and she retired completely from movies 4 years after that.

        Besides in the early to mid sixties Doris was still popular and had a few of her most famous hits – Move over Darling/Lover Come Back/That Toucjh of Mink etc – and I doubt if she would have been keen to do one movie with “has-been” Ladd never mind 10. It was broadcast that she would liked to have teamed up with Brando for a film but that never came to anything.

        Reply

        1. I’m surprised that the beach party movies didn’t do that good since they always were rerun on channel 7 in New York. Frankie, the man with 8 kids, who had a hit with Venus twice (1976 disco version). Frankie, the man who has a star on the Philadelphia walk of fame (as does Annette). Who knew both were from Philly. Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy who were also teamed in films also are on the Philly walk of fame.

          Frankie who can claim to have appeared in films with Buster Keaton and Peter Lorre never appeared on the Oracle of Bacon Top 1000. These are the actors on the 2020 list he appeared with.

          57 HARRY DEAN STANTON Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007)
          107 MICKEY ROONEY How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)
          107 MICKEY ROONEY Skidoo (1968)
          124 ROBERT WAGNER Sail a Crooked Ship (1961)
          180 FERNANDO REY The Castilian (1963)
          201 KLAUS KINSKI The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967)
          262 KEENAN WYNN Bikini Beach (1964)
          268 BURGESS MEREDITH Skidoo (1968)
          280 AUSTIN PENDLETON Skidoo (1968)
          344 JOHN WAYNE The Alamo (1960)
          356 STOCKARD CHANNING Grease (1978)
          368 CESAR ROMERO Sergeant Dead Head (1965)
          368 CESAR ROMERO Skidoo (1968)
          375 JOHN TRAVOLTA Grease (1978)
          385 EDDIE ALBERT The Take (1974)
          441 TERI GARR Pajama Party (1964)
          485 DICK MILLER Ski Party (1965)
          502 RICHARD WIDMARK The Alamo (1960)
          512 RAY MILLAND Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
          530 WILLIAM SHATNER Operation Bikini (1963)
          549 VINCENT PRICE Beach Party (1963)
          549 VINCENT PRICE Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965)
          562 WILFRID HYDE-WHITE The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967)
          632 MARTIN SCORSESE Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007)
          636 MICHAEL BIEHN Grease (1978)
          654 MICHAEL CONSTANTINE Skidoo (1968)
          667 PETER LAWFORD Skidoo (1968)
          717 SLIM PICKENS Skidoo (1968)
          767 HARRY SHEARER Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007)
          907 WALTER PIDGEON Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)
          942 BILLY CRYSTAL Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007)
          975 RICHARD JAECKEL Blood Song (1982)

          Frankie only appeared with 4 Oscar winners.

          DOROTHY MALONE Beach Party (1963)
          JOAN FONTAINE Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)
          JOHN WAYNE The Alamo (1960)
          RAY MILLAND Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

          Reply

          1. Hey Dan….thanks as always for putting these lists together. Looking at the second list…I do not see Casino….that would improve his Oscar winners by at least 50%…as DeNiro and Pesci are also in that movie. Looking at the first list…not many actors on the list….numerous people tied with 2 movies…for some reason Michael Biehn stuck out….he is hard to find in Grease….but he is indeed one of the students in that monster hits.

            As for the Beach Blanket movies…most never reached Variety’s Top Grosser list…but they came close, and they did not cost much at all to make….so they made the producers lots of money….and they kept coming back to the well…to earn more money. Good stuff as always.

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