Class (1983)

Directed by Lewis John Carlino
Starring Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Jacqueline Bisset, John Cusack
Rated R
USA
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"You need anything? Neck brace?"

For a teen sex comedy, Class is pretty bourgeois. I suppose the title would imply that, but still, it takes some digging to dredge up much sympathy for the film's lead, a Harvard-bound brat whose heart is wounded by a seductive older woman. Who, among us, could possibly relate to this story? We, the botched teenage bunglers of the 1980's, with our parachute pants and Pac Man obsessions, our $3.25 an hour minimum wage jobs and barber shop haircuts, we are somehow supposed to care about this upwardly mobile little creep? That's a tough sell.

Then again, maybe it's just me. I've always had (ahem) class issues. Certainly the American public at large took to this provocative comic-drama, which not only set sail the star-ships of several young and promising actors (Andrew McCarthy, John and Joan Cusack, Alan Ruck, Casey Siemaszko, Lolita Davidovich, Virginia Madsen), but revitalized Jacqueline Bisset's career, who scored her biggest hit since '77's The Deep, (AKA 'The one where she went skin diving in a white t-shirt'.) Without question, Class has one of the most star-spackled casts in the genre, and production values that approach lushness. It is, for all intents, a fine piece of filmmaking. It's just that teenagers sorta hate rich kids, and would much rather have sex with girls their own age, as opposed to 42 year olds with frizzy hair and ruddy complexions. So I get the sneaking suspicion that Class was actually made for grown-ups.

As our story unfolds, we meet young Jonathan Ogner (Andrew McCarthy, already mastering the art of the distracting nervous twitch), a new student at a tony prep school outside of Chicago. He is roommates with handsome alpha-jerk Franklin (Rob Lowe), who, mere minutes after their introduction, convinces his new friend to stroll around outside in ladies underwear. Says it's a 'Senior tradition'. Jon goes along with it, resulting in a humiliating scene.

He is at first crushed and ostracized, going so far as to cry in the cafeteria after enduring an onslaught of catcalls and insults. But after staging a mock-suicide to prank Franklin back, the two forge a truce, becoming unlikely allies. During the course of a drunken evening together, Jon reveals that he's still a virgin, so Franklin sets up a double date for the two the following evening.
"Hey, these are nice girls," Franklin tells Jon. "I might not even get laid tonight. Although that's highly unlikely."

The girls (Virginia Madsen and Deborah Thalberg) are from the all-girls school down the road, so they meet surreptitiously, under the cover of darkness. A moonlight ride in Franklin's gleaming red sports car is planned, but Jonathan pukes in the back seat almost immediately, ending the evening.

Flash forward a few days. Apparently the boys' school has formal dances with the school for girls, and Franklin runs the dance committee. He brings Jonathan on board (other members include John Cusack and Ferris Buehler's stooge, Alan Ruck) as the group's secretary, and they all attend a meeting at the girls' school to discuss the upcoming Halloween dance. Virginia Madsen is so appalled to see the car-puker again that she trips while serving a plate of sandwiches, causing a Rube Goldberg-ian chain of events that culminate with her standing there with her right (and quite ripe) breast dangling in the wind. The sudden seachange from droll to slapstick is a little jarring but still, who expected Madsen nudity? Clearly, one of the greatest and most surprising skin-shots of the entire decade. I mean, that thing is spectacular.

Jonathan is, not surprisingly, banned from the Halloween dance, but Franklin (dressed like Jesus, complete with giant wooden cross), hands him $100 and encourages him to take a cab into the city. He goes to a bar filled with disco creeps and girls with orange lipstick and proceeds to alienate the clientele with his antics and buffoonery. The night looks like a complete wash until he runs into overaged party girl Ellen (Bisset). Spearheading the Cougar trend 25 years ahead of schedule, the sophisticated, fur-wearing Ellen seduces her young friend in an elevator in one of the most well-remembered sex scenes of the 80's. Seems pretty tepid and maybe a little gross at this point, but '83 audiences were easier to please.

Things start going well for Jonathan. He convinces Ellen he's a college student and begins visiting her for steamy sex-sessions on the weekends. Meanwhile, he's become the cock of the walk on campus, sauntering around like a big city ladykiller. Ah, but the ruse is up during an ill-conceived trip to New York City, when Ellen gets a glimpse of Jon's student ID, revealing his true identity as a lowly high school senior. She jumps into the nearest cab and leaves him high and dry.

