Hot Moves (1985)

Directed by Jim Sotos
Starring Jill Schoelen, Adam Sillbar, Michael Zorek
Rated R
USA
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What I like about the plot of this film is that it's relatable. It's about four high school dudes, out on summer break, who make a pact to lose their virginity before their senior year starts in September. What self-respecting teenage dirtbag hasn't made this self-same pact? And, indeed, how many of us bungled it, just like these jokers? Hot Moves, man. It's the naked truth.

The film opens with five or so minutes worth of 80's people at Venice Beach doin' 80's stuff, i.e. roller skating and riding BMX bikes and power-lifting. You know, showing off their 'hot moves'. Brit NWOBHM champs Raven, at that point attempting a hopeless American invasion, perform the blaring theme song. We are soon introduced to our four strapping young lads: Michael (Adam Sillbar), the doe-eyed leader of the gang; Barry (instantly recognizable go-to chubby sidekick Michael Zorek); Scotty (Johnny Timco), the uh...one with the fluffy hair; and Joey (Jeff Fishman), the twink. They make their pact and then lie around on the beach, ogling the local talent. Michael is currently dating Julie-Ann (Jill Schoelen), but she won't give up the puss, so he's thinking about ditching her. He decides to confront her on this burning issue, so he saunters over to her place.


First of all, 1985-ish Jill Schoelen is such a breathtaking vision of wide-eyed innocence that no dude would walk away from her, regardless of her aversion to pre-marital sex. So just listen to this clown:

Julie-Ann: "I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to my aunt Leslie's pool party on Friday night."
Michael: "I'd love to come with you Julie, but frankly, I don't think I can handle another date with you if I'm just going to go home frustrated."
Julie-Ann: "Frustrated? I'm the one who's frustrated, Michael. The only thing that matters to you is sex, isn't it?"
Michael: "No, it's not all that matters, but it does matter." Pause for dramatic effect. "I'll see you around."
And then he takes off. Mind you, the fucker is wearing tiny blue shorts the whole time. So he takes a few steps, and then he turns around and says,
"Oh, and Julie...I miss being with you."
What a manipulative cunt that kid is.


And so, the pact. Barry almost bangs a teddybear-obsessed waitress with a Sheena Easton haircut, but he accidentally kicks over a candle while they're making out and nearly burns her house down. Joey decides to just visit a whore and get it over with, but wants to buy a condom first. Instead of just popping in to the local pharmacy, all four guys slink into the darkest, dankest sex shop ever. The greasy creep behind the counter - a dead-ringer for Herman, the gun-obsessed, one-armed, army surplus store owner on the Simpsons - sells Joey a condom for $7.50. He also tries to sell him an edible jockstrap. "This one's penis flavored," he says.
So, they cruise around Hollywood looking for a discount hooker. They pass by a theater playing "Flashpants". Flashpants! Awesome. Anyway, the kid looks like he's twelve, so none of the streetwalkers will bite. So far, this pact is an abject failure.


Flash-forward a day or so. Scotty meets a vampish brunette wearing a slinky black nightgown while on his morning paper route. She invites him in to her home, and he's pretty sure he's got this one all sewn up. But then her wig falls off. Turns out, she's a tranny. Drats. He hightails it out of there, although you'd think, given his feathered hair and short-shorts, that this would be his sorta scene. Said tranny, by the way, is played by legendary porn actor/producer/director David "Pussyman" Christopher.

Meanwhile, Julie-Ann decides she's had enough of Michael's bullshit, so she makes a date with Roger, the lifeguard.

But first, we have to watch like ten minutes of some dudes breakdancing.

So Michael's older brother skates by, and suggests Michael ask out Heidi (Deborah Richter), because she's "dying to get in your pants, and she's got lots of horny friends." He even tells Mike that he can use his place. Mike's older brother is the balls.

So Mike does, in fact, call up Heidi, to see if he can get a group date type situation going with his dopey friends and her foxy posse. "Can you get booze?" She asks, while stretching her leg in sex-robic fashion. "Because that'll make it a lot easier. My friends like to drink." Suddenly, life is good again. Plans of action are hastily cobbled together.

But first, the fat kid has to drink a bottle of ketchup at the bowling alley.

