Basic Training (1985) The Movie Store/Comedy RT: 88 minutes Rated R (lots of nudity including full frontal, sexual content, language) Director: Andrew Sugarman Screenplay: Bernie Kahn Music: Michael Cruz Cinematography: Stephen W. Gray Release date: November 1985 (US) Cast: Ann Dusenberry, Rhonda Shear, Angela Aames, Will Nye, Walter Gotell, Marty Brill, William A. Forester, Christopher Pennock, Mark Withers, Gerard Prendergast, Marty Cohen, Orly Oh, Linda Hoy, Kenny Ellis, Gerald Berns. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ***
As I often do when I watch older films, I wondered what today’s teens would make of Basic Training, a trifling adult comedy with characters controlled by their libidos. I watched dozens of similar movies on cable and video during my own teen years in the 80s. I enjoyed them, but I’m not sure they’d go over with modern audiences. I’m not sure they’d see the humor in the depiction of a workplace where horndog bosses routinely proposition and grope their female employees. You could joke about a situation like that way back when, but not anymore. Now it’s one of those things you don’t joke about. Hell, just talking about a movie like Basic Training at work might get you a sit-down with an HR rep.
When I rented Basic Training way back in summer 1986, I thought it would be a silly Police Academy knock-off. That’s what the poster implied. Well, it’s not that. It’s more of a dirty-minded sex comedy in the vein of Weekend Pass and The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington. That’s not what I signed on for. I felt gypped. I didn’t find it especially funny either. I got so bored, I turned it off after about 35 minutes (give or take) and put in the other movie I rented that day, Disney’s The Journey of Natty Gann. How’s that for a double feature?
I never even considered giving Basic Training a second chance until now. What changed? Nothing, absolutely nothing, that’s what. I was looking to review a really bad movie, something I like to do now and again. I figured Basic Training would do the trick. That’s where things get weird. It’s still a bad movie, but this time I didn’t shut it off. Something- okay, a few things- about it compelled me to keep watching. In the end, I didn’t regret it. I don’t know if I’d say I liked it, but I didn’t hate it either.
Although I had already seen a lot of movies by ’86 (I was 18), I was still something of a novice. I wasn’t able to appreciate the finer points of crappy exploitation movies like Basic Training, one of which is casting. Like a lot of movies of its ilk, it features an interesting cast of actors with dubious talent. Take the three leading ladies. No, make that the three HOT leading ladies- Ann Dusenberry (Jaws 2), Rhonda Shear (the future host of USA Up All Night) and the late Angela Aames (Bachelor Party). I’m not sure you can call what they do in Basic Training acting, but they look damn sexy doing it. That counts for a lot with teen boys of all ages.
The plot, such as it is, centers on Melinda (Dusenberry), a buttoned-down type from a small Midwest town who moves to Washington D.C. in hopes of working for the government. She moves in with her best friend from back home, Debbie (Shear), who helps her get a job as a secretary at the Pentagon. The problem is her boss Lt. Cranston (Nye, Remote Control) expects her to do more than take dictation. She’s fired after rejecting his advances on multiple occasions. Rather than take it lying down, Melinda decides to get even, not just with Cranston but ALL the sex-crazy men in charge. She’s helped by Debbie and their buxom roommate Cheryl (Aames). Together, they make a stand for feminism and equality in the working by using their greatest….. uh, shall we say assets?
By way of a subplot, there’s some business about valuable intelligence on the Soviets gone missing, presumed erased from the data banks by a spy. It was actually caused by a careless cleaning lady, but that never occurs to the idiots in charge. It’s 1985, of course it was the Russians! Melinda takes it on herself to gather the missing info by seducing the horny Russian ambassador played by Walter Gotell, best known as KGB ally General Gogol in several James Bond movies.
There’s romance too. When she’s all but given up on the idea of finding a good man, Melinda finds romance with the nice guy (Prendergast, The Hollywood Knights) she met on the plane coming to D.C. The fact that he tells her a little about himself before she turns him down for a date tells you that they’ll run into each other again eventually. And they do, literally, in a parking lot. A romantic montage or two later, they’re an item.
This is the only feature film to be directed by Andrew Sugarman. He would go on to produce titles like Death Sentence, Shopgirl and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Any one of them, even the bombastic Ballistic, is a step up from Basic Training. It’s little more than a dirty movie starring three nubile young actresses who don’t need an excuse to shed their clothes. That’s not a criticism; it’s a description. Not that it’s a bad thing because it isn’t.
It would be easy for me to sit here and tear Basic Training apart. It’s a bad film on many levels, but only if you think of it in terms of mainstream cinema. You have to adjust your thinking if you want to be entertained by it. It’s a movie that’s meant to be watched on video or on late-night cable TV by 15YO boys with sex on the brain 24/7. You better believe I would have watched it multiple times at that age. I missed the cut by just a few years.
Let’s talk a little more about the cast. No performance in Basic Training is award worthy and no cast member is a master thespian. The acting is pretty bad for the most part. Now let me ask you, isn’t that part of the show? Who wants to see a bunch of Olivier and Streep imitators in a T&A exploitation comedy? As long as everybody’s reasonably attractive and the girls have big boobs, who really gives a f***? That being said, I like the main actresses, especially Aames who tragically died of heart disease in ’88 (she was only 32). You might remember her as the hot mom being photographed by Adrian Zmed in Bachelor Party. She also played Little Bo Peep in the softcore sex comedy Fairy Tales, “Boom-Boom Bangs” in H.O.T.S. and Miss Vanders in Chopping Mall. Now she was H-O-T HOT!
For me, the other cast member of note is Gerard Prendergast, an actor who got around quite a bit in the 70s and 80s. He was surfer guy Tarzan in The Hollywood Knights. He played Bernard in the short-lived 1979 sitcom Makin’ It. He was in a low-budget sci-fi flick called Time Walker. He also appeared in Bachelor Party as the bartender at the male strip joint, the one who introduces the guys to “Nick the Dick”. According to IMDb, he hasn’t acted since ’97. I liked him.
Now for the $64,000 question, is Basic Training funny? It kind of is. It’s funny in the same way as cheap T&A comedies like Screwballs and The Beach Girls are. It’s dumb, sleazy and dirty. Its IQ is firmly in the double-digits. The “plot” is merely a device to string together scenes of actresses showing their boobs and other body parts. You know what? I don’t mind, not at all. I’m not one of those stodgy, stuffy, self-important critics who come down on movies like Basic Training because they’re not Citizen Kane. I actually prefer them to many “critically acclaimed” films. They’re fun and require no brain work on the part of the viewer. What’s wrong with that?