Jon mopes around for awhile, and then Christmas rolls around. He takes off with Franklin in his sports car while Joan Jett's version of Little Drummer Boy plays on the soundtrack. What's up with that, Joan? They get to Franklin's family's estate, smoke some weed, chase the maid (Anna Maria Horsford) around a little, listen to dad (Cliff Roberston) drone on about tariffs forever. Boring rich white people stuff, basically. So why are we here? What's the big deal?
Well, then Franklin's mom walks in, and - spoiler alert, sorta - it's Ellen.
Haha, Jon's been banging his smart-ass roommate's mother all this time. Serves that prick right.

So, will Jonathan and Ellen be able to keep their dirty little secret, or will Rob Lowe and Cliff Roberston find out and kill them both with a hatchet? Or, conversely, will Rob just sorta shrug it off and carry on? And will we see any more boobs at all?

I will, at least, answer the last one. Yes, but they are African tribal titties, in black and white, no less, so I'm not sure they count. As for the rest, well, there is a bloody and protracted fistfight. I mean, how would you feel if Andrew McCarthy was fucking your mom?

Class is still fondly remembered by many, mostly for Rob Lowe's natural swagger and Bisset's smoky charms, but it lurches so violently between comedy and drama that it's hard to recommend it for teensploitation fans. Ivy Leaguers could probably masturbate to it, though.

After Class: Everybody either got famous, or got more famous. The end.

Availability: Class is available on DVD.

-Ken McIntyre

Spring Fever USA (1989)

AKA Lauderdale
Directed by Bill Milling
Starring Janine Lindemulder, Darrel Guilbeau, Michelle Kemp, Ron Jeremy
Rated R
USA

"Bambi, you're so beautiful. I can understand why some men kill for love."
"Wilson, you're so weird. I can understand why some animals eat their young."

One of the teen sex comedy's long-lost gems, this frivolous little film was written and directed by an ex porn producer, Bill Milling (Ecstasy in Blue, Blonde Velvet, both 1976), and starred a future porn star, Janine Lindermulder, during her brief B-movie stage. Considered by some to be a satire of the genre, and to others a hopeless and helpless victim of the genre's excesses, Spring Fever USA is both brilliant and brainless, a zippy, lighter-than-air romp that fairly throbs with cartoonish exuberance and takes care to fill every single frame with at least one bouncy blonde, more if they can fit. Littered with porn regulars (Ron Jeremy) and local weirdos (Beano), it's a witty bit of sexploitation that takes full advantage of Florida's natural boner-popping powers.

The story involves a spindly young man with a terrible haircut named Larry Wilson (Darrel Guilbeau), an unlikely Lothario and best friend to a loud, fat maniac named Animal (Screwball Hotel's own Jeff Greenman). We first meet these two goons on the beach, where they moon over bikini-clad hardbodies, which causes Animal to shove wet sand into his mouth.

"They're everywhere," he barks."Mindless hordes of bitchin' bimbos from beyond infinity bent on possessing my mind, with their hot little hands emitting cosmic rays into my mind!"
Like I said, he's a maniac.

Later on at school, they run into a breathless teenage beauty named Heather (Janine Lindemulder). Although she towers over Larry and would clearly never give this kid a second glance in any sort of world besides the one that apparently existed in this fantastical late 80's Floridian Neverland, Larry's aggressive pick-up lines appear to charm her enough to keep Heather talking. And then, from out of nowhere, two Mutt and Jeff goofballs in Hawaiian shirts attempt to abduct her, but they are summarily thwarted by Larry and Animal, who sucker punch them and bolt, dragging Heather with them. Animal hitches a ride on a Sccoby Doo-esque mystery van, and Larry takes off with Heather, who happens to have a gleaming white Excalibur waiting for her behind a clump of palm trees. By the way, although they look pretty fancy, you can buy one of those things for like $30,000.

Heather is appreciative of Larry's rescue efforts, and offers to take him out to dinner.
"You're a very unique and special guy," she says, apparently unaware that both words mean the same thing. Skipping dinner completely, the two go straight to Heather's hotel room. She slips into a bubble bath and tells Larry to order Dom Perignon, the only alcohol that she drinks. It gets her very, very loose, apparently.

