By Richard Winters
My Rating: 2 out of 10
4-Word Review: Mother seduces daughter’s friend.
Tommy (Michael Morgan) is a blonde haired teen who hasn’t yet had sex and feels embarrassed about it. To make-up for it he decides to start-up a rock band with his friend Ralph (Lanny Horn). He wants the lead singer to be Sheila (Erin Donovan), but Sheila is too busy working-out in the pool, so she can be a part of the swim team, so he gets Lisa (Shell Kepler). Lisa though is not as talented and seems more interested in getting the attention of rock singer Reddog (Wings Hauser) who would prefer bedding her instead of hearing her sing. Sheila’s mother Diane (Joan Collins) has issues of her own as she’s stuck in a dead-end marriage and feels like the best sex she had was during her younger years. Then Tommy agrees to help her hang a picture in her living room and his youthful body reminds her of the boys she had sex with during her adolescence and she makes a move on Tommy who’s all too happy to oblige.
The most interesting aspect about this production is what occurred off-screen as Collins and her co-stars Lee Purcell and Carrie Snodgrass, as well as Betty Thomas, who has a brief part as Reddog’s secretary, all sued to have their names removed from the credits as they felt the story had been doctored during post production changing the theme in an attempt to become more like Private Lessons and My Tutor, which had been hits around the same time and both had plots dealing with older women and adolescent boys. Collins though was most upset about the fact that a body double, played by Joy Michael, was brought in to do nude scenes.
For the most part Collins doesn’t really have much to offer except talk to what’s supposedly her husband, who’s never seen and only briefly heard. At one point she calls him George and then later-on she refers to him as Warren. These segments gets mixed-in with scenes of her when she was younger, again played by Joy Michael, and her getting-it-on with guys in the backseat of cars, but despite the nudity these moments are rather boring and don’t add much other than showing how sexually repressed she is now.
Snodgrass barely has any screen-time playing Tommy’s school counselor, which to me seemed a little weird as I would think most guys wouldn’t feel comfortable, nor would women for that matter, talking about their sexual hang-ups with a member of the opposite sex and therefore the part should’ve been played by a man. Purcell is funny as a nervous French teacher, but having her invite male students to her home for after-hours tutoring was ridiculous. The film plays it like she has only innocent intentions, but what kind of sensible grown woman would invite 16 and 17-year-old guys with notoriously raging hormones into her place and not be concerned that they might get the wrong idea, or take advantage of the situation make a move on her, since she lives alone.
The film’s weakest link though is Morgan, who’s too good-looking. This role should’ve been played by a scrawny geek, or a chubby one, with bad acne and thus making his inability to approach women make more sense. Instead with the male model features of Morgan most of the girls would be approaching him and not ignoring him like they do here. His character’s naivety is played-up too much like when he states that by the time kids reach the age of 12 most of them are sexually active, or his belief that his friend Ralph became sexually active at age 7, which is just too dumb to believe anyone would actually think that.
There are a few funny lines, but the story is unfocused and the plot poorly paced. Even with the brief runtime and sexually charged fantasy segments the film still gets quite draggy. The teens are the biggest issue as they’re broad composites rather than three-dimensional people. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in high school, but I don’t remember the kids of the day being quite this wide-eyed. Instead of going-off of their middle-aged presumptions of adolescence the filmmaker’s should’ve interviewed actual high school kids and got their input, which might’ve helped avoid the flat and unconvincing characters that we end-up getting.
My Rating: 2 out of 10
Released: August 27, 1982
Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes
Rated R
Director: James Beshears
Studio: Jensen Farley Productions
Available: VHS
Scopophilia 