The Cheerleaders

"The Cheerleaders" is a prime example of a great sexploitation film.

It has fun, does not take itself seriously and never goes too long without the promised "action".

Despite the frequent sex, the movie is overall light and innocent. A lot of the comedy arises from the sex scenes which is sort of unique. Usually in these films the sex scenes are played straight and/or romantic and the sthick is in the rest of the film. Here, sex is part of the sthick and because of that it mixes into the movie a whole lot better.

It's also unusual to have female nudity played for laughs. The rule of thumb in these movies is that male nudity is funny (like in Porkys or Private Resort)and female nudity is sexy. In this movie, female nudity is played for laughs at least a couple times.

Slapstick, sexual slapstick, goofy premise, total reality disconnect, pre PC freedom, impossibly short cheerleader skirts, this movie has it all.

What it also has is a leading lady who's cute with a capital CUTE. Willowy Stephanie Fondue plays Jeannie, a girl who is desperate to lose her virginity but whenever she tries, something goes wrong. That's where the suspension of disbelief begins and you'll have to keep it all through the film. Especially when the cheerleaders come up with thier grand plan of helping thier team win by tiring out the opposing team in a... er... special way.

This is a classic for the Joe Bob Briggs set, of which I am a part(Yes, I love the real classics, I love the high minded films but I love these type of movies too... so shoot me).

It's also full of ephemeral details like see through water beds, shag walls and pictures of teen stars in the lockers I can't recognize. It's a trip!

The girls playing the cheerleaders did not have Oscars looming over thier heads but they were appealing and often showed decent comic timing.

You are most likely to find this film on video edited to an R(the earliest video release was not edited. I've seen both). The original version, while not pornographic, would no doubt get an NC-17 today. I don't know if it was originally released as an X rating, unrated or if it did indeed squeak by with an "R" rating because of the MPAA's looser latitude on sex in films back then.

So, for those of you that liked "American Pie" and all those other recent so called sexploitation movies, rent this movie and see how much more fun these type of movies were when they were less self conscious to getting a particular MPAA rating or to treading (but not crossing) "the line" and much more "Hey! This is going to be wild! Let's have fun with this!".

The only reason I like this film is that part of it (outside shots) were done at my alma mater, Monta Vista High. In fact, when the film came out, I was too young to see it.

Our School District, anxious for the money paid for use of the school during the summer months as a setting, thought that the film was about life in high school (it was tentatively titled High School Daze) and didn't bother to read the script.

Of course, they changed the name of the school for the film, so for the Yearbook in 1973 we snuck in all sorts of references to the film that managed to slip by the faculty. I still have a copy of an ad for the film in my old yearbook.

Sometimes, it's fun to see how easily bureaucrats can be fooled.

I've watched this film twice and I cannot think of how much more daring this film is compared to something like "American Pie". Incredibly stupid script with just horrendous attempts at acting. This film does deliver the goods. More nudity than some porn films! Could a film like this get made today? All the actress's in those late night Cinemax movies seem to have stipulations regarding their career's and I'm not sure they would do it. I tried to look up the actress's in this film and see if they went on to do anything else and a couple appeared in one or two other low budget films but none seem to make a career out of acting. I keep thinking some went into real porn under different names. Anyway, silly and fun flick really is a statement of some of the exploitation that was made in the 70's and the attitude towards nudity in film.

On one hand this movie is as silly and ridiculous as so many others of its ilk. On the other, it stood apart because it went beyond the boundaries of the day's softcore films, finding a niche between them and hardcore. It reflected an "anything goes" sexual ethic of the time.

Apparently, it was too hot for many communities around the land. The local D.A. here went to a showing where he dutifully noted the number of sex acts depicted. I would have had difficulty keeping count. Nowadays it's usually seen in edited (or butchered) versions which only serve to emphasize the silliness and leave out the cheap thrills. Oh well.

This film wasn't the first to exploit the male fascination with cheerleaders but it did inspire numerous imitations and rip-offs, mostly of an inferior nature, if you can imagine that.

As far as these sort of trashy and sleazy. soft-core productions go, this was absolutely a great and a real fun one to watch.

Of course the movie is being totally simplistic with its story and the movie is basically some total nonsense from start till finish but they at least managed to make it a very fun watch. Seriously, the movie is deliberately being more of a comedy, which was a true great approach for the movie to take with its silly concept.

It's a soft-core flick, so that means it's mostly being filled with female nudity but the sex itself is never anything explicit or something that goes too far, unless you find the premise of the movie already an offensive one to begin with. And believe me, I can see how this can offend some people. Basically the message this movie is sending out is that all cheerleaders should be seen as sex-objects and they will do ANYTHING for the team, including sleeping with the opposing team to wear them out, the day before the game. Really, sex seems to be the only thing that's on the mind of these young girls. And when they don't have a cute guy around, they use the coach, or someones father, or each other, to get their pleasures.

But key to liking this movie is to take nothing in this movie too seriously. And how could you really? It's often so silly and over-the-top, that you just can't ever take this movie seriously in any way.

It's a movie that is filled with lots of sexual innuendos and sexual orientated jokes. And I must say, the movie make me laugh quite a lot. I won't exactly say that the movie was ever being very clever with its jokes but it often was something so silly and random that it actually really works out great, comedy-wise. The timing is really spot on at times and it's actually a pretty well made and directed movie, all things considering.

Another reason why this movie just works out great and fun is because all of the girls are really fun to watch as well. I'm not just talking about it that they are pleasant and fun to look at but they also obviously had fun doing this movie, which shows on the screen and helps to make this an overall very fun experience. None of the acting is great but yet at the same time I can call it a really well cast movie because all of the girls suit their roles so very well. The movie besides did a great job at casting as many different looking girls as possible. It makes them easy to distinguish from each other and allows the movie to give each of them a more or less unique personality.

Really truly one of the most fun movies I have seen in a while.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/