Larry calls for room service, but they're out of the stuff. Heather sends him to a liquor store across the street, where he runs into the shop's crazyfro'd owner (the singularly named Beano, seriously going for it), who looks and sounds like some unholy cross between a gone-to-seed Gene Simmons and a mid-bender Sam Kinison.

Liquor store guy extorts several hundred dollars from our shlubby pal as they barter for the last bottle of Dom Perignon, but then Ron Jeremy, with pantyhose on his head, robs them both at gunpoint, fucking it up for everybody. Miraculously, Larry pulls off a swift chopsocky move, knocking Jeremy out. Crazyfro rewards him with the bottle.
"Thanks kid," he says. "Now I'm gonna take this grenade, shove it up his ass, and blow him up."

Various foul-ups happen to Larry along the way back to the hotel. A homeless guy (David Donham, My Chauffer, American Drive In) spooks him, causing him to smash the bottle. Luckily, the wino's been holding a bottle of the "Frog shit" for days, looking for a corkscrew. Larry buys it from him, but then a biker yanks it out of his hand and vrooms off into the night. Etc.

He finally makes it back to the room to find that Heather had a bottle all along, and is now sufficiently lubricated. They roll around on the bed for a bit, but before Larry can consummate this arduous amorous adventure, the two loud-shirted knuckleheads from earlier this afternoon barge in, abducting their prey and conking Larry on the head.

He wakes up in a luxury apartment, where yet another blow-dried blonde (Lara Belmonte) aerobicizes suggestively. She finally notices him and explains that she's Rachel, 'good friend' of Heather's, who went to see her at the hotel last night, but found the room ransacked and her friend missing. Rachel tells Larry that she had her 'chauffer' drive them both home.
"It's ok, Heather got away," Larry says. "At least I think she did. I had a bunch of champagne last night, and then I got hit in the head, so my brain is kinda fuzzy."
"Well," Rachel says, running her fingers through his hair, "If you could tell me anything at all about what happened, I'd be very grateful."
"It's starting to come back to me," Larry says, glancing down at his crotch.
"Maybe a relaxing hot tub with firm up that memory," Rachel purrs.
"Oh, I think it's firming up already," says Larry.
Seriously, how is this skinny fucker pulling all this off?

Turns out that Rachel is working for vaguely evil Mr. Geeko (Randy Stevens), who really wants Heather back, for whatever reason. Larry is less help than she'd like, so she has the two idiots, now identified as brothers Dick and Duke Dork (Robert Moss and Mark Levine, respectively), give Larry some 'drowning lessons' in the hot tub. Luckily, he's saved by yet another bottle-blonde in a flashy car.

I should point out here that it is quite difficult to keep all these women straight, because they all look pretty much the same. This isn't really the film's fault, though. Most women looked like these girls in 1989. Perms, peroxide, tanning booths and aerobics classes were all very, very big in the late 80's. Anyway, this one is Jane (the very Linnea-esque Michelle Kemp), who works for Heather's dad. Seems she's the daughter of one of the world's richest men, and on her 18th birthday - just one week away! - she'll inherit one million shares of his company. I didn't really understand the whole convoluted story, but Mr. Geeko gets the company if she doesn't show up at some corporate meeting in seven days. So that's why Geeko wants her lost and dad wants her found. Jesus, it took 45 minutes to get to the actual plot. And so, off zooms Jane and Larry to find Heather before the Dorks do.

Of course, the Dorks snatch Heather almost immediately. She was pretty easy to find, considering that foolish car she was tooling around in. Meanwhile, Larry and Jane rent an RV and tour various surf shops (Heather mentioned she wanted to find "The Big Kahuna"), and then stop at a lingerie shop where two more wind-blown almost-blondes (Sherrie Rose and Kimberly O'Brien) model sleazy under-things for them for ten minutes. And then, because it's 1989 (also because it's part of the plot somehow; frankly, this whole scene distracted me), Jane pours into a teddy and garters, too.

Oh, right. It's so she can seduce the Dorks. The plan works, and they rescue Heather, but she cares nothing for her father's company or that Geeko fuckface, she just wants to party, dude. Ron Jeremy shows up on a motorcycle, and they take off to Lauderdale.

