The most famous film which is representative of a significant historical era was Shag: The Movie which was filmed by MGM in North Myrtle Beach in 1989.

Screenwriter Lanier Laney, from Spartanburg, SC, said the movie was a retelling of his summers growing up at Pawleys Island watching his older brother going across the street to the Pawleys Pavilion to listen to the African American beach music bands and dance the Shag, a dance which had originated in the black clubs next to Ocean Drive in North Myrtle Beach.

The movie was set in pre-integration South Carolina, and it was white kids from upper class families who first starting going to hear black bands at the beach pavilions of South Carolina. In upcountry towns like Greenville, Spartanburg and Charlotte, the only way the kids could hear the music was by tuning into powerful radio stations broadcasting from Nashville and buying records. The music was dubbed “race music” by their segregationist parents, and many white children were forbidden to listen to the music at the time. But that did not stop it from becoming THE music and dance of several generations of South Carolina beachgoers.