Hollywood Hot Tubs 2: Educating Crystal

My review was written in March 1990 after watching the movie on IVE video cassette.

Beneath its come-on title, this sequel to Chuck Vincent's 1984 feature moves out of the exploitation film arena in a well-scripted comic look at west coast lifestyles. Clearly aimed at the video market, pic could have modest theatrical potential as well.

The Crystal of the title, Jewel Shepar, encore as the bubbly, jiggly valley gil who heads for business school to learn how to run her mom Remy O'Neill's hot tubs/health spa establishment. Evil Bart Braverman (convincing with beard as a prince) is conspiring to take over the business, even planning to marry O'Neill to achieve his ends.

Film is told from the point of view of handsome hero David Tiefen, who's working as a chauffeur to Braverman while writing a book about Shepard. Patrick Day is also appealing as a student who teams up with her to work on a class project.

Under newcomer Ken Raich' direction, the film works due to the quirky touches of Brent Friedman's screenplay. Notable is a strange but amusing subplot of a dinosaur rock guitarist (J. P. Bumstead) working as a hot tub installation man, who comes out of retirement to rock on.

Previously wasted in purely decorative assignments, Shepard comes into her own here in a funny and sympathetic role. It's not quite "Educating Rita", but the formula of gawky ingenue blossoming is a sure-fire one.

Tech credits are fine.

I remember ordering this on PPV at a friend's house in October 1990 when I was 11 years and 10 months old. It was a lot of fun at the time and me and my friend both loved the hot tub scenes and we both tried to act mature by laughing at all the jokes, even the ones we didn't understand.

Years later, I rented it because of my fond memories from that night and I must have changed, because I hated watching it that time.

The lead actress was good and looked good, but never made anything of herself. That must be devastating to her that her breakthrough role was in this almost completely forgotten pig-head comedy.

This movie seemed somewhat disappointing when I watched it years ago. I guess I was expecting then to see more of Crystal nude instead of one short scene.

It must have been hard work for Jewell to keep up the voice work. The story swirls around her a lot too but comes to a sweet conclusion.

On currently viewing it, I found the movie very enjoyable. The humor is honest and never goes too far in any way. The story was not thrown together without any thought.

I confess I am a fan of Jewell Shepard for her really outstanding looks. There is enough of her to admire in this after all. The other hot girls in the film were way better than I remembered too.