Later that evening, they meet up with Heidi-the-minx and her friends. They go the arcade and a weird midget in a barbershop quartet outfit gives her a stuffed hippo. Later on, they swill warm beer and play miniature golf. I know, it sounds sorta pathetic, but take it from me, this is what passed for an eventful night out when you were a teenager in 1985.
Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, Roger-the-lifeguard smacks down Michael. Good. I hate that fuckin' kid.


So, somehow, all of these idiots end up getting the girls naked, but Michael's conscience kicks in at the last moment, so he can't fuck Heidi. And this is what he says:
"It's got nothing to do with you, Heidi. It's personal."
He says this to a girl he's in bed with. Did I mention that I hate him?
So he storms off to find Julie-Ann. Conveniently enough, she's just discovering that Roger is actually a grabby asshole. If only someone would save her from this masher!

Well, you know how it ends, right?

Hot Moves was directed by the mysterious Jim Sotos (AKA rock video super-producer Dimitri Sotirakis), best known for Forced Entry (1975) an R-rated pseudo-remake of the alarming 1972 XXX flick about a psycho 'Nam vet serial rapist/killer. He followed that up with the '83 slasher Sweet Sixteen. Looking back at this catalog of carnage, Sotos does not seem like the obvious choice for a fluffy teen boner-com, but serial rapists be damned, the talented sonofabitch crafted one of the most consistently entertaining and good-looking films of the era. Sotos shamelessly exploits his location here, seamlessly mixing the film's plot with what's already happening on Venice Beach, which means he can - and often does - cut away to sun-tanning beauties, preening muscle boys, and assorted colorful freaks and goons at will. He also has an eye for fetching females, so the film is fairly crammed with hot tail, including the scrumptious Jill Schoelen, smoldering cult siren Monique Gabriel, and Miss California 1975, Deborah Richter. Even with the jarring, bottom-shelf soundtrack (Supergroove?) Hot Moves is Boner popping perfection for teenage losers. One major sticking point, though: what's with the tiny shorts on the male leads, Mr. Sotos? Cut out the tits, and you could easily call this film Three Gay Hustlers and a Fat Kid.

PS: Come back Jill Schoelen. We miss you. Bring the polka dot bikini from Hot Moves.

Availability: Hot Moves is available on DVD.
Buy Hot Moves at Amazon.
-Sleaze

Party Plane (1988)

Directed by Ed Hansen
Starring Karen Annarino, Jill Johnson, Jacklyn Palmer
Rated R
USA
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"Why do you have laughing gas?"
"Hey, my sex life is my own business."

From the genius convention behind Party Favors and Takin' It Off comes Party Plane, a tawdry little tale of a tiny airline and the strippers who save it. It begins, as it should, with three stewardesses taking off their clothes. The dialogue goes like this:

Suzy: "That doesn't make any sense to me at all."
Renee: "Well, you're a dancer, Suzy. It doesn't need to make sense to you."
Laurie: "Yeah, Suzy. I think you need a working brain to understand it. Now, I'm getting into the hot tub."

The stewardess hot-tub scene should really be enough, but unfortunately, they shoehorned a threadbare plot in there, as well. Condor airlines (which consists, far as I can tell, of one propeller plane, The Albatross), was founded by one Ace Condor, currently deceased, to service the Big Boy Condom company, who apparently needed a rickety old plane to deliver their rubbers. But when Big Boy Condoms pulled out of the deal (groan), it left Condor Airlines to flounder. Ace's daughter Judy (Karen Annarino), who inherited the airline from her father, decides its time to shut operations down. Scheming asshole Lee (John F Goff, last seen as the mincing dance instructor in Party Favors), Ace's old business partner, offers to sell it to their rival, Cartel Airlines. For a pretty profit, of course.

But wait! Just when towels are being thrown in, roly-poly copilot Humongous (Travis McKenna) shows up at the somber meeting to announce that a whole busload of conventioneers just arrived, and they need to get to the city, pronto. Everybody rallies for one last flight.

I should mention here that whenever we spend time in the actual plane, every single move is punctuated by cartoony sound effects. The pilot presses a button of some sort: Boing! Somebody puts on their seatbelt: Skwoosh! The propeller starts to spin: Whanga-whanga-whanga! Who did the sound design on this movie, Tex fuckin' Avery?

