The Swinging Cheerleaders

In order to write an expose on how cheer-leading demeans women, a reporter for a college newspaper (Jo Johnston in her only role) infiltrates the cheer-leading squad.

By 1974, Jack Hill was looking to escape being typecast as a "blaxploitation director" after making "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" for AIP. They were pleased by the success and gave him a script called "Rape Squad", which he turned down. This film was given to him with financing attached, although he was only given a title and had to develop the script from scratch (with help from David Kidd, who ironically also re-wrote "Rape Squad").

According to co-writer / director Hill, the film had a 12-day shoot, which meant every inch of film shot ended up in the final product. They started work on the script at the end of January 1974 and the movie was in theaters by May (at other times he says February and June, but the idea remains the same). The original title of the script was "Stand Up and Holler" so actresses would not think the film was about cheerleaders.

I do love Jack Hill, and the fact he is called an "exploitation auteur" really sums him up. But this has to be one of his few misfires. The primary plot of the undercover cheerleader is not very interesting, though the booking subplot makes up for it to a point. You might expect this to be nothing more than an excuse for cheerleaders to get naked, but even in that department it is arguably tame compared to many 80s comedies. This more or less amounts to a cheesy made-for-TV movie that probably was never shown on TV.

Arrow Video offers up a deluxe 2k restored blu-ray of the film. While the movie itself is not great (sorry), the Arrow Video version is worth picking up simply for all the extras, because it's always good when we have Jack Hill doing new interviews and providing new commentary. If he hasn't already, he really ought to write a memoir, because he is full of stories about Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola and many others. (The disc also has a 2006 archive interview with DP Alfred Taylor, archive interview with Johnny Legend, and a Q&A with Hill, Colleen Camp and Rosanne Katon recorded at the New Beverly Cinema in 2012.)

So I sat down to watch this expecting a waste of 90 minutes of my life. Surprisingly I found myself actually enjoying this seedy little mid seventies sexsploitation piece.

The plot is nothing to speak of - journalism major decides to do a piece on swinging cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends.

Where the film surprises is in it's scripting - surprisingly liberated considering this was 1974 and somewhat witty with a bevy of interesting performances from a game cast, this turned out to be far more entertaining than expected.

Fun seventies drive-in fair and somewhat more layered than you may think. A solid six out of ten.

In order to get an expose, an aspiring reporter (Jo Johnston), joins the cheerleading squad only to learn not to pre-judge people. Of the 3 movies in Anchor Bay's Cheerleader set (the Cheerleaders, Revenge of the Cheerleaders, & the swinging Cheerleaders), this one feels most like a movie. Yea, nearly all the cheerleaders shed their clothes at one point or another, but there's a little helping of social commentary to go with the exploitation. It's a bit easy to see that this is a Jack Hill directed picture and it's better because of it.

My Grade: B-

DVD Extras: Commentary; 2 TV spots, Jack Hill Bio

As opposed to the original film in this series, this follow up definitely is less of a raunchy silly sexploitation comedy and more of a thoughtful drama. With an entirely new cast, there are the occasional silliness but nothing is really humorous. The acting is noticeably more serious, better overall and more drama is included. The women characters have more morals, are more mature and aren't as sex craved. A lot more realism where this takes place with college level students opposed to high schoolers in the original.

Even though, this is a lot less wild and explicit which may slightly be bizarre considering this is college and not high school. There is more focus on a plot and less focus on scenes of skin and soft core-like scenes for the sake of it.

The ending of the film ends rather ubruptly with the football game still being played yet we simply see the credits roll. We then hear an announcer mentioning the game but not speaking on its conclusion. Which was rather bizarre that they didn't conclude the actual game finishing that was presented earlier in being very important.

As a film overall, it's better than the original since the tone is more serious and realistic. Not nearly as raunchy which can see why people prefer the original. Still nothing really special. One time watch.

The last time I saw this movie was in 1991 on USA "Up All Night" and I haven't seen it since. I first saw it in 1983 on cable when I was 12 years old,I had to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night to watch it,because it was a "dirty movie". Those were the days. It may be cheesy as hell,but I like it. I noticed that Colleen Camp is in this,and no, there are no nude shots of her. One thing I've wondered about this is what type of movie this is: Comedy? Drama? Action? I think it's all three. I miss this movie and I wish it was available on VHS. I see SWITCHBLADE SISTERS is! Why isn't this one?! SWINGING CHEERLEADERS is way better than SWITCHBLADE SISTERS!