How to Seduce Your Teacher (1979)

AKA La Liceale seduce i professori
Directed by Mariano Laurenti
Starring Gloria Guida, Alvaro Vitale, Lino Banfi, Lorraine De Selle
Rated R
Italy

"I'm sorry sir, did I break the enchantment?"
"No, you broke my balls."

While the traditional teen sex comedy is largely the work of American ingenuity, borne of shopping malls, cheerleader squads, milkshakes, and muscle cars, it is by no means a purely American phenomenon. The Israelis have their Lemon Popsicle series, the Brits their Confessions of, the French have their Six Swedes movies, and the Germans...well, I'm not sure they've nailed the comedy part of the equation, but they've got stuff, too. So it stands to reason that the Italians, perhaps the lustiest non-Brazilian country on Earth, would have their own T&A comedy series, as well. In fact, they have several, but today, let us concentrate on this brain-flaying nugget of wonderfulness.

How to Seduce Your Teacher stars Euro softcore queen Gloria Guida. In 1975, she made a film called The Teasers, where she played a sexy schoolgirl who seduces virtually every man she bumps into. Given her obvious charms - a statuesque frame wrapped in porcelain skin and crowned with a beauty-queen face somewhere between Barbara Bach and Tanya Roberts - this was not a far-fetched fantasy.

It proved wildly popular and so, in proper Italo-sploitation tradition, half a dozen more were cranked out, all with the same basic storyline. By 1979, Gloria was clearly in her mid-twenties, so they upgraded her scholarly pursuits to college, but otherwise, the song remains the same.


As the story opens, we are introduced to Pasquale (Lino Banfi), a bald, middle-aged dean of a small, unruly Italian university. Lino likes two things: banging chicks, particularly young ones, and playing the tuba. The latter he does with the school band, although he would desperately like to conduct. Unfortunately, this year that honor has been bestowed on his arch rival Salvatore (Alvaro Vitale), the school janitor. You may scratch your chin and wonder how the janitor would end up as conductor, but I suggest just rolling with it. This film will go down much easier that way.

The students are always playing practical jokes on Pasquale. This running gag seems to pop up every five minutes, but most of the time, the pranks either don't make sense or are just mean-spirited. There's the slam-the-door-in-his-face gag, for example, which is exactly that. They do this to him three or four times in a row, until his bottom lip looks like a sausage, and his nose is oozing blood. And this just makes them laugh harder. There's another scene where they stick balloons in his tuba. I don't get it either. Anyway, that stuff takes up some time.


Eventually, we get to the crux of the story, which is this: Angela (Guida) is Pasquale's niece. She's come to live with him and her two cousins for a semester. And that's it, the entire story. You'd think this economy of plot would make it easy to follow, but you would be mistaken. At any rate, Angela's considerable beauty appears to affect every male she meets, regardless of their relationship to her, as we discover when Uncle Pasquale comes home from work and accidentally walks in on her showering. He bites his hand and leers like a fourteen-year old boy. It's too stupid to be disturbing but still, I mean, is there no end to this madness?


Pasquale also has a young girlfriend, Fedora (Lorraine De Selle, a battle-worn vet of several cannibal, zombie, and women-in-prison flicks). The two of them are constantly dressing up in weird costumes. There's a Tarzan and Jane scene, which ends with Pasquale - dressed like Fred Flintstone - fucking Fedora while he stabs viciously at some invisible enemy with a hunting knife. And they don't just dress up when they're having sex, either. At one point, Pasquale is walking around town with a bushy beard and black hat. Dunno if he's supposed to be Jewish or French. Fedora shows up in his office dressed like an Italian gangster, complete with a greasy mustache. That one goes awry when Sal, the janitor/music teacher, barges into the room just as they were about to kiss. It turns into a face-slapping fest, with Pasquale yelling, "Who's a faggot? You calling me a faggot? There's no faggots around here, pal!"



Afterwards, Sal goes to men's room. He attempts sitting down for a relaxing bowel movement, but those damn students stole the fucking toilet bowl, so he lands on his ass.
And they laugh and laugh.

I should mention that Banfi and Vitale were a long-running comedy team at that point, and had appeared in several films together already. You can tell, even with the idiotic dubbing, that they have great chemistry together. They also spit on each other a lot. I guess spitting is funny to Italians. It's kinda gross, though.