During the flight - although I use 'flight' loosely, as there's never any indication that the plane is actually in the sky, and I'm pretty sure the set is made of cardboard - one of the conventioneers pays blonde stew Laurie (Jill Johnson), $300 for her uniform. She takes it, and spends the rest of the flight in her underwear. So that's fun for everybody. It also gives them an idea for saving the airline: what if the stewardesses strip on every flight? Your mind just got boggled, didn't it?

And so, The Albatross becomes the Party Plane. Humongous auditions stripper-stews. The crews redecorate the Albatross with palm trees and lawn furniture, and there's bikini parties and topless mud-wrestling matches during flights. The passengers are the usual motley crew of weirdos, including an elderly dude in jean shorts, suspenders, and Tiny Tim hair, who travels with his two Asian girlfriends, Toyota and Nissan. There's a horny nun in there somewhere, as well. "Just fuck me already," she says to Lee. Lee, however, has other things on his mind. He still wants to sell the plane to Cartel, so he and Hank Chisel (Lew Horn) a master-of-disguises hired by Cartel, attempt, over and over, to sabotage the Party Plane. It never works, of course, but it does allow Chisel to don a lot of dopey costumes, including a Scottish guy, a teenage girl, A Mexican dude holding a chicken in a cage, and an Indian spring water salesman ("Straight from the Ganges, it's the world's purest water. It does stink, though.") Eventually, Lee and Chisel come up with a plan to blow the plane up while it's sitting in the hangar overnight, but it goes awry, and everybody ends up on the plane, sluicing through the friendly skies, while a ticking bomb sits in an overheard compartment. Will they all die a fiery death at 10,000 feet?

No, they won't.

Stupider than usual - which is really saying something, given that it was directed by Ed Hansen and written by George "Buck" Flower, Party Plane is a one-way ticket to brain-ache. Its saving grace is its brief running time: a merciful 80 minutes, even with the low-fi end-credits scroll.


The tits were fantastic, though. So you could probably masturbate to it, in a pinch.

Availability: Party Plane is available on VHS.
Buy Party Plane at Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre

Sexbomb (1989)

Directed by Jeff Broadstreet
Starring Linnea Quigley, Delia Sheppard, Robert Quarry
Rated R
USA

"When the wolf attacks you, scream your tits off."

Every so often, glossy teen splatter mag Fangoria decides that they're an empire and expand wildly, starting a host of 'new and exciting' projects that they will abandon a year or so later, when they once again sober up to the fact that there's only so many horror-nerd dollars to go around. Just a year or two ago, they were announcing all kinds of crazy shit - a comic book line (dead after a handful of first issues), a television channel (nope), an annual awards show (lame). They went through a similarly bold expansion in the late 1980's, when horror - and heavy metal, and Jolt cola, and monster trucks, and fake tits, and Andrew Dice Clay, and anything else loud, ugly, and obnoxious - was a burning-hot commodity. Jumping on the Freddy-Jason-Leatherface frenzy, Fango divvied up their latex-obsessed coverage into three different magazines: Fangoria, Gorezone, and Toxic Horror. The latter was the sleaziest of the three, but they all basically covered the same ground, as did two other short-lived rivals, Slaughterhouse and Horror Fan. I read them all, because I was a teenage horror-obsessed dirtbag, baby, and all I really remember about 'em is that all of them pimped Sexbomb to the fuckin' moon. There were two reasons for this, and both of them were bolted onto Delia Sheppard's chest.


It did help that the film is a horror-flick spoof, and that it co-stars a right-off-the-bat topless Linnea Quigley (so hot at the time that the credits just list her as "Linnea"...like Madonna! Or, uh... Charo!) and a handful of tongue-in-cheek gore effects, but trust me when I tell you that the splatter-nation was stroked and primed for a good year about the coming of Delia Sheppard, a top-heavy, blindingly beautiful new sensation straight outta Denmark, a Penthouse Pet turned softcore siren, the scream queen to end all scream queens. Who, after all, could compete with lungs that large?


Well, it was all for nothin', really. All those magazines, save for Fango itself, soon folded. All that bullshit 80's excess, the Freddy fingers and mud-wrestling and Dokken, it was all kaput by the early 1990's. Blame it on Kurt Cobain. Everybody else does. As for Sexbomb, it didn't even get a proper release until 2003 and by then, well, the buzz had severely diminished. But let us not judge this film on the merits of this modern, digital age, because it was not made for times like these. It was made for hormonal werewolves with VCRs who would never have to ask, "Linnea who?"


