There's much more to this movie than such sitcom catchphrases as "Up your ziggy with a wa-wa brush," and "Masterly." As I said in my comment on "Can't Hardly Wait"(1998) this is the kind of movies that teenagers need, and I didn't just mean teenage boys. Unfortunately, this was in and out of the theaters much too quickly. The only reason I saw it was because it was on Encore as part of a block of movies that were introduced by Alison Sie, who I'd like to thank for letting us know about it. To make matters worse, in order to see the more suggestive and erotic aspects of this movie, you'd have to go to Canada. We Americans are being ripped off.
Our story begins in early 1963, where a Motor-City Maiden named Odette Sinclair(Gabby Hoffman) is determined to lose her virginity, until her mother catches her with a birth-control device and ships her and her horse off to Miss Goddard's School for Girls, an all-girls boarding school, supposedly in Connecticut which she think is "surrounded by high walls and lesbians." The high walls part is right, but the "lesbians,..." you'll find that out later.
While at first she and they want nothing to do with each other, eventually they warm up to her and decide to help her out, by getting her to join an organization called "the Daughters of the American Ravioli." Miss Godard's Girls aren't just "talented and organized," they're the wildest boarding school girls since The Belles of St. Trinian's, and believe it or not, kind of cute too. This is helpful, because they're not afraid of their sexuality and know how to use it to get what the want at a time when girls(especially upper crust ones) were expected to be "prim and proper." The Flat Critters are the geekiest greaser gang ever to grace a period piece movie from the 1950's or early-'60's. And they also become a suprising relief in the face of a potential merger with the St. Ambrose Boys' Academy. St. Ambrose Headmaster Armstrong(Michael J. Reynolds) sounds like the narrator on "Underdog"(1964), and if I had been a kid in that period, I would've sworn he did that on the side. Nevertheless, it's the arrival of the St. Ambrose school for a school dance/test merger that leads to a prank rivaling some of the teen movies of the late-1970's and early-1980's. And when that doesn't work, Odie leads them all on a major student strike!
In defense of us guys, I'd like to point out that when we lust for you women, it's not a conspiracy to drag you down to the bottom of the economic totem pole. It's just a conspiracy to get you into our beds, or get into yours. Perhaps over 20 years ago when I was a teenager I might not have understood the desire to keep such schools separate, but I can see the reasons now. Not that I'm endorsing sexual segregation, mind you. I'm just endorsing this movie.