Finally, fuckin' Fort Lauderdale. Cue the Beasties rip-off rap-rock tune (blame 'Jeff Mills and Asrock' for that one) and a spring-break montage featuring a seemingly endless array of bared breasts, plus a dude with a mullet and a mustache disco dancing, and a one-armed black dwarf.

Larry and Jane find Heather oil-wrestling at a nightclub while a Night Ranger-ish band called Fury, with a lead singer who looks like Carrot Top, blares away on stage. I'll give it to the girls: they seriously wail on each other.

Heather escapes Larry's clutches (pretty easy to do, she was probably quite slippery, given the Wesson oil) and ends up at another club, this time singing with yet another ear-battering band, The Rebel Pebbles. The song, some sort of new wave/surf hybrid, goes, in part, "Nights filled with passion, night-time assassin/Fantasies unleashed, you're finally with me". One dude plays the keytar. It's a pretty awful song.

Then there's a belly-flop competition, followed quickly by a wet t-shirt contest. Look closely, and you might also spot a young Amy Lynn Baxter during an extended bikini car wash scene. By this point in the film, it becomes pretty obvious that director Milling is determined to suck every bit of pulp out of the already-occurring Lauderdale spring break for his movie. If you were there in 1988, then I suggest you hunt this down, as it will serve as a fine home movie of your experience.

Spring Fever USA roars to a climax with a boat chase, guns, the ol' switcheroo, and a typically improbable happy ending where everybody ends up with bright futures and compatible sexual partners, even fat loudnouths and future sex stars. Such endings are usually pretty tough to swallow, but after 90 minutes of bikini car washes and belly flop kings, you start to believe that just about anything is possible, as long as it's happening under a blazing Florida sun.

Director Bill Milling has had one of the most amazing exploitation film careers imaginable, having done everything from acting to directing to special effects on films like Squirm (1976), Nightmares in a Damaged Brain (1980) Savage Dawn (1985) and Caged Fury (1989). These days, he owns a successful film studio in New York City, but probably misses topless shoots in Florida every once in awhile. Janine Lindermulder of course became a semi-mainstream porn star with two full-sleeves of tattoos. Non masturbators would probably recognize her best as the porno-nurse on the cover of that one Blink 182 album. Darrel Guilbeau has carved out a lucrative career doing voice-over work for anime. Michelle Kemp never acted again, nor did Beano. Ron Jeremy is as fat as ever. Many thousands of college kids still go to Fort Lauderdale every spring break to drink themselves into comas and judge girls on their ability to wet down their t-shirts.

Availability: Spring Fever USA is semi-available on DVD and slightly more available on VHSunder its original title, Lauderdale. I encourage you to seek out one or the other and dream big 80's dreams.

-Ken McIntyre

Joy of Sex (1984)

AKA National Lampoon's Joy of Sex
Directed by Martha Coolidge
Starring Michelle Meyrink, Colleen Camp, Ernie Hudson, Lisa Langois, Christopher Lloyd
Rated R
USA
Buy this bitchin' poster!

"I just read that preppies are out and yuppies are in."
"Hmm. Maybe I should go on the pill."

Nominally (but not really) based on Alex Comfort's 1979 millions-selling sexual handbook, Joy of Sex was one of National Lampoon's early forays into the tawdry teen genre. They are still milking that particular cow thirty years later, but very rarely do they approach the wit and invention of Martha Coolidge's fluffy little film. The hymen-thin plot involves one Leslie Hindenberg (Michelle Meyrink, best known as the cool-nerd love interest in 1985's Real Genius), a frustrated virginal high school student who misdiagnoses a mole as cancer and, assuming that she's going to die soon, decides she's got to pop her cherry before she shuffles off this mortal coil.

That's pretty much it, although there's a couple of running sub-plots involving chesty new girl Liz Sampson (Colleen Camp, 31 years old at the time they were filming), a drug-obsessed tough-talker who is driving all the boys crazy with her tight sweaters and gum-snapping, and Farouk (Danton Stone), an easily confused Middle-eastern exchange student who is constantly garbling teenage vernacular ("Excuse me, but why are some students getting stoned? Isn't this cruel and unusual punishment?") Every so often there's also a seemingly random scene, such as the bit where the school janitor attacks a trophy case full of Mr. Potato Heads with a blow torch, or when Alan (Cameron Dye) fantasizes about ravishing his nerdy science teacher.