Speaking of Linnea, her perky, teacup tits are the very first thing you see as Sexbomb opens. She runs around a sofa in her skivvies, getting chased by a dude with a jockstrap on his head. It's just another day in the life of Phoebe Love, scream queen at large, currently shooting a slice n' dice flick called "I Rip Your Flesh With Pliers, Part 2". When the scene finishes, the director sends Linnea off to get fitted for "tearaway nipples." Ouch.

You want plot? Well, I can offer a wisp, at least. King Faraday (Robert 'Count Yorga' Quarry) is the loudmouth, cigar-chomping producer of Rip Your Flesh. A cheap and vindictive man, he shows up on set and begins cutting corners, firing, among other people, Lou Lurrod (Stuart Benton), the script consultant. Lou crumples and limps off the set, a broken man with no prospects and no future. Into his life vavooms Candy (Delia Sheppard), King Farady's trophy wife (in other words, erm, 'Queen Farady'. Say it out loud, and then groan). It should be mentioned right here that Delia was well worth the hype. It helps, of course, that she is either nude or poured into a pink tube-dress for most of the film's running time, but her stunning, Jayne Mansfield-esque curves are a true marvel to behold. She's so absurdly attractive, it's almost painful to look at her.
Anyway, she wants out of her marriage with the old grouch, and the only way she can do it while continuing to enjoy her lavish lifestyle is, naturally, to kill him. So, using her considerable feminine charms, she ropes Lou into her web of intrigue.


Lou gets hired back onto the shoot when King mistakes him for Candy's hairdresser. I know that doesn't make any sense, but roll with it. He gets an assignment to write a film called Werewolves in Heat. Candy spends the rest of Sexbomb trying to kill her husband; Lou spends it either fucking Candy, or trying to stop her from killing her husband. Somewhere in there, there's a werewolf rape scene.


Eventually, King goes missing. Porn legend Veronica Hart (credited here as Kathryn Stanleigh) is King Farady's daughter, who suspects a plot is afoot. There's some weird fucker in a Dashiki involved, as well. I dunno, it's hard to pay attention when Sheppard has her shirt off so often.

By the way, the Sexbomb DVD has a fantastic, rambling commentary track from Sheppard, Linnea, and Robert Quarry. Delia says stuff like, "You know, some people will buy your clothes after you've worn them. Even one stocking. Even if it's ripped!" Linnea tries her best to keep the conversation on track, but its mostly hopeless.
At one point, they're watching a very Scooby Doo-esque scene where Linnea gets chased by the jockstrap guy while some band plays a song on the soundstage.
"I still have that bra, and that belt, and that skirt," Linnea says,
"And the filling," croaks Quarry. That guy is fucking awesome.


Anyway, there's a scene where the Dashiki mobster dude and his muscle-chick girlfriend are carrying on, and he gets a call from the presumably dead King Faraday. It is at this point that I realize I no longer have any idea what's going on. I switch on the commentary for some clarity, and Sheppard is saying, "I don't really get who this character is. What's he supposed to be doing?"

And she was in the movie.

In summation: the sophisticated twenty-first century viewer will, within three minutes, Google "Delia Sheppard nude scenes", and call it a night. But the VCR werewolves from 1989? They will howl in delirious lupine lust and wish, with all of their wolfbane-cursed hearts, that Kurt Cobain never makes that fuckin' record. Sexbomb truly is the last gasp of the 1980's, a glorious, self-referential mess that blusters, roars, and strips down at every opportunity, an eager-to-please bit of pop culture flotsam that will be worshipped as a campy masterpiece about five minutes after we're all dead.


PS: Director Jeff Broadstreet went on to direct the universally loathed Night of the Living Dead 3D in 2006. As of this writing, he appears to be directing a remake of Spider Baby (!). Linnea decided to start adding "Quigley" to her credits again after this film. She is still adorable and still the go-to scream queen. Delia Sheppard did not become the cult icon we thought she would, but that is neither our fault nor hers. Again, it's probably Nirvana's. She continues to act in television shows and major Hollywood productions - hell, she was 'Trophy wife to George Wendt' in 2007's Larry the Cable Guy's Christmas Spectacular, and you can't get much more high-profile than that - but lately, it seems like a lot her appearances have gone uncredited. Perhaps she should try pouring herself back into that pink tube-dress for her next audition. It sure the fuck would work on me.


