The Cheerleaders (1973) Cinemation Industries/Comedy RT: 84 minutes Rated R (sex and nudity) Director: Paul Glickler Screenplay: Ace Baandige, Paul Glickler, Richard Lerner and Tad Richards Music: David Herman Cinematography: Richard Lerner Release date: March 1973 (US) Cast: Stephanie Fondue, Denise Dillaway, Brandy Woods, Jovita Bush, Kim Stanton, Sandy Evans, Richard Meatwhistle, Jonathan Jacobs, Raoul Hoffnung, Patrick Wright, Terri Teague, Jack Jonas, Jay Linder, Charles Goldman, John Bracci, Bill Lehrke, P.J. Karpati, Evett Wilber. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
The Cheerleaders is a sex-starved 14YO boy’s wet dream come true. That’s who it appears to be made for anyway. That would explain the terrible acting and almost complete absence of a plot not to mention the preponderance of sex and nudity. It’s not just a T&A comedy; it’s a T&A&B one. The “B” is in reference of one of Booger’s best lines in Revenge of the Nerds (“We’ve got b***, we’ve got b***!”). In any event, there’s plenty of all three in The Cheerleaders.
PLOT, WHAT PLOT? [Insert audible sigh] May as well get this part out of the way. Trust me, it won’t take very long. The only virgin at Amarosa High in sunny California, an alarmingly naïve girl named Jeannie (Fondue), joins the cheerleading squad in hopes of gaining confidence and getting laid. It shouldn’t be hard since all these girls do is cheer, take off their clothes and screw. Something of an actual storyline kicks in when the girls’ slumber party turns into an orgy when the football team shows up. The problem is it’s the night before the big game. With the guys all tired out from screwing, there’s no way they have a shot at winning. The girls take matters into their own hands and level the playing field by tracking down and seducing all the members of the opposing team.
Oh, I almost forgot. Head cheerleader Claudia (Dillaway) has a bet going with a female coach (Teague) over Jeannie losing her virginity before the end of football season. Don’t worry too much about it; it ends up not being a major plot point.
Most of The Cheerleaders centers on the sexual escapades of Jeannie and the other girls- Claudia, Debbie (Woods), Bonnie (Bush, Fox Style), Patty (Stanton, The Young Nurses) and Suzie (Evans, The Journey of O). There’s no getting around it; The Cheerleaders is a dirty movie. It falls somewhere between softcore and hardcore in that it shows more than the average R movie, but doesn’t meet the standards for an X. Either way, these girls spend a lot of time on their backs, fronts, knees and partners. The “highlights” include sessions with the football coach, the girls’ coach, a school bus driver, the counter guy at the hamburger stand, a couple of sleazy bikers and Jeannie’s horndog dad. A climax of sorts is reached when Jeannie rides a wave of semen after a particular scuzzy encounter involving the school’s fat horny janitor (Hoffnung) in a bear suit. Don’t ask; really, DON’T ask.
I’m really conflicted what to say next about The Cheerleaders. It’s a bad movie alright. The acting, if you can even call it that, is atrocious. I’ve heard better line readings in a third grade Thanksgiving play. I’ve seen better performances there too. The actresses aren’t even all that attractive. My guess is that they were hired based on their willingness to shed their clothes on camera. It’s a good thing that’s what the audience is really coming to see. The humor is on the level of a middle school locker room with one stupid dirty pun after another. And why do so many of them rhyme? Sample line: “I’m wise to the rise in your Levi’s.” Since when do characters in a teen T&A flick talk like poets? It’s in direct contrast to their IQs, none of which exceed the bustiest girl’s bra size.
The Cheerleaders is populated by character types; the girls are air-heads, the guys are horny and all adults are buffoons. Everybody is a pervert on some level, some more than others. Jeannie’s dad leers at her friends yet forbids her to leave the house in a revealing outfit. The janitor, described by one of the girls as “an anti-social disease”, would be a registered sex offender by today’s standards. He’s just gross and creepy. The only non-pervert is Jeannie’s so-called “boyfriend” Norm (Jacobs), a wet blanket who seems to work every place the girls go. He’s not the least bit interested in sex which makes him a different kind of creep.
The cheer choreography is clumsy at best. Same goes for the football scenes. The jokes aren’t especially funny. Some scenes go on longer than necessary. The Cheerleaders hasn’t a single shred of artistic integrity. At the same time, I can’t simply dismiss it as a bad teen comedy on the level of Hollywood High. I don’t know why, but there’s something about it that intrigues me. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the kind of dirty movie I used to stay up late to watch on Cinemax as a teen only dirtier. Maybe it’s the low, low, LOW level of humor. This movie is low-budget, low class and lowbrow. It could be considered a 3D movie- dirty, dopey and dumb.
Perhaps what I feel for The Cheerleaders is admiration. I admire the hell out of its total lack of pretentiousness. It makes no bones about what kind of movie it is and who it’s for. I ought to give it one star, but I’ll give it three for nostalgic reasons. It’s a relic of a time when such movies showed at public theaters and drive-ins.
