Back To School #26: Class of 1984 (dir by Mark L. Lester)

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I am the future!” — Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten) in Class of 1984 (1982)

In many ways, the classic exploitation film Class of 1984 feels like an update of Blackboard Jungle. An idealistic teacher Andrew Norris (Perry King) takes a job teaching at a crime-ridden inner city school. There are a few differences. For one thing, the teacher in Class of 1984 teaches music. The graffiti-covered school in Class of 1984 looks a hundreds times worse than the one in Blackboard Jungle. Sidney Poitier is nowhere to be seen in Class of 1984 though Michael J. Fox does show up as one of the good students. Bad student Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten) and his gang are a lot more colorful and flamboyant than Vic Morrow ever was in Blackboard Jungle.

And, of course, the main difference between Blackboard Jungle and Class of 1984 is that, in the former film, teacher Glenn Ford’s liberal idealism ultimately defeated the forces of juvenile delinquency. Ford may have been tempted to turn violent but, ultimately, he appealed to the better instincts of his other students and the world was better for it.

In Class of 1984, Andy Norris may start off as a liberal idealist but, ultimately, he reveals himself to be just as violent as his students. And again, the world appears to be better for it.

(I imagine that, when this film was originally released, a lot of teachers probably watched it as a form of wish-fulfillment.)

Now, Andy’s actions may be extreme but he has his reasons. Just consider everything that happened to him after he started teaching.

First off, his best friend and fellow teacher Terry Corrigan (Roddy McDowall) was driven insane by the school’s students. Terry eventually ended up teaching while pointing a gun at his entire class. (The scene where McDowall finally gets his class to pay attention is one of the best in the film, largely due to McDowall’s excellent performance. The look of happiness that crosses his face when a student finally gives him the correct answer is both disturbing and funny at the same time.)

Secondly, his best student (that would be Michael J. Fox) ended up getting stabbed in the cafeteria by one of Stegman’s goons.

And finally, Stegman and his gang assaulted Andy’s wife.

Can you blame Andy Norris for taking the law into his own hands?

Now, me, I have a tendency towards being a bleeding heart when it comes to those living on the fringes of society. I’m against the death penalty. I’m against the war on drugs. I’m against violence. I believe in compassion. I believe in understanding. I believe in love. But even with all that in mind, I couldn’t help but enjoy Class of 1984. Some of that is because the film is surprisingly well-acted. You find yourself really caring about the characters played Perry King and Roddy McDowall and you also find yourself really hating Peter Stegman and his goons. I don’t care how compassionate you are, there’s something very cathartic about watching Andy finally get back at his tormentors. And then there’s the fact that, of all the directors to work in what has been termed the “exploitation” field, Mark Lester is one of the best. He’s one of those directors who knows exactly how to tell a story and what buttons to push to get the proper emotional respect.

But mostly, the film works because of Timothy Van Patten’s performance as Peter Stegman. Van Patten makes Stegman into one of the definitive teenage psychos. As intimidating as Van Patten is, his best moments come when the film reveals the type of person that Stegman could have been if not for the fact that he’s a total sociopath. At one point, when Andy tries to kick him out of music class, Stegman responds by sitting down at a piano and playing a beautiful piece of music. Perhaps my favorite Stegman moments comes late in the film, when he’s seen sweetly talking to his devoted (and clueless) mother.

Not surprisingly for a film that was released over 30 years ago, Class of 1984 is undeniably dated. But it doesn’t matter because Class of 1984 captures a universal and timeless truth. There are always going to be frustrated teachers and dangerous students. The only thing that changes is how society deals with the frustration and the danger.

Back to School #25: Rock: It’s Your Decision (dir by John Taylor)

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

MUSIC! Kids love it, parents hate it! Or something like that. I don’t know what that means. I’m just trying to figure out a good way to introduce the obscure 1982 film, Rock: It’s Your Decision!

Rock: It’s Your Decision is an hour-long film about a teenager named Jeff (played by Ty Taylor, who I assume is the son of the film’s director, John Taylor). Jeff and his mom have been fighting about the music that he listens to. She thinks that it’s way too secular and therefore, a bad influence. She turns to her church’s youth minister and asks him to talk to Jeff. The very earnest (and kinda creepy, to be honest) minister challenges Jeff to spend two weeks only listening to Christian music and actually researching what the lyrics of his favorite songs are actually saying and what other people his age get out of those lyrics. Jeff agrees and then, at the end of the movie, gives a ten minute sermon to his youth group in which he reveals what he has discovered.

What’s interesting is that, up until he delivers his sermon, Jeff comes across like not that bad of a guy. Sure, he takes himself too seriously and he’s kinda boring and I know that, when I was in high school, he was exactly the type of nonentity that I would dread having to sit next to. But other than that, he seems almost reasonable. Stupid but reasonable.

But then he gives his sermon and — OH. MY. GOD. It’s as if stepping up to the pulpit unleashes Jeff’s inner douchebag. Suddenly, he’s pacing around the stage and talking about how musicians are all homosexual drug addicts. He talks about how, when he listened to secular music, he would actually get possessed. Even worse, when he talks about listening to that terrible music, Jeff acts it out for us. He turns on an imaginary stereo. He talks about how much he used to love hearing a good “get down beat.” He starts physically dancing to the music in his head. Scornfully, he reminds us that modern songs have titles like, “One of These Nights” and “Let There Be Rock.” He points out that even so-called “safe” singers still sing about sex. His audience, of course, sits there in rapt attention. The youth minister watches from the back of the room and you can tell that he’s mentally high-fiving himself. Jeff goes on and on until finally, he shatters a vinyl record on a church pew. (Amazingly evil demons do not immediately fly out of the remains of the record….)

What makes all of this especially amusing is that the songs and musicians that Jeff so vehemently condemns are basically the same songs and bands that my parents used to listen to back before I was even born. (And they continued to listen to them even after I was born, regardless of how many times I begged my mom not to sing along to the oldies station while driving me to school.) The next time I find myself arguing with my Dad, I’ll know that it’s AC/DC’s fault. (Or maybe I’ll just blame Captain and Tenille because, according to Jeff, they’re all equally bad…)

According to Mike “McBeardo” McPadden in the book Heavy Metal Movies, this film was specifically made for showing in churches and Christian schools. As such, it’s a very low-budget film that mainly features amateur actors. Instead of using idealized sets or costumes, it was actually filmed in someone’s house and at a real mall and in a real church and everyone pretty much wore their own clothes and, as a result, the film does have some anthropological value. Having watched Rock: It’s Your Decision, I at least now kinda know what some people were like in 1982.

Anyway, for those of you who just want to jump to the good part, you can watch Jeff’s “sermon” below.

And, for all of my fellow history nerds who want to get the full 1982 experience, you can watch the entire film below.

Back to School #24: Graduation Day (dir by Herb Freed)

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past week, we’ve been doing Back T0 School here at the Shattered Lens: 76 high school and teen film reviews, all posted in chronological order. We started with two films released in 1946 and now, we’ve finally reached the golden age of teen films: the 1980s.

You really can’t take a look at 80s teen films without reviewing at least one slasher film. With the twin box office successes of Halloween in 1978 and Friday the 13th in 1980, there were literally hundreds of slasher films released in the early 80s. Since those films were specifically targeted towards a teen audience, it’s not surprising that quite a few of them took place in high school. And, since the majority of these films were also low-budget affairs, we also should not be surprised that the majority of them were filmed in Canada. In other words, this would appear to be the perfect opportunity for me to review my favorite Canadian slasher film, Prom Night! However, I’ve already reviewed that film so, instead, let’s take a look at the next best thing.

First released in 1981, Graduation Day has a great opening. Various good-looking teenagers compete in athletic activities. One guy throws the shot put. Another one does the pole vault. A dark-haired girl does gymnastics. In the stands, other teenagers cheer and smile because apparently, they’re really into the shot put. Standing on the sidelines, Coach Michaels (Christopher George) shouts things like, “GO! GO! GO!” Laura Ramstead (Ruth Ann Llorens) runs the 100 meter race. “GO, LAURA, GO! 30 SECONDS LAURA!” Coach Michaels shouts. We get a close-up of a stop watch. Then we get a close-up of Laura running. Then we get a close-up of everyone in the stands cheering insanely. And then a close-up of …. well, let’s just say there’s a lot of close-ups. Laura crosses the finish line and then collapses dead of a heart attack. What makes this montage of competition, cheering, and death all the more fascinating is that there’s a wonderfully bad song playing in the background. “Everybody wants to be a winner!” the singer tells us. And I guess that’s true…

Anyway, jump forward a few months and now, mere days before high school graduation, somebody with a stop watch is killing the members of the track team! What’s interesting about this is, despite the fact that they’re the only targets of this killer, we really don’t get to know much about any of the members of the team. By that I mean that most of them are only really seen three times in the movie: during the opening credits, when they die, and then at the end of the movie when their bodies are discovered. One of them — a blonde girl — is only seen twice, reportedly because the actress playing her got mad and walked off the movie before her death scene was filmed. Hence, we only see her at the start of the film and then at the end of the film when another character stumbles over her head. (In a move that would be copied by Tommy Wiseau in The Room, director Herb Freed gave all of her lines and her death scene to a totally new character, played by future horror mainstay Linnea Quigley.) The end result may be the only slasher film where the victims themselves are all largely red herrings.

Instead, Graduation Day spends the majority of its time with the possible suspects. Graduation Day came out at a time when the North American slasher film was still largely influenced by Italian giallo films and, as a result, the film is structured like a whodunit. When we see the killer, all we see are the black gloves that he or she wears whenever committing murder. So, who could the killer be?

Could it be Laura’s grieving and bitter boyfriend, Kevin (E. Danny Murray), who appears to be in his 40s but is apparently a high school student?

Could it be the grieving and bitter Coach Michaels, who is being forced to retire as a result of Laura’s death?

Could it be Laura’s sister, Anne (Patch McKenzie), who knows karate and always seems to pop up right before anyone is murdered?

Could it be the principal (Michael Pataki), who is automatically a suspect just because he’s played by Michael Pataki?

Or maybe it’s the school’s music teacher, who is fat, balding and wears a powder blue leisure suit?

Or maybe it’s the school security guard, MacGregor (Virgil Frye), who says stuff like, “I could hurt you bad if I put my mind to it!”

Or maybe it’s Felony, the band that shows up to play at some sort of weird pre-graduation roller skating party? Felony — which was an actual band that apparently had one hit in the early 80s — plays a 10-minute song called Gangster Rock. Now, personally, I happen to really like the song so I’m going to include it below. Be warned that, while Felony was performing, the unseen killer managed to kill both Linnea Quigley and her boyfriend, so watch at your own discretion.

How much you enjoy Graduation Day is going to depend on who you see it with. Like most of the early 80s slasher films, Graduation Day is a film that’s best viewed with a group of your most snarky friends. As a group, you can consider such oddities as the fact that, though the film takes place in a large high school, it appears that there’s only about 40 students in the graduating class. You can point out that every single character in the film appears to be a potential homicidal maniac. You can enjoy the nonstop bitterness of Christopher George’s performance. You can talk about different your graduation day was from the one shown in this film. You can argue about who the killer is and then, at the end of the film, you can wonder how someone that stupid could have managed to kill 7 people in one day without anyone ever noticing. Even better, you can all get up and dance to Gangster Rock, just like the doomed characters in the film.

What fun!

Back to School #23: Fame (dir by Alan Parker)

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Fuck it, if I can’t dance I’ll change to the drama department.” — Lisa (Laura Dean) in Fame (1980)

For nearly a week now, we’ve been taking a chronological look at some of the best and some of the worst films ever made about teenagers and high school. Yesterday, we finished off the 70s with Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. Today, we start the 80s by looking at yet another musical set in a high school. That musical is 1980’s Fame.

Taking place at the High School For Performing Arts in New York City, Fame follows a group of students from the beginning of their freshman year to graduation four years later. Among those students are Bruno (Lee Curreri), a musical prodigy, Coco (Irene Cara), who thinks that she’s the most talented student at the school, insecure Doris (Maureen Teefy), gay actor Montgomery (Paul McCrane), talented but functionally illiterate dancer Leroy (Gene Anthony Ray), and self-destructive comedian Ralph Garcia (Barry Miller, giving the best performance in the film). Over the course of four years, they fight, love, sing, and dance. They especially do a lot of dancing, which is basically the main reason why I enjoyed the film.

Fame is the perfect film to transition into the 80s with because, in many ways, it’s a perfect combination of the 70s and the 80s. In its use of ensemble and its emphasis on the gritty lives that the kids live outside of the school, the film is truly product of the 70s. However, whenever the film follows the students inside of the school, it becomes very much an 80s film, the type where the emphasis is on stylistically hyper editing and emotions are just as likely to be expressed through a musical montage as through dialogue. With its combination of the kids dreaming in the school and then facing the harsh realities outside, Fame feels like a collision of 70s pessimism and 80s optimism.

(Needless to say, pessimism usually makes for a more realistic film but optimism is a lot more fun to watch.)

Not surprisingly, for a film that made and released 34 years ago, a lot of Fame feels very dated. (What is surprising is that the 2009 remake feels even more dated.) It’s difficult not to cringe at the sight of all the leg warmers and big hair on display. The same can be said for the synthesizer-heavy soundtrack but, to be honest, I like 80s music. It may be cheesy but you can dance to it and really, what more can you ask from music? If nothing else, Fame serves as a valuable time capsule of the time that it was made and yes, I know that I’ve been saying that about a lot of movies lately but hey, it’s true! And I happen to love time capsules. So there.

And besides, dated as the film may be, Fame does get the big things right. It captures that feeling that we all had in high school, that feeling that you are destined for greater things and that, as long as you believe in yourself, good things will automatically happen to you. It captures the wonderful feeling of not only being creative and talented but also knowing that you are talented and creative..

The film is full of hints that the majority of the students at the high school will probably eventually be forced to give up on their dreams. A popular and handsome student is first seen graduating and full of confidence, just to pop up again an hour later, working as a waiter and looking desperate. Haughty Coco goes to an audition and ends up in tears after a sleazy producer tells her to undress. Ralph performs his stand-up comedy and, exhausted after going for days without sleep, ends up bombing. Leroy is offered a chance to dance professionally but first he has to try to talk his English teacher into giving him a passing grade while she mourns for her husband, who died just a few hours earlier. It’s actually a pretty dark movie but it’s hopeful too because, by the end of it, you realize that not all of the characters are going to make it but at least they’re going to have a chance to try.

Back to School #22: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (dir by Allan Arkush)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally, when I started this series of Back to School reviews, I was planning on reviewing Grease. After all, everyone has seen that film. It’s on TV all the time. (Looking in your direction, AMC.) It’s a musical, which is a genre that I love but one which I also rarely seem to review. The movie features a good performance from Stockard Channing. It also has a lot of dancing and you know how much I love that. And speaking of love, a lot of people seem to absolutely love Grease.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while others may love Grease, I don’t. Oddly enough, I always seem to fool myself into thinking that it’s a fun movie but then I make the mistake of watching it whenever it pops up on AMC and every time, I am surprised to discover just how boring Grease really is. The majority of the cast play their roles as if they’re still on a Broadway stage and projecting to the back of the house. Olivia Newton-John is miscast. John Travolta appears to be acting on auto pilot. Both the songs and even Stockard Channing are never as good as I remembered. Worst of all, the dance numbers are so ineptly staged and filmed that, half-the-time, you can’t even see what anyone’s doing with their feet.

While I certainly don’t have any problem writing a negative review (and check out my thoughts on Avatar if you doubt me), I wanted to end the 70s on a positive note. So, instead of telling you that Grease isn’t good as many people seem to think, I want to recommend another film that, like Grease, features a lot of singing and dancing but which also happens to be a lot of more fun.

That film, of course, is the 1979 cult classic Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.

Things are amiss at Vince Lombardi High School. The students are so obsessed with rock and roll (and the music of the Ramones, in particular) that they have caused several principals to quit. The hallways are a disorganized mess. Student Riff Randall (P.J. Soles) spends all of her time having fantasies about the way that Joey Ramone eats pizza. A strange students named Eaglebauer (Clint Howard) runs a shadowy company known as Eaglebauer Enterprises out of a smoke-filled boy’s restroom. (He’s even got an administrative assistant to schedule meetings for him.) Handsome jock Tom Roberts (Vincent Van Patten) can’t get a date, largely because he’s obsessed with Riff who is obsessed with the Ramones. Little does Tom realize that Riff’s best friend, the sweet and intelligent Kate Rambeau (Dey Young), has a crush on him.

The school board hires a new principal to bring some peace to the high school. Ms. Togar (Mary Woronov) is a strict and mentally unbalanced disciplinarian who, with the help of two apparently subhuman hall monitors, is determined to suppress any sort of fun, rebellion, or free thought. Togar hates loud music, mostly because it causes white mice to spontaneously explode. (When, late in the film, a human-sized white mouse — or he could have just been a very strange man wearing a white mouse costume, the film is ambiguous on this point — attempts to enter a Ramones concert, he’s turned away for his own good. Until, of course, he reveals that he’s brought along headphones for his own protection…)

In the end, it all comes down to this: Togar and her allies want to burn records. Riff and the Ramones want to stop her. And maybe blow up the school. (David from Massacre at Central High would have been a fan of the Ramones.)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is an intentionally over-the-top film that both celebrates youthful rebellion while satirizing traditional high school films. The jokes (which are a good combination of the silly and the genuinely clever) come non-stop, the actors all bring a lot of energy to their roles, and the entire film is just a lot of fun. As played by P.J. Soles, Riff Randall really is the ideal best friend and I imagine that a lot of boys in 1979 probably walked out of the theater with a huge crush on both P.J. Soles and Dey Young. And finally, Mary Woronov gives a wonderfully demented performance as Ms. Togar.

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School seems like the perfect film to end the 70s with. Tomorrow, Back to School continues with the 80s! So, if you’ve never seen Rock ‘n’ Roll High School before, watch it below!

Back to School #21: Malibu High (dir by Irving Berwick)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past four days, we’ve been taking a chronological look at some of the best and worst films about high school and teenagers. We started with two films from 1946 and now, 19 reviews later, we are approaching what may very well be the golden age of high school films, the 1980s. However, before we officially start in on the 80s, I would like to take a look at two films from 1979.

The first of these films is Malibu High and, despite the generic title, it’s perhaps one of the strangest movies ever made. Whether that strangeness is intentional (as I believed the first time I watched the film) or simply the result of inept filmmaking (as I started to suspect after I watched it a second time) is the question.

Malibu High tells the story of Kim Bentley (Jill Lansing), who is literally the most jaded high school senior ever. When the film begins, we watch as she wakes up in the morning, sits naked in her bedroom, takes a long drag off of a cigarette, and stares into a mirror with a look that suggests she’s on the verge of attacking her own reflection. Kim’s mother (Phyllis Benson) yells at her that she’s going to be late for school. Kim shouts back that maybe if her mother had made an effort to actually dress up and look good then maybe Kim’s father wouldn’t have committed suicide.

Kim Bentley prepares to face another day at Malibu High.

Once she does arrive at school, things don’t get any better for Kim. She’s dumped by her boyfriend, Kevin (Stuart Taylor). Kevin, it seems, would rather date a girl with more money and less mental issues so he starts going out with the spoiled Annette (Tammy Taylor). Soon, Kim is failing all of her classes, having flashbacks to the day that she found her father’s body hanging in his study, and working for the local pimp/drug dealer Tony (Alex Mann).

Kim, however, is determined to turn her life around. She seduces (and subsequently blackmails) all of her male teachers and is soon getting straight A’s in every class except for English, which happens to be the only class she takes that is taught by a woman. When the high school’s principal figures out what Kim is doing, Kim responds by undressing in front of him and causing him to have a fatal heart attack.

Meanwhile, Kim meets Lance (Garth Howard), another pimp who is a little more refined than Tony. Kim is soon working for Lance but, after she stabs a client to death with an ice pick, Lance realizes that Kim has actually missed her calling and he puts her to work seducing and assassinating rival gangsters. As the movie reaches its conclusion, Kim in not only a rich honor student but she’s now a professional assassin as well.

What more could Kim want out of life, right?

However, Kim is still obsessed with her ex and, one day, she happens to see Kevin and Annette on the beach….

Ellen Burstyn did it better.

The first time I saw Malibu High, I assumed that it had to be a satire. That was the only way I could think to justify the film’s over-the-top performances, melodramatic plot, and heavy-handed dialogue. I mean, what else could I think when the film actually goes so far as to feature Kim saying, “I’m serious …. DEAD SERIOUS!” before assassinating a gangster. Or how about Annette’s description of Kim: “She’s a piece of shit! She’s proving she’s a piece of shit!” Add that to the fact that the plot is basically a version of one of those old educational films where making the slightest mistake leads to the most extreme consequences possible and how could I not think that Malibu High was actually a brilliant satire?

However, on subsequent viewings, it’s become more apparent that Malibu High‘s satire is of the unintentional kind. In fact, it’s amazing just how seriously Malibu High actually does take itself. The end result is a film that’s not meant to be funny but still manages to be hilarious.

You may not be surprised to discover that Malibu High was a product of Crown International Pictures. And, like most CIP films, it can be found in a few dozen different box sets. And it’s worth watching just so you can say that you’ve had the experience.

Back to School #20: Coach (dir by Bud Townsend)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just from watching the trailer above, you probably think that the 1978 film Coach is just your standard high school sports film. And, in many ways, it is. But, since it was made in the 70s, things still get a little bit weird. Before proceeding, I should probably point out that Coach (like the similar The Teacher) was produced by Crown International Pictures. But you probably already guessed that.

An exclusive California high school has a problem. The boy’s basketball team is having a terrible season. The most powerful man in town, F.R. Granger (Keenan Wynn), demands a change! (You can tell that Granger is powerful because he goes by his initials.) After ordering the hapless basketball coach to resign, Granger and the school board hire Randy Rawlings to replace him. Oddly enough, they don’t actually interview Randy for the job or attempt to meet Randy ahead of time. They just know that Randy is a former Olympian and are overjoyed when Randy accepts the job.

On Randy’s first day on the job, everyone is shocked to discover that Randy Rawlings is — GASP — a woman! Now, I’ll admit that this film is a little bit before my time and the world was probably a lot different back in the 70s but, as an Olympic medalist, wouldn’t Randy be a bit of a celebrity? And would anyone as obsessed with winning as F.R. Granger actually hire a coach sight unseen? Anyway, F.R. is none too happy to discover that Randy (Cathy Lee Crosby) is a woman and tries to fire her on the spot. Sorry, F.R. — can’t be done. As Randy points out, F.R. needs cause to fire her.

After forcing them to all take a cold shower and then coaching them to a few victories, Randy wins over the team. She also starts sleeping with one of her players (played by a very young and handsome Michael Biehn) and this is where the movie gets weird. I kept expecting this affair to be discovered and used by F.R. as an excuse to fire Randy. Because, after all, why would any film feature a rather creepy subplot about a teacher sleeping with a student unless it was somehow going to pay off in the end? But instead, the affair just sort of happens and never really ties back into the main plot of whether or not Randy will be able to coach the team to having a winning season.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking to yourself, “What would the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov think about this?” Well, here’s an exact quote from Mr. Chekhov:

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

In other words, Coach was definitely not written by Anton Chekhov.

Anton Chekhov ponders the narrative failings of Coach

Back to School #19: The Pom Pom Girls (dir by Joseph Ruben)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Pom Pom Girls was released in 1976, the same year as Massacre at Central High. It also features two actors who made quite an impression in Central High — Robert Carradine and Rainbeaux Smith. However, that is where the similarities end because, whereas Central High was a political allegory disguised as an exploitation film, The Pom Pom Girls is an almost prototypical 70s teen comedy. Whereas Central High was all about subtext, The Pom Pom Girls has no subtext. Try to look between the lines of The Pom Pom Girls and all you’ll find is blank space. And, finally, while Central High remains a difficult film to see, I’ve lost track of how many of my Mill Creek box sets include The Pom Pom Girls.

The Pom Pom Girls is about … well, close to nothing. Johnnie (Robert Carradine) and Jesse (Michael Mullins) are students at Rosewood High School in California. Because the film was made in 1976, they spend most of their time driving around in a van and listening to MOR radio stations. Johnnie and Jesse are also star football players, which is one of the odd things about the film because, while Carradine is genuinely likeable and Mullins makes for a plausible sullen high school student, neither one of them comes across as if they could be football players. The big game comes up against rival Hardin High, so there’s a prank war that involves a little more nudity than the ones on Saved By The Bell ever did. Johnnie and Jesse also have girlfriends, both of whom are cheerleaders. Jesse cheats on his girlfriend but apparently, the audience is supposed to sympathize with him because she refused to go to the beach with him. Johnnie, meanwhile, has a leather jacket-wearing nemesis named Duane (Bill Adler), who is upset because Johnnie is dating his ex. As often happens, it all ends with a recreation of the famous “chicken run” from Rebel Without A Cause. We watch a car explode from three different angles. In order to leave you with some suspense, I will not mention whether anyone was in the car.

You’re welcome.

