Lâche-moi les baskets

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.

"The Pom Pom Girls" is more about the two guys on the football team (one being the great Robert Carradine, always a blast to watch) and the antics they lead the girls into, whether it's making out, stealing a fire truck, causing grief for the rival school, and other assorted tomfoolery. Unlike many other movies of the type, this one is actually interesting and fun to watch, and even the cheesy early 70's music they chose for the movie is decent and adds to the atmosphere. And the girls are rather pretty as well. And for car lovers there's a lot of cool old cars to see, especially Carradine's '55 Chevy (there always seems to be a '55 Chevy in so many of these films). Definitely a good showcase of when life was more carefree and a lot less complicated. Nice to even have it on DVD, although a widescreen release would have been better than fullscreen.

You've seen it all before and several times since, the atypical teeny-bop sex romp, that's less filling... but, tastes great. Recently, I was in one of those "Hey, I wanna see some Bobby Carradine action, circa '76" moods... so, I rented this, and actually enjoyed it.

Since 1976 was such a damned good year, I like to re-live it, as much as possible, and this film along with a headliner of "THE BOY IN THE PLASTIC BUBBLE" (the best "boy with immune deficiency syndrome and raging-hormones-to-boot" movie-of-the-week, ever), fit the bill, perfectly.

Like I said, I dug it. A pleasant little curiousity from an era when the drive-in was in full swing. The film's not great, mind you, but if you are a fan of Robert Carradine, you will enjoy seeing him in one of his first leading roles. Joseph Ruben (who also made "JOYRIDE" with Carradine, the next year for American-International), wrote and directed this film, years before he tread cult status with "DREAMSCAPE", or later fame with films like "SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY". James Gammon, who is best recognized from his role as the coach in the "MAJOR LEAGUE" films, appears here as the high school football coach.

I will say this... the "lunchbreak duel" sequence is brilliant. A great piece of comedy.

All around, this is great late nite fare... it did the trick for me! And, when you're done with this, pop in "THE SENIORS" with Dennis Quaid and Priscilla Barnes, for even more "bang for your buck"... or, you can save a buck, by getting to know me, becoming my close personal friend, and rubbing me the right way, until I eventually cave in and let you borrow my copy! This could take anywhere from 2-94 weeks for hand-written confirmation, of course. Just mull it over, a bit.

That's all for now, kids.

Reporting from my fingertips... -Nathan.

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.

This is a rare film in that it is a 1970's teen movie that seems to have been genuinely aimed at 1970's teens (rather than drooling adult perverts). The so-called "teen sexploitation" genre would become really big in the early 1980's era of "Porky's" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont", and is still going strong today even in these censorial times. Personally though, the 80's films remind me too much of my own adolescence, and I prefer to leave the modern-day teen films to modern-day teens, but I just can't get enough of the 70's teen films though. Unfortunately, while many of these films are nominally ABOUT 70's teens, very few seem to actually be made FOR 70's teens. Take, for instance, "The Cheerleaders", the movie that started off the craze for sexy and sex-crazed high school and collegiate cheerleaders, which may be considered a classic by some, but can hardly be considered even a remotely realistic portrayal of teenage life in 70's America. The same can be said with the rest of the cheerleader films (which eventually reached their logical culmination in the hardcore classic "Debbie Does Dallas").

This film is different, however, in that it seems to be trying to capture the anarchic free spirit of the era more than just being an excuse to salivate over naked nubile bodies. It actually resembles "Dazed and Confused" (minus, of course, the self-conscious nostalgia) more than "The Cheerleaders". Of course, it's not all that realistic (the kids at one point steal a fire truck, which I think even in the 70's would have more likely been considered a serious felony than hilarious teen hijinks), and there IS some sex and nudity (naturally, with the ever-exploitable Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith in the cast).

There's no point in relating the plot because there really isn't one in these kind of movies--just a lot of random partying, sex, and wacky teen hijinks). The cast is pretty interesting. Besides Smith, there's Robert Carradine, the youngest Carradine brother, who was also in the minor cult film "Massacre at Central High" with Smith and the underrated "TAG:The Assassination Game", but is, of course, most famous for "Revenge of the Nerds". There's also Jennifer Ashley, a minor but ubiquitous drive-in queen, who even showed up in Mexican exploitation films like Rene Cardona Jr.'s sex and shark epic "Tintorera", and the luscious Susan Player who appeared in both American ("Malibu Beach") and European ("Las Adolescentes") exploitation fare. The director, Joseph Ruben, meanwhile would go on to direct "The Stepfather", one of the most cleverly subversive horror films of the Reagan era. This isn't quite as good as any of these aforementioned films (well, I guess it's better that "Tintotera"), but it's certainly worth seeing.