La pornopalla

Anybody else out there completely sick and tired of the mindless, that's not even a strong enough word, how about aggravating, sex flicks that Showtime and Cinemax pump out nowadays. Using the same 4 actresses, and the same un-interesting storyline? And I've actually come to hate the 3 effeminate actors who are in every one. It's like a non-ending, awful awful, soap opera with nudity. Soft-core cinema, has hit an all-time low. The production values are great, but the storylines and sex conjure one word - Boredom. Somehow, the modern filmmakers have managed to take the sexual appeal out of women with perfect bodies. I mean I never thought I would see the day, when a skin flick on TV late night would force an involuntary roll of the eyes and send me straight for TV Land reruns, but its really come to that. What's missing, one of the things I can nail down at least is Raunch. Yes, soft core is now politically correct if you can believe that. Almost like its women who are making these to draw in both male and female audiences, and folks it just don't work. Kudos to Showtime for digging up movies like this one. It's totally nasty and wrong, but without going hardcore, that's what's needed to push the buttons. I know there are a zillion more, because I remember them when I was a kid. I would hope they start getting some airtime. Retire the silicon sleep inducers already please, and let the producers go back to making man-hating dramas on Lifetime.

After joining a local high school's cheerleading squad, a teenage girl (Stephanie Fondue) vows to lose her virginity to the right guy, but all her good-hearted attempts backfire. Meanwhile, her fellow cheerleaders come up with a plan to help their high school's football team to victory: sleep with the opposing team on the night before their most important game so that the opposition will be too worn out to play.

Suffering from heavy-handed script and incredibly amateurish performances, this silly teen sexploitation romp is good for a few laughs and dishes plenty of T&A to satisfy any jaded fan. My evaluation: ** out of ****.

The only reason I like this film is that part of it (outside shots) were done at my alma mater, Monta Vista High. In fact, when the film came out, I was too young to see it.

Our School District, anxious for the money paid for use of the school during the summer months as a setting, thought that the film was about life in high school (it was tentatively titled High School Daze) and didn't bother to read the script.

Of course, they changed the name of the school for the film, so for the Yearbook in 1973 we snuck in all sorts of references to the film that managed to slip by the faculty. I still have a copy of an ad for the film in my old yearbook.

Sometimes, it's fun to see how easily bureaucrats can be fooled.

I found "The Cheerleaders" to be the best of the sexploitation films, much more entertaining than 'Flesh Gordan', 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls', 'Fritz the Cat' The crowds really loved the picture, the laughter tended to drown out some of the following lines. Everyone left with a smile on their face. We played it to a packed house nightly. The print that we has was x-rated, though soft core. I do not believe it was a self imposed x, as the beginning of the had the MPAA X rating with the blue background preceeding the title and credits. I was operating the Star Theater in Coshocton, Ohio. We opened the film the first week of January 1974. The prosecuter saw our advance advertising and threatened to arrest us if we showed the film. I had a partner, and we first decided to 'pull' the film and got 'Lady Sings the Blues' as a backup-even changed the marquee to 'Lady Sings the Blues'. We reconsidered and called the prosecuter's bluff, showed 'The Cheerleaders', we did not get arrested. The Coshocton Tribune's lead story on 01/04/74 was 'Theater Told to Pull X Rated Feature'. We sold out in 15 minutes of opening, the film held the house record until beaten by 'The Exorcist'. We brought it back a few months later with equally good ticket sales. Why? word of mouth, it was a crowd pleaser, this was before videos, DVD's, cable was basic, the raunchy language and nudity still had shock value-especially in a small town.

I saw this film for the first time since 1986 just today. It was all restored, too. There's not much of a plot here except for a bunch of sexually active teen cheerleaders at Amorosa High School who cheer on the football team to victory when they're not sexing it up. The real gem of the film is Jeannie (Stephanie Fondue), the newest cheerleader who wants to go from wallflower to vixen. She's a definite hottie who looks better than the rest of the cheerleaders. I also liked the running joke that is her boyfriend Nick, who goes from job-to-job.

Don't expect much, but it's a film to watch when you want to turn the old brain off. There's lots of flesh to see, some goofy humor, some crazy sexual situations, some great dance sequences, and as my online pal Cory Smith has said to me while playing NCAA Football 2004 on our PS2s some great money shots. It's too bad that Ms. Fondue didn't do much else in her career but she certainly will go down as one of the cutest and sexiest vixens in the history of B-moviedom.