Speaking of dubbing, I'm pretty sure whoever did the English dub job on this was just making shit up as they went along. There's one scene where one of the students is facing some sort of scholastic board to convince them to let him pass a class, and this is part of the exchange:
Teacher: "Tell me everything you know about monkeys."
Student: "Monkeys don't speak French."
Teacher: "I tend to agree with that. Certainly Chinese monkeys don't."

That can't actually be in the original script, can it? I mean, that's fucking crazy. That's like an Aqua Teen Hunger Force bit. Here's another unexplainable exchange, in a seemingly random scene at an outdoor café:

Waiter: "Here you are, Doctor Mazzi. How have you been feeling lately?"
Dr. Mazzi: "Better. Ever since I started taking these tranquilizers I prescribed for myself, I haven't had hallucinations anymore."
Waiter: "Very good, sir. Have a nice day."


So, right. Angela. Angela flirts with her cousin, and gets him to take her to the local disco. Cousin happens to play in a four-guitar, one-organ Italian space disco band, called, interestingly enough, "I Phone". They are way groovier than you'd expect. Angela gets bored and asks if she can sing with them. She belts out a number in Italian. It's pretty bitchin', in an ABBA-on-drugs sorta way. No idea if it was really Guida singing, but why the fuck wouldn't it be?



Angela decides not to fuck her cousin though, and sets her sights on mustachioed professor Carlo (Dario Argento vet Fabrizio Moroni). She gets him to tutor her in whatever it is he teaches. That goes pretty good, so she convinces him to join her at the disco, where she performs another song, this time while dancing with him. And then, as the title suggests, she seduces her teacher. Although I'm not sure about the "How to". The title of this film implies that it's going to teach you how to seduce your teacher, and unless you look like Gloria Guida circa 1979 and can sing Euro-trash pop at druggy polyester discotheques, this way probably won't work for you.

That pretty much covers it, although there is a surprise ending. A lame one, but a surprise, none the less. Oh, and Angela's friend Irma (Donatella Damiani) ends up in Angela's bed at one point. I forget why. They might not even have explained why. Anyway, she's got huge breasts. I mean, Russ Meyer-esque mammaries. For whatever reason, they had her in baggy clothes until the big reveal at the end. Holy fuckin' crud, was it worth it.

A lot of people seem to dismiss these films as moronic slapstick junk, but for garbage-heads in search of hardcore jollies, this one really does the trick. It's like the Italians were living in some alternate universe back in the 70's, one where everybody's sense of propriety is based on the Three Stooges, where dangerous pranks are merely signs of affection, and where cousin-fucking is not only approved of, it's practically mandatory. I liked everything about this movie, and when it was over, I wanted to:
A. Ogle Gloria Guida some more.
B: Ogle Donatella Damiani some more.
C: Break out some Italian space disco 12" singles (oh yes, I have some)
D: Put balloons in some asshole's tuba.

Tits galore, shameless laffs at the expense of clueless adults, bitchin' tunes, and feathered hair-dos. Ladies and gentleman, we have arrived at boner-movie heaven.

Availability: If you live in the UK or Europe, you're in luck, because most of the Guida sex comedies are available on legit Region 2 DVDs. Otherwise, this film in sadly unavailable in the US. I bought a very grainy bootleg DVD-R at a local record shop. Swim around in the gray market soup or hipper torrent trackers, and mebbe you'll strike gold.

Link: Awesome Donatella Damiani gallery

-Ken McIntyre

Fast Food (1989)

Directed by Michael Simpson
Starring Jim Varney, Traci Lords, Pamela Springsteen
Rated PG-13
USA

"So, you into marine biology?"
"Well, I know how to swim."

Auggie (Clark Brandon) is one of those over-confident, constantly-scheming Ferris Bueller types. As the film opens, he's hosting a casino night fundraiser for his fraternity house. He has, of course, rigged all the games. And then he bangs a freshman who, it turns out, is the dean's daughter.

Let us pause here and examine this curious trend in 80's teen-flicks. In the wake of Ferris and the Cult of Guttenberg, a new character emerged: the charming prick. In the case of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Police Academy, the characters worked because the actors really were charming, and despite their rakish behavior, they never really did any harm. By 1989, there were dozens of films that employed a similar character in the lead role, minus the actual charm, wit, or heart. And so you are left with villains-turned-inside-out like this smug fucker Auggie who, in the first five minutes of the movie, has already wrecked several lives. Who's to blame for this alarming trend? Cocaine? Reagan? Hard to say, but one thing is for certain, the target demographic for these films were not womanizing alpha-jerks. Those assholes were into Top Gun. There were no Auggies watching low-ball junk like this. These movies were rented and adored by misfits, cellar-dwellars, shut-in nerdboys and nocturnal masturbators, not fuck-faces with Rick Springfield haircuts and wifebeaters. So, you know, there better be some decent nude scenes, because the hero is a zero.