Ok, so the premise is pure screwball corn, but despite it all, Joy of Sex is still one of the more realistic portrayals of high school life in the 1980's. Had it been shot today, pretty boy lead Max (Charles Van Eman) would have already sexed the entire cheerleader team and half the faculty. Here, he's on his way to 18 and still hasn't gotten laid. Sex wasn't so easy to get back before they invented Craigslist. The kids don't always make sense in this movie either ("Fate is calling you Les, don't get a busy signal"), and that's also pretty accurate. Teenagers aren't known for consistency. And seriously, who but a hormone-mad teenager would buy mom-aged Colleen Camp as one of their own?

Leslie sets her sights on nice-guy Max. Max's brother Alan decides to tame Liz Sampson. Farouk wanders in and out scenes, muttering about life back home:
"You know back in Abu Dhabi, it's the woman who sits in the ass of the car."
After several fizzling attempts, Leslie manages to get Max all to herself in her dad's car on a moonlit night at the local cemetery. A weird place to park, but whatever.

Max is wary, since Leslie's dad (Christopher Lloyd) is the wrestling team's loony coach, and he's announced several times that he'll "eat the balls" of any man who defiles his daughter. Leslie tries to ease Max's troubled mind with some Seals and Crofts lyrics:
"We're all alone," she coos. "And we may never pass this way again."
The couple starts to get busy, but Max fumbles around too much and ends up kicking the emergency break, causing the car to roll down a hill and crash into an open grave.
So that didn't work out too well.

Meanwhile, at the drive-in (chopsocky classic Queen Boxer is playing), Alan is working up a sweat on the leatherette with Liz, when she suddenly stops him.
"There's a lot you don't know about me," she tells him in her machinegun staccato.
"A great deal. Too much."
She explains to him that she is not actually a student, but a narc, working undercover to break up a school-wide dope ring. She'll make her arrests tomorrow, and Alan will never see her again. Unless...
"Even though I'm 30 and you're 17, I'm really attracted to you, Alan," says Liz. "Of course, having sex with a minor could get me thrown off the force. I have a career to consider. But honestly Alan, I get all hot and weak whenever I'm kissing you. Let's not talk about wasted youth, Alan. Kiss me again and the woman in me will throw this badge out the window and live for the now."
"Wait a minute, Liz," says Alan, trying to hold her off. "It is Liz, isn't it?"
"Kathy," she says, nuzzling his neck. "Kathy Reagan. No relation."
80's joke.
Alan freaks out completely, and peels off.
If there were some sort of Oscar-y award for low-budget teen-scuzzfilm performances, Camp would have certainly won an armful for that scene. Oh, and in the next car over, Max, Farouk and a few other numbskulls light their farts on fire until the roof of their car blows off. Hijinks!

Leslie spends the next half-hour or so trying desperately to get laid, first with an old boyfriend who turns out to be gay, and then with a boorish local newscaster, Ted Stevens (Paul Tulley) who she's had a crush on. Unfortunately, when she tries to utilize a diaphragm for the first time, it gets stuck on the ceiling, and she bails.


So, will Max fall in love with Leslie's hot best friend Melanie (former Miss Teen Canada runner-up Lisa Langois)? Yep. Will Leslie figure out she's not dying and fall in love with Max's brother Alan? Yep. Will the movie end in a costume ball turned drug-fueled orgy? How could it not? Skimpy on overt sexuality but packed tits-high with memorable performances from fresh-faced kids and familiar faces (Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson is the uptight school principal, Laverne and Shirley nemesis Carole Ita White is a horny plumber, Christopher Lloyd gets a blowjob!), Joy of Sex is kinda dumb and kinda smart. Just like most high schoolers. Unlike most high-schoolers, it's actually fun to be around.

