Sixpack Annie

In a career neatly balancing mainstream episodic television like THE DUKES OF HAZZARD and exploitation cinema such as COVER GIRL MODELS, Lindsay Bloom is by far the cutest starlet to appear in the latter: providing a girl-next-door innocence within the infamously risque guilty-pleasure drive-in cinema...

Herein a perfect fit for the rural hangout romp SIXPACK ANNIE, where her titular character realizes a plot-line halfway through... to find a sugar daddy with enough cash to help her aunt pay for the family diner, where she waitresses with AMERICAN GRAFFITI bellhop Jana Bellan, a cherubic brunette to Bloom's adorable blonde...

It's a shame the pair couldn't be involved in more of the first half's small-town adventures... including run-ins with handsome local Bruce Boxleitner and a boisterous good-old-boy sheriff... since the their down-home-dazzling presence lights up the grungy one-horse town, from pickup-truck-cruising-exteriors to beer-guzzling-barroom interiors...

But once in Florida... where Annie gets dodgy advice from older bubbly-blonde Louisa Moritz, being thrust from one male dud to the next (mostly without sidekick Belllan)... the second-half fails to compliment an actress with enough natural charm to have carried things as far as she could - as SIXPACK ANNIE the character far exceeds the movie.

Throughout the 70's, we saw the rise and fall of the b-movie subgenre known as the redneck film. With the likes of Smokey and the Bandit, Gator Bait, and Walking Tall all packing in the theaters, Six-Pack Annie stands on its own as perhaps the Marx Brothers equivalent of the redneck film. No, its not as funny or witty as a Marx Bros film, but it is jam packed with mile a minute jokes. Okay, so 99% of the jokes are pretty weak and lowbrow, but what this film has is energy. The pacing is fantastic, and whether or not the jokes are funny, it is so consistent with one one-liner after another, it becomes a charming, little, stupid movie.

Basically the film revolves around poor, dimwitted, but sincere Annie trying to save the family restaurant, by finding herself a `Sugar Daddy' in the `big city', Miami. Its your basic country girl in over her head story as Annie's slow, innocent, bumpkin ways crash into all these city folk sensibilities and highjinks ensue. Features cameos by well-faded vaudeville comedians Stubby Kaye and Doodles Weaver. A good notch above other drive-in redneck cinema, obviously some effort was put into it, and it works as a guilty pleasure lowbrow comedy. Its really too bad the makers didn't seem (according to the imdb) to do anything else, because its a good 70's redneck film.

AIP ventures into hicksploitation via much cussin', beer drinking, brawlin', a sassy buxom heroine, a lustful Sheriff who slips on a banana peel, two old geezers telling corny 'take my wife' type jokes n' cameos from Billy Barty and a blacked-up Ray Danton...plus lots of plugs for Dr Pepper. Its rather like a big-budget version of a Harry Novak sexploiter (even the poster seems very Novak-ian) had Novak cut down on all that there fornicating and sold his soul to Dr. Pepper

This likably stupid film should only be watched by people who can turn their brains off, and any intellectual analysis of this film is missing the point. Predictably, the two leads are played by busty women, but these two have a certain charm that is usually lacking in films like this. This movie is also full of silly sexual jokes, but somehow, I actually found many of them to be funny. Perhaps this is because this is a good-natured film, and therefore things never get too raunchy. Whatever the reason, this is a solid viewing selection if you're in the mood for some undemanding fun.

Sixpack Annie (1975) is a movie that I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a young lady who wants to save her family business. She decides the best way to do that is to find a sugar daddy, but that task ends up not being as easy as she thought it would be.

This movie is directed by Fred G. Thorne in his directorial debut and stars Lindsay Bloom (The Dukes of Hazzard), Jana Bellan (American Graffiti), Bruce Boxleitner (Tron), Joe Higgins (Burke's Law) and Ray Danton (The Longest Day).

This movie is all over the place, but I loved the soundtrack, era, cars and random circumstances. Annie and Mara in this are smoking and there's a worthwhile skinny-dipping scene in this. The jokes are inconsistent with some being hilarious and some being cheesy and corny. The ending was fun, and this movie did a great job not taking itself too seriously.

Overall, this is a very average movie that is still worth a viewing. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend seeing it once.