The Pom Pom Girls

THE POM POM GIRLS was a huge sleeper hit in it's day and it's easy to see why. Thousands of stoned kids across the land with beer in hand at the drive-in, watching this documentary-like fun fest on being a high school kid in the mid-70's. What a wonderful life these kids have! Drive around drinking or high, get the girl, have sex where ever you want, and not worry about any diseases or repercussions whatsoever. And football. You get to play a lot of football.

I love this film. If you tried to make a movie like this today, you couldn't do it without some killjoy saying you couldn't have them drinking and driving. But kids do that. Some die and a majority don't. These kids are not repressed sexually. They are free to make love to whoever they choose and don't worry about death and condoms. They seem to be having fun and enjoying life, and that's why this film really couldn't be made today, because it shows people, teens especially, enjoying life in an innocent, yet rebellious, drug-addled, highly sexual way. Nobody dies, nobody gets hurt, and they do everything they were told they shouldn't do. It's a social time capsule for an extremely fun and liberated time.

After a long hot summer, it's back to school for the students of Rosedale High, where an impending football game against arch rivals Hardin leads to a series of high-spirited pranks carried out by Rosedale's star players Jesse and Johnnie (Michael Mullins and Robert Carradine) and members of the sexy cheer-leading squad, the feisty pom pom shakers including lovely brunette Laurie (Jennifer Ashley) and pretty blonde Sally (Lisa Reeves).

The Pom Pom Girls is a fairly typical slice of 70s teenage drive-in fodder, full of hot girls and hunky guys whose lives mainly revolve around their cars and who they're canoodling with in the back seat. It's clichéd and predictable stuff but achieves a certain lackadaisical charm thanks to an amiable cast and a suitably inconsequential approach to its plot—as the viewer, we have no idea where we're being taken, but we're still happy to go along for the ride.

The little summary of the movie does a good job, that is basically the plot of the entire movie. You follow a group of teens, some on the cheerleading squad, some on the football team, run around and do pranks and make out. This goes on for an hour and twenty mins, and you honestly can't tell most of the teens apart or care about them, You get some nudity but it's few and far between for a "raunchy teen comedy." If that's why you're watching you'll have more luck just googling the nude scenes.

this is by no means a good movie,but being someone from so. cal during the seventies,this movie catches the feel better than most out there.the best movies for that feel were the ones made in the seventies.i enjoyed dazed and confused but in no way felt like the seventies.if you want to know how it was like for people who partied,then check it out

This is now my fourth consecutive review of a cheerleader movie following The Cheerleaders, The Swinging Cheerleaders, and Revenge of the Cheerleaders. It's also the third in a row of a movie that features one Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith. She plays Roxanne here (though I don't remember her name ever being called in the film) and unlike the last two, she's not starring, only supporting or maybe "a glorified cameo" would be more like it since her appearances don't really have to do with the main action. The main cheerleaders featured here are Sally (Lisa Reeves) and Laurie (Jennifer Ashley). Sally is the blonde one who was once involved with Duane (Bill Adler) but then falls for one football player named Johnnie (Robert Carradine in a role much different from his later familiar one in Revenge of the Nerds!). Laurie is the brunette one who eventually warms to fellow pigskin player Jesse (Michael Mullins). Jessie himself previously liked to fool around as he does with Roxanne and a car hop girl named Sue Ann (Susan Player) before getting involved with Laurie. Unlike the other cheerleader movies I previously reviewed, the sex-while there-isn't emphasized too much. In fact, while The Cheerleaders was a sex farce through and through, The Swinging Cheerleaders went back and forth between comedy and drama, and Revenge of the Cheerleaders was a contrived chaotic mess, The Pom Pom Girls seemed more life-like in presenting the teen hijinks and seeing how some friendships and relationships develop overtime despite some still contrived moments like the football game devolving into a free-for-all fight! And, yes, some scenes do borrow from some classic movies like the "chicken run" that does have a character mention James Dean and his Rebel Without a Cause. My favorite was a food fight scene that has Carradine and Adler taking their time in Laurel-and-Hardy slow burn-like fashion. Oh, and the '70s music soundtrack sounds just like the kind of songs one would hear on AM radio in those days. It should be noted that Crown International Pictures-perhaps one of the most successful of the drive-in distributors-was responsible for this and they always made many quite enjoyable B-type movies of this genre like Malibu Beach (which also featured Susan Player) and The Van (which also featured Bill Adler). Oh, and the director of this may surprise you if you're more familiar with his suspense movies like The Stepfather or Sleeping with the Enemy: Joseph Ruben! He also co-wrote it. Actually, the ending scene may clue you in of his talents there. Anyway, I really enjoyed The Pom Pom Girls so, yeah, that's a recommendation.