In conclusion: Director Martha Coolidge fought bitterly with Paramount over Joy of Sex prior to its release. Some bullshit about nudity. Since there isn't any in the film, I am unsure who won that particular scuffle. Coolidge considered taking an Alan Smithee credit on the final product, but ultimately shrugged it off, correctly assuming she'd go on to greener pastures regardless. The controversy may have put a pallor on the film, because there's really no reason why it should still be languishing in virtual obscurity, without even the hint of a DVD release. Unlike a good 69% of the teen sex comedies of the 1980's, Joy of Sex is actually funny, and frequently so; it's also got some great character actors and appealing leads. Breezy and fun, Joy of Sex is well worth seeking out, even in it's current grainy, 25-year old VHS incarnation.

Martha Coolidge was a veritable master at the frothy teen-com, having helmed the classic Valley Girl a year before, and Val Kilmer's greatest moment, Real Genius, a year after. Although she left the genre back in the 80's, where it belongs, she's still working, mostly in television. Most recently, she's directed episodes of Weeds and Psych. Michelle Meyrink was on her way to bonafide cult actress with roles in The Outsiders (1983), Valley Girl (1983) Real Genius (1985) and Nice Girls Don't Explode (1987), but she also left teen coms behind at the tail end of the 1980's and has since become some sort of hardcore Zen Buddhist back home in Vancouver. The now very flannel-y Meynick can be seen spreading the word of quiet living in the recent Zen-umentary Chop Wood, Carry Water. Here's a clip.

Colleen Camp was, of course, already a bonafide cult actress at this point, having appeared in seminal drive-in window-steamers like The Swinging Cheerleaders, The Last Porno Flick (both 1974), Ebony, Ivory and Jade (1976), The Seducers, Love and the Midnight Auto Supply (both 1977), etc. She appeared in a fistful of cheeseball comedies in the 80's (Rosebud Beach Hotel, 1984; Police Academy 2, 1985;Screwball Academy, 1986), and has been doing steady character work ever since, including an uproarious stint as the most irritating Hollywood agent imaginable in Laura Kightlinger's brilliant but short-lived series The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman (2007). She is a certified B-movie goddess with one of the all-time great racks, and we enthusiastically salute her.

Availability: Joy of Sex is available on VHS.

-Ken McIntyre

The Young Graduates (1971)

Directed by Robert Anderson
Starring Patricia Wymer, Tom Stewart, Gary Rist, Bruno Kirby
Rated GP
USA
Buy this bitchin' poster!

"Pills and booze. Wow."

Somebody ought to revive The Young Graduates as a rickety stage play, preferably one cast by today's most over-reaching young thespians. Is Tara Reid too old to play 18? She'd be perfect. We get all these young druggy screwballs together, fit them into body-hugging yarn dresses and bell-bottoms, give them cardboard dune buggies to drive around in, and hand them the script to the Young Graduates.

Here, let's picture it, using the film's first scene. In it, Mindy (exploitation mini-legend Patricia Wymer) and her goofy boyfriend Bill (Gary Rist), are sitting in Bill's buggy - the same kind that Charles Manson wanted to strap machine guns to - and discussing the fact that tomorrow is Mindy's 18th birthday. I'm going with creepy Evan Rachel Wood for Mindy, and Superbad's own Jonah Hill for Bill. Because Jonah Hill would totally own a beach buggy, if he could.

Evan Rachel Wood, batting her eyelashes: "Don't I get a present?"
Jonah Hill, sweating profusely and twisting the knob on the AM radio, which only seems to play suggestive, Hammond-organ driven jungle-surf:"Not until after midnight, when you're no longer legally jailbait."
Evan Rachel Wood, laughing sadistically. "What are you, on uppers?"
Jonah, actually serious about it: "The way you heat me up, I should be on downers."
EVR, punching him. "Ha ha. You are on uppers!"

I am willing to direct, for a nominal fee.

The Young Graduates is awesomely retro. Everything about it screams early 70's, from the topsy-turvy moral values to the relentlessly groovy soundtrack to the vintage threads and the post-Altamont downer vibe. The parents are all mixed-up squares who are either beating on the kids or trying to get them in bed, and the kids? Well, the kids just wanna ride their machines without being hassled by the man. It's like a bummed-out Beach Party flick with a strung-out Annette and an angst-addled Frankie. Since I was a mere infant when this was released in 1971, it is impossible for me to say whether The Young Graduates is an accurate representation of teen life in the late 60's/early 70's, but I'm guessing it was not. Now? Well sure, it's accurate now. Teachers fuck students constantly now. And then they write about it on Facebook or whatever. But in 1971, the idea was probably more fantasy than fact. Dunno. Ask your mom.

