Malibu Beach (1978)

Malibu Beach (1978)
Directed by Robert J Rosenthel 
Starring Kim Lankford, Susan Player, Steve Oliver
Rated R
USA

"Hey, you got big tits, for a lifeguard!"

Robert J Rosenthel was, briefly, an exploitation mini-mogul. Besides this breezy beach epic, this long-lost drive-in svengali wrote and/or directed  Zapped!, The Pom Pom Girls, The Van and, naturally, Zapped II. For a good few years, he was the go-to guy if you needed a popped bikini top gag. Imagine being that guy? That’s a good angle.
“I need seven half-naked cheerleaders and a case of beer stat!”
“Sure thing. Robert J!”

Who knows why it ended? Did Robert J just get tired of tits? Can you ever get tired of tits? It’s been 44 years, I’m still not tired of tits. And here’s the good news. This movie has a lot of tits. It also has a LOT of 1978.  The waves of late 70’s nostalgia hits hard and fast, right from the beginning.

There’s a bikini top stealing dog, there’s Dina, (Kim Lankford) the lanky, heavy-lidded new lifeguard (in a bikini) , there’s Paul (Michael Luther), a goofy dude with an Elvis visor, there’s weirdly named Glorianna (Tara Stroheimer) a bosomy good-time girl with frizzy hair in a sports car with a "Cure virginity" bumper sticker and a John Scnhneider iron on on the back of her sweatshirt, etc. The pop culture bullshit is pretty overwhelming.

It’s Malibu Beach, it’s the summer of 1978, and the kids are alright.

So anyway, Dugan (Steve Oliver) is the local over-aged musclehead asshole who’s always hitting on the young chicks. But today he finds somebody his own age to bug, Miss Plickett (Flora Plumb),  the stuffy teacher  for most of the kids at the beach. Malibu must be a small town.

For whatever reason, she decides to go for a ride on his motorcycle, and he takes her back to his place. There's photos of body builders and paintings of big eyed puppies on the wall. I think there’s a velvet-rendered jungle scene, too. If his weird garage/apartment wasn’t off-putting enough, he rants to her about some dead goddamn plant.  Then he puts his moves on her. It all feels kinda rapey, even with the schlocky soft rock jam on the soundtrack. She doesn't dig it, and bails. You get the feeling this kinda thing happens to Dugan a lot.

But fuck it, there's a party tonight. Claude (Roger Lawrence Pierce) wears safety goggles while he drives. Quirky motherfucker.

Dina and her bud Sally (Susan Player) get a flat tire. I know it sounds like I’m just randomly mentioning things that happen in the movie, but that’s the way this one rolls. It’s like the scenes are all marbles and Robert J just drops ‘em on the ground and lets them roll wherever they want. Parenthetically,  Sally has the most amazing bangs I've ever seen. They’re awesome!

The fellas - Paul and certified cocksman Bobby (James Daughton) - help fix the flat, and they all head out for booze and disco dancing. They do the Bump in high waisted pants. But then the fellas strike out. This might bum you or I out, but you and I are not at Malibu Beach in 1978.  The guys plit, head to the liquor store, do some drunk driving in Bobby's pimped-out Jeep, and head out to the beach for a late night booze, frisbee, and weed party. A couple cops show up. The "police" sticker on their car is not convincing. It's peeling right off the fuckin' door.

The old cop goes to the bar and sends the young one, Rodney (Parris Buckner) to bust the kids. But they know him, so they just pass him a joint, and everybody gets mellow.

Dina and Paul end up hanging together on the beach. Paul decides to make his move, and lays his lips on her. She rejects him, and to make matters worse, Dugan shows up and shoves him around.

Luckily Rodney breezes by and tells ‘em to be cool. So they stay cool. Rodney munches on Crackerjacks until the fat cop shows back up and they drive away, drunk and stoned.

With the heat off, the gang goes skinny -dipping. 70's kids were a lot leaner, man.

