Weekend with the Babysitter

It's been a couple of years since I watched something called The Babysitter. That movie starred George E. Carey as a middle-aged man who ends up having an affair with a young woman who was the babysitter of his and his wife's child. Carey was also one of the writers and the producer of that earlier flick. So it's with this one that he's once again a triple threat, credit-wise, and once again he plays a character who has an affair with a young woman who also sits for his child. The first one, though, had a much serious subplot and while there's some melodrama here, mainly concerning his wife who's a serious addict, the scenes involving the man and his young woman are meant to be more relaxing fun. Unfortunately, while the previous one seemed filled with some excitement, this one threatens to be a little dull due to the scenes in which George hangs with Candy's (the babysitter's name which was the same name in the previous flick though that one was played by a different actress) friends while smoking a joint as well as subsequent dialogue scenes between Candy and George. At least his wife in this one is much more attractive than the wife in the previous one, that's for sure! So overall, Weekend with the Babysitter was only okay as a drive-in flick.

This is another 1970's "sex-with-the-babysitter" movies (the best of these probably being "Jailbait Babysiiter" made a few years later). They don't make these kind of movies today, and personally I wouldn't want to see them if they did (after you reach a certain age you may still harbor a nostalgic attraction for the teenage girls of your own youth, but that doesn't mean that you really want to see modern-day teens having sex with anybody). That's not to say that this movie is all that racy. There's some nudity, and some gratuitous showering and spanking. The character is underage, but I don't think the unknown actress actually was.

The real problem with this movie is how shamelessly it pandered to the perverts of the day. The male protagonist is very middle-aged, bordering on elderly--a lot more likely to have grand-kids than kids, and hardly any teenage girl's dream date. He even gets to be a hero when he rescues his unfaithful wife from the clutches of a vicious drug dealer, thus morally glossing over the whole infidelity and statutory rape issue. I liked "Jailbait Babysitter" better because it was told from the perspective of the girl and the middle-age lech in that one is treated to a heart attack(!) rather than to hero status. Neither is very realistic, of course, but even blatant moral hypocrisy is preferable to this kind of sleazy pandering.

Two things are of interest about this otherwise forgettable movie though. It was directed by Tom McLoughlin, old "Billy Jack" himself, a guy who(perhaps erroneously)was considered in touch with the "youth culture" of the day (making it all the more curious why this movie is told from the perspective of the middle-aged codger). And the gangster's sleazy girlfriend is played by Anik Borel, an interesting European actress who appeared in the ludicrous trash-cult favorite "Werewolf Woman" because the director thought she had a face like a wolf (albeit with a body to die for). There's absolutely nothing else to recommend this though. See "Jailbait Babysitter" instead.

There was a shooting star named Patricia Wymer, who appeared in a 1969 film by the same director called The Babysitter. She only did about three movies and then disappeared.

Director Don Henderson brings in a new girl, Susan Romen, to play Candy Wilson, the babysitter. She only made two films. As a matter of interest, Henderson quit directing the same time after only three films. I wonder what happened to all these people.

Anyway, while movie producer Jim Carlton (George E. Carey) is having fun with the babysitter and her hippie friends, his wife Mona (Luanne Roberts) is captive to her drug dealer.

This is not the typical grindhouse film of the 70s. It was more a drama about hippies and drugs. Yes, there was some nudity and woman on woman action, but it was rather tame.

Still, a good story, if the acting was a bit lame.

Who was taking care of the kids while Jim and the babysitter were having fun?

Weekend With the Babysitter : George E. Carrey stars as Jim, a well-off B-movie director who falls for his kids' babysitter. It's not hard to understand the attraction: his wife, a washed up actress-turned-junkie, is pretty damn irritating. Plus, the babysitter gives him some tips on the ridiculous script he's working on--a motorcycle gang/hippie movie. Trouble mounts while the director and babysitter are exploring free-wheeling good times (under the guise of doing movie research) when Jim's wife gets in too deep with some drug dealers by offering up her husband's fancy boat to complete a drug deal in exchange for another fix. What's funny about this film is that its predecessor, The Babysitter (1969), also stars George E. Carrey in what amounts to the same part. In this one, George E. Carrey is credited as co-writer of the film's plot. Funnier still is the babysitter, played here by Susan Romen, is named Candy, which is the namesake of the earlier film's babysitter as well, as depicted by Patricia Wymer. The most "meta" connection between the two is that, when Candy review's Jim's new script, she criticizes the dialogue, noting that "people don't talk this way." For all we know, she could have been reading the script of the earlier Babysitter film--although it's amusing to note that the Candys in both films enjoy saying "Ciao, baby!" This one is mostly entertaining, although the 1969 film is better by a thin margin.

Weekend with the Babysitter (1971)

* (out of 4)

A hot shot director (George E. Carey) has a fight with his wife who then runs away with their young son. The babysitter Candy (Susan Romen) ends up coming over and gets offended by a screenplay he's about to do. To set him straight, the babysitter takes the director to hang out with her hippie friends and later the two have sex. While all of this is going on the wife has been kidnapped by her drug dealer. Yeah. As you can tell, part of this film plays out like a remake of the 1969 film The Babysitter as this features the same production company, director, actor and even the babysitter's name is the same. While that film worked this one here is a complete and utter disaster, which has perhaps one good scenes but the rest of the movie should be thrown in the toilet, although I'm sure even the toilet would try to spit it out. We basically get the exact same story as the previous film but this time out for some reason they tried to deliver an action movie, which is just downright stupid. This was obviously shot on a low budget so all the action scenes look incredibly bad and they really don't make any sense. The mean drug dealers are all fools and you hate the wife so much you really don't care what happens to her. The one decent scene is when the hippies are trying to explain to the old man how to smoke grass. His reactions to what he's being told is pretty priceless. Stone is a tad bit better here than he was in the 1969 film but that's still not saying too much. The biggest problem is with Romen who just doesn't work as Candy. She doesn't have any of the charm that the other film had and she just comes off rather bland.