Getting It On

"Getting It On" takes a seedy, repugnant premise, and then fails to go anywhere even particularly smutty with it. It's a movie about a teenager who apparently has hidden cameras in multiple areas around town filming girls taking their clothes off and having sex... and then makes you wait more than half the length of the movie before it shows you a glimpse of bare breast.

If this is confusing, it's nothing compared to the movie's "plot", which receives so little exposition that the movie makes little, if any, sense. I understood that the movie's protagonist has a flair for filming girls without them realising it, and also likes his next door neighbour. He has the typical goofy, obnoxious best friend who encourages him into emulating this behaviour when he is around the girl of his dreams, when he should just be "being himself".

I didn't really understand the point of the voyeuristic sequences, when the main character watches, for example, a group of girls having a pillow fight he has apparently filmed. This is, I guess, what sets the movie apart from other teen T'n A flicks, but in the movie itself it amounts to nothing. It could have been sleazily exploited to show more skin, and let's face it, it probably should have been! This is why people watch these movies, after all. However there is so little nudity in the movie, and the kid's voyeurism adds nothing to the story, so what was the point of it?

At one point it seems that his creepy hobby is going to save the day when his best friend is about to be sent to an all boys' school due to misbehaviour. The boys get a prostitute off the street, take her to a weird fancy dress party where both adults and teens are in attendance and the best friend dresses like a Klansman, and have the hooker seduce the kid's dad while on videotape.

They then play the film on the TV set the dad and his wife are watching, so that the wife can see her husband's adultery. What was the point of this? Revenge? Blackmail would have seemed a more obvious option. The response of the couple is even more bizarre and inexplicable.

Overall though, I enjoyed this movie. It's not as repugnant as it could have been, and I couldn't help but like the two main characters.

Two high school video nerds use cameras to peep on classmates in their underwear. No hilarity ensues. The cast actually appears to be playing a coming of age sex comedy straight! And (almost) without the sex...

Putting aside the creepy and legally actionable invasion of privacy premise, Mr. William Olsen, if you are trying to make one of the hundred or so no budget 80s teen romps that came out in the wake of Porky's - many direct-to-VHS - start by writing a few JOKES. If your budget is so small that driving to an audio-video store in a borrowed Gremlin counts as an action scene, if the best film stock you can afford has resolution below the quality of a late night infomercial, if your cast has less experience than the theatre department of the local community college, and your cameraman has to use in situ track lighting, you can still get by as long as the viewer has something to laugh at and a few busty co-eds. That's the basic formula. But here we get little of either.

The leaden pace is a hindrance as well. TV sitcoms also lack cinematic flair and are shot on only two or three sets. But any sitcom producer knows that all that is forgivable if you can wring some laughs out of the situation and keep things moving. A little character humour, some insult comedy, a bit of bug-eyed hyperbole, a few classic set up and payoff exchanges, a squirmy situation or two... Throw us SOMETHING. A badumbump joke. A prop gag. A pratfall. Manufacture a laugh and then push things ahead to the next setup.

No sex comedy with this little gratuitous nudity should be this utterly devoid of guffaws too. This is what results from failing at your one job.

Originally titled "American Voyeur" but released as "Getting It On", this North Carolina-lense teenage comedy nimbly pumps new life into the overdone high school hijinks genre. Though marketed as another raunchy "Porky's" followup, the William Olsen production is a well-acted, sweet and funny picture.

Filmmaker Olsen targets our consumerist and video-obsessed culture for some ribbing in this story of high school freshman Alex Carson (Martin Yost), with a crush on the girl next door, Sally (Heather Kennedy). Devising a video software business to earn money, Alex borrows his startup capital (at 15% interest) from his very businesslike dad, and with the help of his cutup classmate Nicholas (Jeff Edmond) takes the video equipment to record hidden camera footage of Heather and other pretty girts. When Nicholas is kicked out of school by mean principal White (Charles King Bibby), the heroes enlist he services of a friendly prostitute (Kim Saunders) to record footage of White in flagrante delicto.

What makes this material work is a fresh, enthusiastic cast, witty writing and direction by Olsen that bears no hint of malice. Though Alex's parents are caricatures, more interested in getting the latest satellite dish installed in the backyard than in their son's future, they are drawn as ingratiating characters, and even the practical joke directed against the principal turns out to benefit everyone, with no hard feelings. The script even includes a subplot reminiscent of the Matt Dillon-starrer "Tex", concerning Nicholas and his older brother Irving without parental supervision.

Young, attractive cast members match the teenage role requirements, though the pleasant lead player Martin Yost, an empathetic Timothy Hutton type, is of course older than the virginal 14-year-old in the script. Of special note is Bryan Elsom, very funny in a small role as a loquacious young Southern cab driver.

Tech credits for this modestly-budgeted effort are fine.

My review was written in August 1983 after a Times Square screening.

This was filmed in my neighborhood when I was a Freshman in High School. I was an extra in the school auditorium scene where the "sex tape" is shown, Want to know more, email me. This was originally called 'American Voyeur' when I went to the premiere where the mayor of Hickory, NC gave Olsen a key to the city, with a crowd full of people dressed to the 9's. Then, a coming-of-age flick movie came up on the screen; nice surprise for that crowd.

I recently watched Getting It On (1983) on Tubi. The story follows a high school peeping Tom and virgin who stumbles upon video equipment, taking his obsession to the next level. Will his new hobby deepen his fixation, or will it unexpectedly lead him to love?

Written and directed by William Olsen (Southern Belles), the film stars Terry Loughlin (Out of Time), Martin Yost, Heather Kennedy (Leprechaun), and Jeffrey Edmond (Out of the Black & Blue).

This is a by-the-numbers 80s sex comedy in the vein of Porky's, Animal House, and Hardbodies, but without the charm or impact. Everything about it is mediocre at best. While there's the expected nudity, the storyline feels like an excuse to make a movie rather than something with any real substance. The acting is average, the dialogue is uninspired, and the coming-of-age elements are watered down. There's no standout scene that makes it worth watching.

In conclusion, Getting It On is a forgettable 80s sex comedy with far better options available. I'd rate it a 3/10 and recommend skipping it.