Links: Delia Sheppard
Linnea Quigley

Availability: Sexbomb is available on DVD.
Buy Sexbomb at Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre

Stewardess School (1986)

Directed by Ken Blancato
Starring Judy Landers, Wendie Jo Sperber, Brett Cullen, Donny Most
Rated R
USA
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"You got any Twisted Sister?"
"No, but my cousin Lenore is kinda strange."

Police Academy was released in 1984. It was a low-budget goon-show in the age of 'relevant' teen flicks like Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club, a movie made for and aimed at the underachievers in the audience, the short-bus mouth-breathers and drop-outs. The fact that it was such a runaway success speaks volumes about the American public in the 1980's, but that's a discussion for another time. What Police Academy did, besides spawn a fistful of sequels and make smirky Steve Guttenberg a household name, is kick-start an unholy wave of nearly identical films that all followed the same misfits-banding-together formula. It worked for just about anything, from volunteer firemen to fast food workers, from mortuary science students to...whatever the fuck they were doing at Screwball Academy. Stewardess School was yet another variation on the theme. In this case, the group of losers, buffoons, and freaks...well, they went to stewardess school, didn't they?

There are so many characters crammed into this film that it's impossible to follow them all from one scene to the next. There's Philo (Steve Cullen, now an in-demand television actor) and George (Donny Most, AKA Ralph Malph from Happy Days, currently on the nostalgia convention circuit), two wannabe-pilots that have flunked aviation school so many times, this is close as they can get to a job at the airport. There's Sugar Dubois (gorgeous Judy Landers), a prostitute on parole, Cindy Adams (Corinne Bohrer, last seen as Veronica Mars' mom, or possibly the chick in the paper towels commercial), a rich girl gone punk, Jolean Winters (adorable Wendie Jo Sperber), a chubby chick who...takes the brunt of the fat jokes, pretty much and...well, half a dozen more, at least. The first half-hour of the film is all set-up, as we watch these abject failures limp away from their normal lives and take on this noble task of sky-service.


The second half-hour is, of course, the stewardess training hijinks. These can be broken down into these easy to digest nuggets:
One: Philo's glasses are very thick. He can't see a thing without them. Oh boy, if he loses them, he's gonna be in trouble!
Two: Man, that George. Wow, is he horny!
Three: Man, that Sugar Dubois. Boy, is she sexy!
Four: Man, that Larry (Rob Paulson). Boy, is he gay!
Five: Man, that Jolean. She sure is fat!


Standard slapstick stuff, but the latter item consistently rings a sour note. Not sure if writer/director Ken Blancato had some sort of issue with a heavy ex-wife or something, but he appears to go out of his way to humiliate Wendie Jo Sperber in nearly every scene. At one point, she opens up a fridge, stares at a cake, and actually snorts like a pig. In another, she's jumps on a life raft, and it explodes.The film is otherwise good-natured, so Ms. Sperber's near-constant abuse just seems vindictive. Makes you want to hug her. Hug her and eat cake, just to spite this Blancato fucker.


There's a party where rich folks and bikers clash, a foul-mouthed kid ("How'd you like your tits shot off?), kinky professors, and the expected romance (glasses guy and the spazzy girl, naturally). It all leads up to the final act, when the crooked dean of the school (you just knew he'd be crooked, didn't you?) makes a dirty deal with a discount airline to graduate the class early and send them off to man the guy's rickety plane. And then the plane gets hijacked by bomb-toting terrorists. Will these fuckin' dummies pull it together in time to save the passengers? Will Goggles McGee figure out how to land the plane?

Probably, yeah.

Besides a brief shower scene, Stewardess School is extremely light on skin, so you'll have to have a strong affection from lame gags to truly appreciate its charms. It is full of familiar faces though, and the acting is consistently solid, even with a script this broad. It's biggest draw, however, is helium-voiced Judy Landers, one of the first actresses to really exploit the benefits of an aerobic workout. She looks amazing here, which is probably what keeps this otherwise tepid Police Academy rip-off in heavy cable TV rotation, even today.