Then they fuckin’ chug wine to get warm. All in all, it was a sweet night.

Dina gets home. She's got Rolling Stones, Zep, and A Star is Born posters on her wall. She sits there and hugs Bobby's jacket. He let her wear it on the way home. Then she gets in bed with it. Dina, I hope you know that you are like the third chick he's made out with TODAY.

Back at the beach the next day, some snotty punk kid pretends to drown just to fuck with Dina, but then he actually starts to drown. She saves him anyway. Some dude says, "You shoulda let him drown". Harsh. And then Dugan roughs him up. How about you fuck off once in a while, ok Dugan?

I dunno, Dugan and Bobby get into some static, and they decide to drag race. Dugan takes Claude’s wheels and Bobby takes Rodney's police car. Rodney was busy smokin’ weed with busty Margie (Sherry Lee Marks) at the time.

Anyway, they total the fuckin’ cars. Luckily, they're both ok.  "That was the highlight of my life," says Bobby, as he drives always triumphantly in his own jeep, with Rodney's cop car lying in a crumpled heap. Fuck you, Bobby.

Meanwhile Claude hooks up with Gloriana, the Vette chick. Nice score, Claude. By the way, Claude's a rich kid and he's got plenty of cars, so he's not even mad about the drag race.

Night’s still young, so the gang bust into the fairgrounds and go for an illicit bumper car ride before heading to inspiration point for some heavy makin’ out. Good times. I wish my 1978 was like this. My 1978 was mostly sweating on a bench outside of our apartment because we didn’t have air conditioning.

Next day, Paul rats out a couple of gas thieves, and they slit his tires and threaten him with a switchblade. "Very 50's", laughs Sally.  Also, Paul sticks a hose in their rape van and floods it. They'll probably come back and fuckin’ kill him later. I kinda hope they do,  because all the guys in this movie are assholes.

And then, disco party at Claude's! Everybody is having good times. The outfits are diabolical. The dancing is ferocious. The only thing that could fuck up this night is Dugan. So guess who shows up? It's all fist fights and cops from there. Dina's had enough of all this he-man bullshit, and tells them both to buzz off. And that's the night disco died on Malibu Beach.

Later that night, Dina and Bobby make up and make out on the beach. He was swimming in his jean shorts. She was wearing white flares. Who could resist? Anyway, then there's a bunch of love stuff for the next ten fuckin’ minutes. Lame.

Clearly, we've been building up to a climactic face-off between Dugan and Bobby, and boy do we get one. A shark is involved. Well, a wooden plank with shark teeth nailed to it, at least.

So who wins? It's 1978, man. Everybody wins.

If we're going to technical about it, nothing really happens in Malibu Beach, but then again, if you were living it, it’d probably be the most memorable weekend of your life. In fact, I would suggest that if you are a young person, you study this movie and then go try to live your next 48 hours exactly like this. That would be ballsy. If you are not a young person, I would suggest you watch this and then lament the fact that you spent your 1978 on a fucking bench when you could’ve been partying with Sally and her bangs, or whoever your foxy neighborhood equivalent was. In fact, whatever your age or disposition, you should watch Malibu Beach. Why wouldn’t you? It moves along at a fast pace, the acting is solid, the chicks are rad, the boobs are plentiful, and you can tell that everybody involved is having good, hazy times. And isn’t that what life is all about?

- Ken 

PS: Stacey says:

Hot fun in the summer time! Good times and a few hassles... this is one fun flick! Too bad the boys weren't cuter.

Cool or not so cool 70's fashions, a guy wearing goggles 24/7, and someone get those girls some hair conditioner!  Obviously the boys don't care about that... but I suggest a classic 70's Alberto VO5 hot oil treatment (the girls get it, I'm sure.)

 Surely, this was the inspiration for Richard Linklater's tamer Dazed and Confused.  Rumspringa Whoo, for sure!