So, we have established that Mindy will be 18 tomorrow. Bill agrees to loan her his buggy to do whatever she wants on her birthday. Bad move, Bill. Meanwhile, Mindy's BFF Sandy (Marly Holiday, rocking an awe-inspiring Linda Lovelace porn-fro) has set up a surprise party for her. Too bad Mindy's got other plans.

See, there's this teacher, Jack (Tom Stewart), at Mindy's high school. He's married to the girls' gym teacher, Gretchen (gorgeous redhead Jennifer Ritt), but their marriage is on the rocks, as evidenced by a hellacious scene where Gretchen flatly denies Jack's advances.
"If there was a whorehouse in town, he growls at her, "I'd be tempted!"
"Oh, that's funny!" Gretchen replies.
"This town couldn't afford a whorehouse with all the competition your little high school girls would give it."
Rolling his eyes - he's heard this bullshit before - Jack storms out of the room.
"Where are you going?" Asks Gretchen.
"Where I always get my jollies on Friday night," he snorts, wagging an accusatory finger.
"Watching the late, late show."
Poor bastard. Gretchen is totally hot.

The next day, Mindy takes Bill's goofy car and rumbles over to Jack's house. He'd taken an unflattering picture of her at a school dance, and she's come to retrieve it from him. At least that's her excuse. As soon as she gets in the house, she rubs up against him, purrs, the whole bit. She lays it on so thick that you can practically hear the big globs of sweat dripping off this poor sap's brow. Gretchen's out of town for the weekend, so Mindy suggests they go to the mountains to take pictures for the afternoon. No big whoop, daddy-o. Just a little nature photography.
"It wouldn't be right," Jack says, sensibly. "I'm your teacher, after all."
"Ah well," says Melinda, "Your loss."
And then she starts to leave.
"Melinda? I'll be ready in two minutes," says our doomed Teach, as the camera zooms in crazily on Melinda's malicious grin.

At first it seems like Jack might actually pull this off without completely wrecking his life. He frolics freely with young miss Mindy, but for most of the afternoon, all they really do is climb rocks and take pictures. But then Mindy spies a bunch of hippies skinny dipping in a lake, and being 18 and willing, she peels off her clothes (she was going commando, by the way) and jumps in with 'em. What's a stuffy 30-something school teacher/amateur photographer/maker of bad choices to do? He pulls off his square threads and jumps into the naked fray, rolling around with the kids in the water, naked and weird and having a fuckin' ball.

Later on, they end up at the hippy pad, popping pills and chomping on some gross grub. Feeling the moment, Mindy and Jack lock lips. The Groovy Bunch exit stage left so they can fuck on the floor.

Few days later, Jack tells Mindy that it's over, baby. He might have spoke too soon, as Gretchen announces she's going on vacation with her mother for most of the summer.
Later that evening, Mindy and Sandy have a long and troubling talk about their future. It becomes increasingly clear that Mindy is a horrible, contemptuous young woman.

Mindy (once again played by Evan Rachel Wood): "Who cares about good grades anyway? Look at your father."
Sandy (portrayed here in my imaginary stage play by Anne Hathaway in a frizzy wig):
"My father?"
ERW/Mindy: "He graduated from college Magna Cum Laude, made big money, and what is he today? A drunk! An alcoholic! Well he is, isn't he?"
Sandy/AH, her enormous eyes welling up with tears: "I guess."
AVR/Mindy: "Well, a lot of good a college degree and a great job did him."
Sandy/AH: "Mindy, since your birthday, you're..." She pauses dramatically, choosing her words wisely. "You're just too deep for me."

Just then a boozy, desperate Jack- in a purple bathrobe - calls Mindy and tells her that he wants her back. Cue a queasy date montage where they hold hands, ride a motorcycle, zip around in a speed boat, and visit polar bears at the zoo while a breezy pop song goes "Your love is like shallow waters/and forever may end tomorrow morning". I know, sounds like some Nick Cave death-trip ballad, but it's actually got a Sergio Mendes sorta vibe.