Most of the cast went on to do more work, mostly in television. Interestingly, Ken Blancato, the visionary genius behind it all, never made another film. That's a bit of a mystery, when you consider Stewardess School's considerable production values. In a genre that often resembles no-budget porn, Blancato managed to make a very nice looking film, with sharp camerawork, seamless editing, and solid performances. Certainly, with halfway-decent scripts - perhaps written by anyone other than Ken Blancato - he could've made some great films.

And then again, maybe this was all he had in him. After all, you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em, right?


PS: Dear Wendie Jo Sperber: Our hearts always swelled with gladness whenever you graced these dumb movies with your presence. Your smile could melt glaciers and your easy laugh was like Aloe Vera for the soul. And we didn't even think you were fat.
RIP.

Availability: Stewardess School is available on VHS.
Buy Stewardess School at Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre

Sweater Girls (1978)

Directed by Donald M. Jones
Starring Charlene Tilton, Julie Parsons, Meegan King, Carol Anne Seflinger
Rated R
USA
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"You're what they call continental...Russian hands and Roman fingers."

Sweater Girls is truly a product of its time. Between Vietnam and the gas crisis, the 70's had so freaked Americans out that they sought solace in the mythical Shangri-la of the 1950's, a decade warmly remembered for its conservative family values and financial stability. Of course, 50's fetishists always seem to leave out all the racial segregation and blacklisting, but hey...cool cars! Rock n' roll! Girls in tight sweaters!

The 70's brought us Happy Days, American Graffiti, American Hot Wax, and Sha Na Na, all gauzy, white-washed visions of a 'simpler' time, and Sweater Girls follows that lucrative formula beat-for-beat. It's a bare-bones story about a group of girls attempting to keep their purity intact by banding together and wearing matching pink sweaters. That is the plot, in it's entirety. But hey, what do you expect? It was a simpler time, right?

Sweater Girls' creator, Donald M. Jones, has recently enjoyed a renewed interest in his work amongst cult/badfilm fans. He's been lauded as a sort of anti-auteur, a chronicler of non-events who paces his films like a melting glacier. His tastes run from exploitation to gutbucket slashers, and his resume reads like a rogue's gallery: Schoolgirls in Chains (1973), The Love Butcher (1975), The Forest (1982), Murderlust (1985). In comparison, Sweater Girls is probably his most restrained work, which, given his stubborn refusal to actually use the cinematic form in any novel or entertaining way, is saying a mouthful.

Ah, but perhaps I'm being too harsh. There is, after all, a scene where a girl drives topless.


To get there, however, you must endure an hour's worth of retro-tedium, from a drive-in make-out session to a drunken drag-race. It all culminates in a wild-night of home invasion, as the quintet of sweater-sisters hole up in grandma's house (she's gone all weekend!) and feign protest as the drunken hot-rodders climb through attic windows and creep in from jimmied backdoors, which leads to dialogue like this:

Bonnie: "I saw somebody at the window!"
Lynne: "It's probably just a rapist."

Lynne, by the way, is essayed by one Tamara Barkley, one of the few actresses in this supposed sex-comedy to offer up any significant skin. Her initiation into the sweater club involved tricking her boyfriend Jim (Skip Lowell) into stripping down to just a towel and waiting for her under a tree so they can, you know, "do it." Instead, she steals his car, leading to the topless driving scene. But what of poor Jim? Making a bad night worse, he is forced to hitch a ride home, and wouldn't you know it? The only guy that would stop is a leering homosexual who rubs Jim's bare thigh and makes lewd suggestions.


Are you laughing yet? No? Well, there's more. There's a fat, bumbling, Jonathan Winters-esque cop on hand (Jack O'Leary, who was, given his name, born to play this role) to chase the boys around, and an unlikely romance to blossom. Henry the nerd (William Kux), meet Joella (Julie Parsons), the misunderstood bad girl.


Joella, incidentally, gets dunked in a soapy bathtub by one of the drunken morons, leading to our second nude scene, when she has to change out of her soaking clothes. Not exactly a steamy sex scene, but I'll take anything at this point.



Oh yeah, there's an old lady swearing and giving the finger, too.
"You fuckin' asshole kids!"

The night drags ever on until finally, daybreak. We are now at the 1:20 minute mark of a 1:25 minute movie, and we have yet to see Charlene Tilton. If this film is remembered at all, it's because it features the acting debut of the diminutive blonde beauty and future Dallas star. Well, she does show up - in white hotpants, no less - mere moments before the credits roll. She's Candy, the new girl in town, and she takes off with the main douchebag. The end.


If you're a diehard fan of Seventies' 50's retro (as opposed to Eighties 50's retro...Stray Cats!) than you may enjoy the vintage cars and possibly even the pink sweaters and neckerchiefs.


But if you are looking for a teen sex comedy, than you have taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque. For sleazier Fonzie-era thrills, check out Slumber Party '57 (1976), which will at least give you a glimpse of Debra Winger's tits, and for a more satisfying Charlene Tilton experience, we here at Boobs suggest Diary of a Teenage Hitchiker (1979), one of the greatest TV movies we have ever seen.



By the way, although the actual movie will fade from your memory rather quickly, it's faux doo-wop title theme - sung in a whiny soprano by David Somerville and performed by the Head Tones - will likely never escape your brain. Caveat emptor.

Availability: Sweater Girls is available on VHS.
Buy Sweater Girls on Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre

The Student Body (1976)

Directed by Gus Trikonis
Starring June Fairchild, Jillian Kesner, Janice Heiden
Rated R
USA
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The Student Body opens in explosive grindhouse fashion, with an all-out, hair-yanking, eye-gouging cat fight in the laundry room of a woman's prison. That's sort of a weird place for a movie about college girls to start, but who's gonna argue?

Turns out that the local college is conducting a sociological experiment. The warden (Thomas Eberle, clearly slumming it from his gig on the Edge of Night soap opera) does a terrible job of explaining what the experiment is actually about, but the upshot is, the three main brawlers from the laundry room melee get to go to college for a semester. If they don't kill anybody or burn the place down, they get paroled. Sounds too easy, right? Well, strap in, sleaze-beasts. Evil is afoot.

Dr. Blalock (still-kicking TV actor Warren Stevens, looking here like a boozy ex-boxer) is the college prof behind the experiment. He picks three of his male students to keep an eye on the jailbirds. Two of them look like Vanilla Fudge roadies. The other dude looks like Fred from Scooby Doo. The Fred guy says, "Says here my girl is prone to violent outbursts and...pranks! Sir, I bruise easy!"
Dr. Blalock assures him everything'll be alright. And then he rushes off, because the girls are about to arrive. They will, of course, be staying at the venerable professor's gigantic mansion.


The girls arrive and meet the prof's fancy-pants wife Connie (Judith Roberts, the crazy ghost lady from Dead Silence) and his scuzzball son Carter (Peter Hooten, from Inglorious Bastards, among a zillion other Italian b-flicks). Right off the bat, the girls are snotty:
Mrs. Blalock: "So, what should I call you, then?"
Carrie (Julian Kessner): "You can call me a cab."
Mrs. Blalock: "Very well then, you're a cab."

The good doctor gives his rowdy charges some pills, tells 'em they gotta take them every day. Apparently, they'll "ease the anxiety of taking classes and meeting the students."
"Doc," says Chicago (Janice Heiden), "Have you ever been to jail? I'm pretty sure we can handle college."

Yeah well, wait 'til those goofballs kick in, smartass.

Later on, there's a very Starsky and Hutch style meeting between Dr. Blalock and some sweaty bearded guy, where they discuss the experiment. Some bullshit about side effects and the military. Whatever. That night, the professor throws a party for the girls. Mitzi (June Fairchild, aka the Ajax Lady from Up in Smoke!) strips naked and jumps in the pool. I sort of expected something a little wilder, but bare-ass is bare-ass. Everybody else jumps in, too. It's a pretty fun party.


Next day, the girls take a whirlpool. There is no reason for this scene except to show their tits. Bravo, Mr. Trikonis. Afterwards they sit around tossing dice and talking about dudes.
"Phil's got big feet," notes Chicago.
"What's that mean?" asks Carrie.
"It means he's got a big ding dong," says Mitzi.
Does this sound like the kind of conversation hardened criminals would have?


When the girls go to bed, it's revealed that they're being watched by some fat fucker in the basement. He's got a row of TV monitors in there. From the beads of sweat rolling down his neck, it looks like he's enjoying the gig.

The girls start their first week of college, and right off the bat, their behavior seems to be changing. Carrie gets smart all of a sudden, Chicago turns into a violent, sex-obsessed maniac and Mitzi - who was goofy enough as it is - starts ranting about penguins. Despite all this, Dr. Blalock lets the girls out for a night on the town, and it turns into an orgy of crime. Mitzi smashes a store window with a garbage can and steals a giant stuffed penguin.


Chicago tries to rape this dude and then gets into a righteous back-alley cat fight with the dude's girlfriend, almost drowning her in a barrel.
"Christ," Chicago says, as they make a quick escape, "I'm freaked."


The next day Carrie gets up in the middle of class and starts raving about society. She picks up the teacher's ashtray and whips it against the wall and says, "Can't you see? I'm you! I'm the student body!" And then she runs away. It's pretty awesome.

Back at the mansion, Dr Blalock is lamenting his involvement in this whole mess. "The girls are going slowly mad," he grouses to his wife. He takes a gulp of brandy. "And you smell like a French whore."


Anyways, since Carrie is a super-genius, she figures out who's behind this nefarious experiment, but not before Mitzi bashes a guy's head in with an ashtray. Things get progressively more nihilistic, but fear not: it all ends with giggling and a hummable soft-rock number.

One the one hand, The Student Body is guilty of the classic drive-in bait and switch: the poster clearly pushes the T&A angle, but the boobs-baring is abandoned twenty minutes in as the film settles into a TV movie-esque action-drama. But given the natural beauty of the three leads and the exploitation flick pedigree of its creators, trash-fiends will have little to complain about, really.

Director Gus Trikonis began his career as an actor in the early 60's. He appeared in West Side Story, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and in '67 biker flick The Hellcats, among others, before switching to the other side of the camera for a long and eventful career in directing. His early directorial efforts are pure, hi-octane trash: Five the Hard Way (1969), Supercock, The Swinging Barmaids (both 1975), The Student Body, Moonshine County Express (1977), The Evil (1978). By the end of the 70's, he had settled comfortably into television movies and episodes, and his propensity for the genre is obvious even here, from the cars-crashing-through-boxes to the cheeseball cue music (bongos, trumpet blasts, acid-rock guitar). Its' bubblegummy stuff, for sure, but peppered with loony characters and layered with mid 70's grit. The script was written by Hubert Smith, who had a brief but eventful career as a screenwriter. Besides this and very entertaining John Saxon/Claudia Jennings hicksploitationer Moonshine County Express, he wrote 1978's Night Creature (AKA Devil Cat), a man-versus-nature nail-biter that pits a bug-eyed Donald Pleasance against a seemingly unkillable black panther, and the infamous Rosy Grier groaner The Glove (1979), about a nutty ex-con with a giant metal glove that can smash cars into bits. I like the way this guy thinks. Too bad he hasn't written a script for thirty years. But you just know he's out there somewhere, thinking up some crazy shit.


All three of the lead cons-cum-college students give credible performances, especially in light of how silly the premise is. Jillian Kessner, the smart one, pulled off the brains n' beauty bit admirably. The Student Body was her acting debut, and she went on to have a pretty steady career in television - she even appeared in the legendary, canceled-after-one-episode Animal House rip-off Coed Fever (1979). Unfortunately, she died from Leukemia in 2007.


Janice "Chicago" Heiden also had a lucrative run as a television character actor, but dropped out of the business in the mid-1980's.


Easily the most memorable actress of the three was June Fairchild, who essayed the role of penguin-centric Mitzi with a convincing mad-woman gleam in her eye. June's acting career was relatively brief, but quite eventful. From weirdo sports-murder flick Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971) to blaxploitation classic Detroit 9000 (1973), from the Monkees' freak-flick Head(1968), to Cheech and Chong's stoner epic Up in Smoke (1978), Fairchild had all the makings of a cult star. But her film appearances dried up abruptly at the end of the 70's, and she wasn't heard from again until 2001, when it was reported in the Los Angeles press that she had fallen on hard times over the years, suffering a crippling addiction to drugs and alcohol. She had served time in jail and was, at the time the story was written, homeless.

But, just as Mitzi did in The Student Body, Fairchild rallied at the last minute. With a little help from her friends (including Clint Eastwood, who she co-starred with in 1974's Thunderbolt and Lightfoot), she bested her demons and turned her life around. We are still awaiting her inevitable comeback, but until then, there's always the penguin incident.

And, of course, the Ajax Lady.



Availability: The Student Body is available on VHS.
Buy The Student Body on Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre