beyond reach and lorded over by a playful dog (a gag that director William Sachs would revisit in his science-fiction action-comedy, GALAXINA). The comedy is hit- and-miss, but acting and photog- raphy are pretty solid, and the disco theme song is priceless. THE POM POM GIRLS details the various heartbreaks and hook-ups of Rosedale High, star- ring Jennifer Ashley of THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS and future vengeful “nerd” Robert Carradine as—of all things—a football player (but with his skinny build, pronounced teeth and shaggy hair, he looks more like the school freak). Surprisingly, there isn’t a lot of cheerleading to be found in this mash-up of youth- comedy clichés, and the girls of the title are rather disappointingly sidelined compared to their angst-ridden boyfriends. As Johnnie, Carradine is a bit of a loose cannon; he flies into unex- pected rages, steals a fire truck just for laughs and incessantly taunts VAN NUYS BLVD’s Bill Adler, whose girlfriend he stole— and yet we’re supposed to like him. His best friend Jesse (Michael Mullins) is incessantly picked on by a hard-ass coach (James Gammon), though we never really learn why; and just as VAN NUYS BLVD’s Bobby had to finally give up vans in order to embrace true love, so does Jesse have to shed a shackle of his youth—in this case, football—in order to be happy and free with the girl of his dreams. Drive-in movie favorite Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith adds a little pep to the rally (including a revealing show at the requisite girl’s locker room), but she can’t save this slow-moving, unmemorable early effort from Joseph Ruben, future director of DREAMSCAPE (1984) and THE STEPFATHER (1987).
Finally, school is out and summer’s in full swing over at
MALIBU BEACH, where pretty new girl Dina (Kim Lankford) lands a gig as a lifeguard. How- ever, apart from saving one petulant boy from drowning, her swimming and safety skills are rather superfluous in this sub- standard teen comedy that’s about as eventful as sitting in the sun and watching the surf ebb and flow all day. Highlights include awkward double-dating with best friend Sally (pom-pom girl Susan Player), nighttime skinny-dipping with heartthrob Bobby (James Daughton), pass- ing joints around a bonfire and run-ins with various beach bul- lies, including resident muscle- man Dugan Hicks (Steve Oliver, reprising his character from Crown International’s THE VAN),
US insert poster.
who wears a leather jacket and causes mild mischief like Eric Von Zipper of the much-better AIP Beach Party series. The film’s light-hearted tone is bi- zarrely corrupted when Dugan takes a middle-aged school- marm back to his pad and very nearly rapes her. Meanwhile, every 10 minutes or so, the edi- tor throws in a shot of a dog stealing a girl’s bikini top, but even jolts such as these fail to resuscitate what already drowned ages ago.
BCI’s presentations are mostly fine. THE BABYSITTER fares worst, coming from a PAL video source and exhibiting ex- cessive smearing and ghosting whenever anything moves. (A fresh 16:9 transfer, taken from the recently recovered camera negative is due soon from Code Red on a double feature with the obscure 1966 Swiss sexploi- tationer THE TOPLESS STORY.) Both it and THE POM POM GIRLS are unmatted, 1.66:1 transfers, but every other film in the collection is anamorphic- enhanced in a more correct 1.78:1 ratio. Minor mosquito noise aside, detail is fine and col- ors are reasonably robust across the board, though BLOOD MA- NIA deserves special mention for having especially exquisite pic- ture quality. All of the films have been packaged before, and sev- eral of them retain their original animated “Drive-in Experience” menus and options for adding concession commercials, car- toons and trailers. The only other special feature is an informative audio commentary from William Sachs, the director of VAN NUYS BLVD, who’s still amused about the “Rules” that Crown Interna- tional dictated to him, such as the number of nude scenes he had to include and their strange requirement of the hero being named “Bobby.”
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