So anyway, back to our story. Auggie and his middle-aged pal Drew (Randal Patrick) get summoned to the dean's office, who informs them that eight years of hijinks is quite enough. He gives 'em diplomas and sends them on their way. Meanwhile, Drew's cousin Samantha (Tracy Griffith) runs a rundown, in-the-hole gas station inherited from their grandfather. Bazillionaire fast food magnate Wrangler Bob (Jim Varney, RIP) wants to buy it and turn it into one of his hamburger joints, since it sits across the street from the college. You see where this is going? Smelling easy money, Auggie convinces Sam and Drew that they should open their own fast food place there instead. Fuck Wrangler Bob. And that's what happens. Pop's service station becomes Pop's Burgers. Cue the 80's fixing-the-place-up montage. It's your classic David versus Goliath story. But where's the boners come in? Well, there's a twist.

Back at the college, in some deep, dark lab, two scientists are doing research on Priapism, which we now know, from watching countless Viagra commercials, is a "constant, painful erection." So the scientist gets a whiff of the formula she's working on, and she goes sex-mad. She rips off the other scientist's clothes and bangs him into oblivion. Some bullshit happens, and Auggie ends up using the sex formula in Pop's special sauce. Who, after all, wouldn't want a hamburger that'll make your girlfriend horny?

They get a gig catering a fancy-pants sorority mixer at the college, and that's when they try out their fuck sauce for the first time. The upper-crusty bores start chomping on the sauce-slathered meat, and the lame-o dinner turns into a wild orgy of...well, it's hard to say what happens, really. Since Fast Food is hampered by a PG-13 rating, they don't actually show a whiff of sexy shenanigans. At one point, they line up a row of girls for a wet t-shirt contest...and then they never have the fucking contest. Rats. By the way, Mary Beth, the curly-haired sorority queen...boss...whatever they call her, is portrayed by Pamela "Sister-of-Bruce" Springteen. Pam is most remembered for her role as the gender-bending psycho killer in gonzo summer-camp slashers Sleepaway Camp II. & III. Micheal Simpson directed those as well, and if you look closely, you'll find half the cast of the Sleepway Camp movies wandering around in Fast Food. If only Simpson brought along some of the crazed energy, bizarre plot twists, and kinky sexuality of the Sleepaway Camp sequels as well, because this movie sorely needs them.

The very next day, business is booming, as evidenced by a montage wherein an old guy chases a nurse around a tree and two chubby lesbians in denim jackets rock a trailer. At one point a nun and a priest stare longingly in each other's eyes, but before they can tongue-kiss or whatever they had planned, God shoots them with lightning. Wrangler Bob hires Traci Lords on as a corporate spy. He calls her on his hamburger phone, by the way. So he was a good twenty years ahead of Juno on that one. Traci gets a job at Pop's Burgers and weird ol' Michael J Pollard - who works there in some unspecified capacity - spills the beans about the sauce.

Traci has to try it herself, of course, so that we can get a shot of her in her undies, when she attempts to seduce Auggie. But Auggie is now convinced that he's in love with Samantha, so he rebuffs her. Which, I guarantee you, has never, ever happened to Traci Lords in real life.

Wrangler Bob calls the FDA, they seize Pop's burgers, and everybody declares their hatred for Auggie. Dejected, he hangs himself. Later on, Sam finds his still-spinning corpse and sets it ablaze. The end.

Not really. The first part, yeah, but the end is a little different.


Fast Food is still a cable TV staple and a minor cult hit amongst squares, Traci Lords completists, and thirty five year old women with a lingering Clark Brandon crush, but for sleaze-beasts and tit-mongers, there is very little to grasp onto here. The acting is above par and so are the production values, but if you were expecting the standard Michael Simpson experience - full-tilt, balls-out lunacy - stick with his slashers. This was, by the way, the last film Simpson directed, and the last one that Clark Brandon acted in. Simpson's been writing and producing family fare ever since. Brandon, who knows. He's probably out there scamming chicks or something.

PS: Fear not, fried meat fans...there are far sleazier fast food-related jiggle-coms out there, and we'll get to 'em soon.

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

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