Oh, I should mention that this is Bruno Kirby's first film. He's Bill's friend Les, who tells him, over slugs of coke in glass bottles, that Mr. Thompson's been banging his girl behind his back. He does not take the news well. Later on during gym class, Bill bonks Jack over the head with a basketball. That, however, is the least of Jack's worries. During a gratuitous shower scene that the leads aren't even in, Mindy tells Sandy that she thinks she's pregnant.

You figure that'd be the central drama here, but the pregnancy angle is tossed aside so that The Young Graduates can take a hard detour into Satan's Sadists-ville for half an hour. After a boring day at the drag races (Bill wears an awesome mask and almost crashes his dragster, but Mindy could not care less), Sandy and Mindy take off in the dune buggy. They meet up with Pan (an extremely young Dennis Christopher, half a decade before Breaking Away), one of the skinny-dipping hippies from half a lifetime ago.
"Oh, I didn't recognize you with your clothes on," says Mindy.

They decide they're going to Big Sur together, but almost immediately, they run out gas. They ditch the buggy, thumb a ride with some weed dealers in a psychedelic van, and eventually end up in the clutches of a psychotic biker gang who take Pan out to the woods and beat him half to death. Then one of 'em attempts to rape Sandy, but they escape during a scuffle between the bikers, and they head for the hills. Later on Mindy steals one of the motorcycles.
"I just want to go home," Sandy whines. "I'm so dirty."
"Nope," Mindy says. "We're going to Big Sur."
They really oughta cage this chick.

Mindy and Sandy have slapstick-y adventures on the motorcycle, including a run-in with two good ol' boys in cowboy hats (for some reason, I'm picturing Tenacious D for my stage version) that they meet at a diner. After wolfing down a big breakfast, the girls realize they have no money to pay the bill.
"Maybe those guy will pay for us, if..." Sandy begins.
"Ugh," says Mindy. "I'd rather go down on the motorcycle guys."
So they get chased by the dudes in a pick-up truck. Meanwhile, Jack, Bill, Les and a bunch of cops are looking for the girls. There's also a nomadic hippy tribe/large scale dope operation in there for good measure.

You wouldn't think a movie like this would have a riot scene, but it does. It also, against all odds, has a happy ending. And dancing! Also, although they do not show it, I think Gretchen finally bones her husband. Which may or may not keep him from seducing high school girls next year.

Clearly shot by bah-humbugging grown-ups during the dark days of Manson and Altamont, when the peace movement devolved into a greasy drug fuzz and free love became cheap sex, The Young Graduates is a weird and wonderful time capsule, a grumpy road movie that veers wildly between melodrama and sudden slapstick, with unlikable leads and a meandering story that reads like a lurid tabloid column penned by a confused, mean-old-man. Marketed as softcore in its initial theatrical run and then as a contemporary teen sex comedy (!) when it was released on VHS in the mid 1980's, Young Graduates is actually an overwrought teen melodrama that just happens to be fitfully hilarious in spite of itself. For better or worse, they simply do not make them like this anymore.

Patricia Wymer had already earned her place in drive-in history with appearances in tawdry 60's trash like The Babysitter and The Witchmaker (both 1969), but this is clearly her Apocalypse Now, a dark-hearted epic that gave her full reign to gobble the scenery like a pint-sized Godzilla. Unfortunately, this was her last film role. Apparently, she gave all she had on this one. Most of the cast slinked back into the murk of brown acid and Vietnam, but a couple notable actors, Dennis Christopher and Bruno Kurby, managed to ascend from triple-bill junk like this to mainstream Hollywood. Kirby died in '06, and we all miss him. Christopher is still skinny and weird. Director Anderson was already in his 50's when he made this "youth gone wild" film, so who can blame him for getting it all wrong? He called them like he saw them, man. Anderson had a very brief career, but managed to squeeze out one more exploitation head-scratcher, Cindy and Donna (1970), before moving on to greener pastures.

Availability: The Young Graduates was recently released on DVD as part of the Drive In Cult Classics Vol 4 set from BCI/Eclipse, which also includes The Van, Chain Gang Women, Don't Answer the Phone, and more. A mandatory purchase, obviously.
Buy Drive-In Cult Classics, Vol. 4 at Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre