Smash !

My review was written in January 1983 after a Times Square screening.

A Canadian production filmed in Sarasota, Florida in 1981 under the title "Sneakers", "Spring Fever" is a mild and dull picture about pre-teen girls trying to be the next Chris Evert of the tennis world. The film is being sold as another of the popular teen hi-jinks comedies, but except for the inclusion (a la "Bad News Bears") of precocious kids spouting foul language for cheap laughs, "Fever" has little to offer fans of softcore sex-tease.

Padded with endless montages of tennis matches, the picture unfolds as a corny tale of poor little K. C. (Carling Bassett), an underdog, unseeded 13-year-old entrant in the Junior National tennis tournament. She is ostracized because of her beautiful and too-flashy Las Vegas showgirl mom Stevie Castle (Susan Anton).

While mom becomes involved romantically with a reporter (Frank Converse) covering the tournament, K. C. befriends Missy Berryman (Shawn Foltz), top seeded daughter of a rich socialite (Jessica Walter). Before the big final match against Missy, K. C. finds time to hustle money games against unwary male adult opponents (take that, Bobby Riggs!).

With five writers credited with "additional material" beyond the main screenplay, "Spring Fever" is unfortunately uneventful. Outside of a drug bust at a disco which nearly halts Missy's career, the pic divides equally between limning the activities of the pre-teens and their adult parents, with no teenagers (presumably the target market) on view. Lame script even resorts to having Missy's dad (Stephen Young) suffer a heart attack during the final match in a dubious effort to create viewer interest in the outcome.

Casting (including obvious nepotism) has the young girls impressive on the court but evidencing little acting skill. Lead Carling Bassett is laughable in dramatic scenes and her duly-recorded grunting every time she hits a ballis irritating enough to keep one awake during the matches.

The adult cast has little to do, except for Jessica Walter, most impressively hard and nasty, reminding one of her underutilized big-screen potential since her extraordinary "Play Misty for Me' performance.

The cover shows a dude being buried in the sand by two blonde bombshells, calling to mind happy thoughts of surf parties, beer, and topless mayhem. DON'T BE FOOLED! Turn to the back and you'll see the truth, a completely different movie with the tag line "KC's got a lot to learn about being a winner… and becoming a woman." Clearly people buying it for the front cover would Definitely NOT buy it for the plot line on the back. It's a crafty scheme to try and sell a movie that's so bland it doesn't know who its target audience is to begin with.

The movie begins with KC, a-rough-as-nails poor girl hustling a portly man at tennis, while Pat Benetar's "Hit me with your best shot" blasts in the background. Inexplicably, the music changes to an orchestral version of "America the Beautiful" when the man gets hit in the balls. You'll be hearing these and several blah soft rock songs from the 70's many times throughout this touchingly dull lifetimesque story of two girls from different ends of the track competing in a tennis tournament, along the way learning a bunch of boring junk about themselves and their mothers.

This amiably cutesy Canuck sports flick finds sassy Vegas gal (Carling Bassett) visiting Florida with her equally vivacious showgirl mom Stevie (Susan Anton) to compete in the prestigious Junior national's tennis championship. It's palpably lightweight fare, but enjoyably easy on the eye, and the quality cast does the best it can with the occasionally prosaic material. While an interest in tennis proves superfluous, any that appreciate nubile sporty girls noisily exerting themselves, and plentifully suggestive badinage will find that these especially flighty balls are very much in their court! The bouncy Spring Fever energetically serves up a hormonal, solar-heated slice of teenaged hi jinks, which certainly has its fair share of ballsy, boisterously backhanded protagonists! It's a pretty gloopy, syrupy, sweetly sappy confection, but like another popular treacly Canadian export, I kinda like it that way! My only minor quibble is watching such a pyrotechnical performer as Jessica Walters stymied by her highly strung, one-note, waspishly unlikeable character.

I remember seeing this film several times during my teen years and I remember thinking that it was the sort of movie I could watch over and over again without ever getting tired of it. I still feel that way, perhaps because I haven't seen it in a number of years, but the fact remains that it is both one of the best summer movies and one of the best sports movies I remember seeing. Definitely a film I would recommend to others and to myself again as well, if only to see if it has held up very well over the past twenty years.

I took a sharp glance at the tape box front cover for this film, which featured illustrations of gals on the beach. Funny thing is, stuff sells! And even if SPRING FEVER (1981) didn't turn out like another sleazy bimbo comedy, it occasionally delivered a few gags. This is a drama about hard times in and out of the women's tennis finals. There are some levels of seriousness that builds up along with the story. Not what you'd expect when checking this out at first, but then again, you might as well press "FAST FORWARD" until you find any greater interest with the movie. Sad to say, it's not interesting.