And a fun time was by all…

One of the strange things about The Pom Pom Girls is that while the two main characters and their girlfriends are all presented as being rebels, they’re also presented as being the most popular kids in school. Johnnie and Jesse are the captains of the football team. They’re dating the captains of the cheerleading squad. Despite the movie’s attempts to convince us otherwise, these people are not rebels fighting the establishment. Instead, they are the establishment. This is actually something that The Pom Pom Girls has in common with Richard Linklater’s far superior Dazed and Confused. The difference, however, is that Dazed and Confused actually calls its character out on the hypocricy of their posturing while The Pom Pom Girls just tries to have the best of both worlds. Johnnie is both a star football player and the class clown who breaks the rules. Jesse is both a great team player and an angry individualist. I guess that’s the 70s for you.

He owns a van. It has shag carpeting and a strobe light.

Back in high school, I was often asked to try out for cheerleading but I never did. For one thing, I didn’t see why I should have to try out when they could have just easily approached me and said, “Hi, will you please be the new head cheerleader?” Even beyond that, I couldn’t stand the idea of always having to be happy. And, perhaps most importantly, my sister was already a cheerleader and I wanted to establish my own thing. However, I still made Erin watch The Pom Pom Girls with me and I asked her if the film was a realistic portrait of high school cheerleading. In response, she rolled her eyes which I believe was her way of saying no.

But, even if it isn’t exactly Bring It On, The Pom Pom Girls still does have some worth as a time capsule of the clothing, attitudes, and vans of the 70s. To be honest, that’s probably the only thing of value that The Pom Pom Girls has to offer because, otherwise, it’s basically a film about a likable guy who spends all of his time hanging out with a guy who will literally not stop whining about being a football player and how nobody is willing to go to the beach with him.

Incidentally, The Pom Pom Girls was released by Crown International Pictures. Much like the company’s previous film, The Young Graduates, the main message here appears to be that the 70s kind of sucked.

Review: A Bridge Too Far (dir. by Sir Richard Attenborough)

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Arleigh

“Well, as you know, I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far” — Lt. Gen. Frederick Browning

With the recent passing of Sir Richard Attenborough I decided to bring up one of the films which first brought his name to my attention. I was quite the young lad when I first saw Attenborough’s epic war film A Bridge Too Far. I would say that it was one of my earlier memories of watching a film with my father who was a major fan of war films. One could say that I got my appreciation and love for the genre from him.

A Bridge Too Far was adapted from the Cornelius Ryan book of the same name which depicted from start to finish the disastrous World War II battle known as Operation Market Garden. The film states that the Allied landings at Normandy, France in the summer of 1944 had the German forces reeling and on the verge of collapse. With Eisenhower having to choose between competing plans to chase Hitler’s forces right into Berlin from his two best generals in George S. Patton and Bernard Montgomery, the film already lays down something that’s become synonymous with military disasters throughout history. Political expediency and pressure on Eisenhower led to an operation that was never attempted in military history and one which required every aspect of the operation to go according to plan for it to work. As the film would show this was not meant to be.

The film begins with the operation’s early days as Allied commanders rush to put Montgomery’s plan to drop 35,000 paratroopers behind German lines in occupied-Netherlands in order to capture and hold key bridges until Allied armored forces arrived to reinforce them. It’s a daring plan that the Attenborough films with a obvious confidence and enthusiasm, but also one that already showed some nagging doubts from field commanders who would be in the thick of the fighting if intelligence reports were inaccurate. One could almost say that Attenborough was making the film a sort of anti-war message which was a rarity when it came to Hollywood and and film industry depicting the events of World War II at the time.

While the film does explore that very anti-war theme throughout it’s really a by-product of how the battle itself unfolds and shown to the viewers that might give one such an idea. Yet, in the end A Bridge Too Far was a much more complicated film to just be labeled as an anti-war film. Yes, the battle itself was a disaster for the Allied forces of American, British and Polish soldiers involved, but despite the political bumbling and military arrogance of those who command from behind a desk, the film actually does a great job of showing that bond soldiers earn when confronted with the horrors of battle.

Attenborough and producer Joseph E. Levine pulls together an all-star cast for the film with names such as Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Robert Redford, Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier just to name a few. Films such as A Bridge Too Far rarely get made anymore in this day and age. The cast itself is part of the reason why the film still holds up to scrutiny decades after it’s release. While all-star casts such as this seemed to have been common place before the 1980’s it still looked like a daunting task for Attenborough to manage so many Hollywood stars and veteran British actors. Every character from Hopkin’s Col. Frost, Connery’s Gen. Urquhart and Redford’s Maj. Cook get to shine in their sections of the film as their individual stories about the battle all tie-in together to show just how complicated the events that they were filming truly turned out to be.

At times, one almost could feel overwhelmed by the amount of recognizable names and faces that come across the screen, yet Attenborough and producer Levine were able to juggle not just the logistics of the film’s screenplay, but the egos and reputation of the very stars who would become the backbone of the film.I think in a lesser filmmaker A Bridge Too Far could easily have turned into the very Operation Market Garden it was trying to depict.

It’s a film that never celebrates the concept of war itself, but actually shows that war remains a bloody and chaotic affair that relies not just on planning and execution but on the whims of lady luck. While Attenborough’s film never reached the sort of iconic status that another Cornelius Ryan adapted film has attained in The Longest Day, it does remain the more powerful of the two as it doesn’t just explore the historical event as a sort of academic exercise, but as an exploration of that old military adage of “No plan survives contact with the enemy”.

So, in the end I recommend that those looking to watch and experience the earlier directorial works of Sir Richard Attenborough should check out A Bridge Too Far. It remains to this day one of his more underappreciated films especially when compared to his later more acclaimed films like Gandhi, Chaplin and Shadowlands.

Back to School #18: Massacre At Central High (dir by Rene Daalder)

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With a title like Massacre at Central High, you probably think that this 1976 film is a low-budget slasher film. However, you’re totally wrong. Instead of being a low-budget slasher film, Massacre at Central High is a low-budget political allegory and it’s a pretty good one at that. It’s also not exactly an easy film to see (I had to watch it off of a scratchy, old VHS tape), which is unfortunate because it’s probably one of the best exploitation films of the 1970s.

Massacre at Central High takes place at a high school in Southern California. The first thing that you notice about Central High is that there aren’t any adults around. The students don’t ever appear to go to class. Instead, they spend their time roaming the halls. The school is run by four wealthy jocks who enforce order, repress independent thought, and spend most of their time hanging out in an exclusive lounge. Of the four ruling jocks, Mark (Andrew Stevens) is the most sensitive, an overall nice guy who doesn’t approve of the excesses of the others but, at the same time, isn’t willing to stand up to them either.

The Ruling Clique

As for the other students, they spend their time being alternatively harassed and cared for by the jocks. They’re told, of course, that everything is for their own good and that their survival depends on the survival of Central High. Spoony (Robert Carradine) is caught and punished for spraying political graffiti on the lockers. Oscar (Jeffrey Winner) is regularly bullied by the jocks on account of his weight. School librarian Arthur (Dennis Kort) is attacked for being an intellectual. When Rodney (Rex Steven Sikes) makes the mistake of parking his car in one of the jock’s space, they react by stealing and wrecking his car.

Things start to change when track star David (Derrel Maury) transfers to Central High. David is an old friend of Mark’s and, at first, Mark attempts to get him to join the ruling clique. However, David is disgusted by the other jocks and starts to stand up for the oppressed students. The jocks (with the exception of Mark) respond by lowering a car down on David’s leg, crushing it.

No longer able to run track and now moving with a permanent limp, David refuses to tell anyone the truth about how he injured his leg. Instead, he returns to school and gets his revenge, methodically murdering all of the jocks except for Mark. Mark and his girlfriend Theresa (Kimberly Beck) now find themselves transformed into societal pariahs within the halls of Central High. Meanwhile, the formerly oppressed students step up to fill the power vacuum and, to David’s disgust, they quickly turn out to be just as bad as their now deceased oppressors.

David Is Disappointed

Now realizing that most revolutions are waged by the lower class against the upper class for the sole benefit of the middle class and that there’s absolutely no way to bring any real change to Central High, David instead makes plans to destroy the entire high school…

Surreal and dream-like, Massacre at Central High is a potent allegory that takes the concept of absolute power corrupting absolutely to its logical extreme. It’s a film that celebrates revolution while, at the same time, asking, “What’s the point?” It’s a film that looks at politics, society, and culture and actually has the courage to suggest that it might be better just to give up on all of it. Featuring excellent performances from Maury, Beck, and Stevens and wonderfully off-center direction from Rene Daalder, Massacre at Central High is not an easy film to track down but it’s definitely one worth seeing.