Big Doll House(1971)

Directed by Jack Hill
Starring Pam Grier, Judy Brown, Sid Haig, Brooke Mills, Pat Woodell
Rated R
USA

"You don't look like a hardened criminal to me"

 The funniest part of this whole movie came right at the beginning for me. Not that that this is a funny movie in any way, or that it's low budget automatically creates funny scenes, or even that it's directed by Jack Hill. No, the funniest part for me was seeing the Metro Goldwyn Mayer intro. I mean somehow Roger Corman secured major distribution though this major studio! How is that even possible? You've got to give it to the man, selling a movie about women in prison to MGM. So yeah, that cracked me up a bit, especially after watching the last MAG movie which was also a Roger Corman production. And like Ken said about the man, he's been using this formula for fifty years now, and it still works.

Big Doll House and indeed Attack of the 50ft Cheerleader are perfect examples of that Roger Coman Formula. Forty two years apart, different directors and producers, and yet it's so obvious that they're related. Both offer nothing more than what you think you're going to get. And both deliver. Whalla! Perfecto. What a formula!

The plot of Big Doll House is pretty simple. A bunch of American babes are in some sort of Banana Republic prison for no detectable reason. They get tortured every once in a while by the sadistic guards and fight amongst themselves for power. And unlike the misleading tag line in the otherwise wonderful poster art, these women are less than pleased by men. They're only real desire is to get the fuck out of there. Still, they make due by having cockroach races, engaging in various dominant and submissive lesbian trysts and dancing around on heroin.

 The only males in the film are a pair of horny fruit and vegetable delivery men(Jerry Franks and Sid Haig) and a hapless prison doctor who's flat performance throughout the movie provide a lot of chuckles.

Pam Grier made her debut in Big Doll House and it's easy to see she's the real star of the film. She lights up every scene she's in and her future as a box office draw is pretty clear. Jack Hill is often credited for discovering her but in his own words she just showed up for a casting call and the rest was history. Her performance alone makes this film worth watching and her brief scenes with Jack Hill staple, Sid Haig are golden.

Grear(Grier) lets Harry(Haig) feel her up and molest her now and then in exchange for cigarettes and heroin for her junkie slave. Fair enough. But life in this women's prison, as sexy as it is, isn't always a bowl of cherries. The main guard is a total pervo and uses some strange combination of military styled BDSM to torture the ladies. Everything from electricity to poisonous snake torture shows up in her sessions, all as a masked figure watches from the distance.

At this point the girls have had it and they get to work planning their escape. Personally I would have liked a little more implied lesbian bonding at this point. They've been cat fighting for the whole film so far and now they're friends and it would have been hot, but whatever.

From this point on it's guns and murder as the girls fight their way out. They trick the boys into helping them, there's another snake scene(only in the Philippines, man)and even a cat who delivers a key securing their escape. Unfortunately all this goodness leads us to the films one major flaw; the unnecessary rape scene.

Eww. Sure she's the bad guy and she had some sort of comeuppance due, but...gross. This scene would have played out way better with some light to maybe heavy lesbian torture by one of the former prisoners. It would have made more sense and ended up a lot hotter. All the men fail at this point in the film. Harry, once at least an understandable character, becomes intolerable. Fred, the other fruit guy does nothing and the hapless doctor becomes pathetic as he looks away. Oh well.

But even before you can process any of this, all hell breaks lose as a bunch of prison guards show up and start shooting. Craziness ensues and in true Jack Hill form, nothing good happens in the end.

Big Doll House is often cited as the first of the women in prison films, and that claim is often disputed by weird Internet people citing earlier examples. I can see their point is some cases, but give me a break. Are these weak-ass examples distributed through Metro Goldwyn Mayer? No. They are not. So yes, it's safe to say that we owe Roger Corman a big pat on the back for introducing the concept to the world, and therefore creating the genre.

So for that, and for introducing us to Pam Grier, and even despite the unfortunate rape scene, I have to give Big Doll House a huge Rumspringa Woo.

-Drew