The Pom Pom Girls (1976) Crown International/Comedy RT: 89 minutes Rated R (nudity, sex, language, drug and alcohol use) Director: Joseph Ruben Screenplay: Joseph Ruben Music: Michael Lloyd Cinematography: Stephen M. Katz Release date: May 1976 (US) Cast: Robert Carradine, Jennifer Ashley, Michael Mullins, Lisa Reeves, Bill Adler, James Gammon, Susan Player, Rainbeaux Smith, Diane Lee Hart, Lou Fant, John Lawrence, Sandra Lowell, Faith Christopher, John Sebastian. Box Office: $4.3M (US)
Rating: ***
This week, I decided to skip the grindhouse and go to the drive-in instead. Now that school’s out for the summer, it felt like the right time to watch a few T&A teensploitation comedies from Crown International, the undisputed king of the genre in the late 70s. Titles like The Pom Pom Girls were extremely popular with teens who really came to make out with their dates in the privacy of their own car or a parent’s car on loan for the night. They didn’t burden viewers with trivial details like plot so it was easy enough to follow what was happening on-screen in those brief moments they came up for air.
In the case of The Pom Pom Girls, there is literally no plot, just a few loose storylines. Before I get to those, it bears mentioning that it’s NOT really a cheerleader movie even though its title indicates otherwise. The action doesn’t center on a group of fun-loving, pom pom-shaking girls who can’t keep their uniforms on for more than five minutes at a time. Rather, it centers on a couple of football players and their cheerleader girlfriends. If any character can be described as “main”, it’s Jesse (Mullins, Texas Detour), a van-driving womanizer who falls hard for Laurie (Ashley, The Centerfold Girls), a cheerleader who plays hard to get. He has a side thing going with cheerleader Sue Ann (Player, Invasion of the Bee Girls), a waitress at the local drive-in hamburger joint. They get it on more than once in his love wagon. In addition, he has an antagonistic relationship with the gruff football coach (Gammon, Major League). His best friend Johnnie (Carradine, Revenge of the Nerds) is the class maniac. He sparks a rivalry with class bully Duane (Adler, Switchblade Sisters) by stealing his girlfriend Sally (Reeves, The Chicken Chronicles). There’s also some business about an escalating prank war with a rival school that culminates in chaos at the big game.
That’s it. That’s the so-called plot, one that’s best described as loosely structured, kind of like the day-to-day life of a teenager in the 70s. The characters in The Pom Pom Girls are high schoolers in the first few weeks of their senior year. Not once do they mention college, SATs or the future. They live only to hang out at the beach, cruise in classic cars, make out, get into dumb fights, play pranks, leisurely roll down sandy hills and maybe fall in love while rock music plays over the soundtrack. Even in school, scholastic matters are the farthest thing from their minds. In one scene, Johnnie breaks the monotony of a lesson on quadratic equations by pissing out a window in the classroom. What The Pom Pom Girls is really about then is teens just hanging out being teens. It can even be argued it’s one of the main influences on Richard Linklater’s cult comedy Dazed and Confused. They’re certainly similar in structure and spirit.
By the same token, it can be argued that The Pom Pom Girls was influenced by teen movies of the 50s with its emphasis on the classic cars the kids go freewheeling in; that and the game of “suicide chicken” in the finale. Don’t know what that is? It involves two competitors driving each other’s cars toward a cliff edge. The first one to bail loses. It’s right out of Rebel Without a Cause. HA! Adler’s character even dresses like Marlon Brando from The Wild One. Yes, this is a movie partly stuck in another era.
Not much can be said for the acting in any of these teensploitation movies. The Pom Pom Girls is no different. I can’t say the performances are either good or bad. They’re both and neither. Why don’t I just say they’re exactly what the material demands and move on? It does have a cool cast though. I guess I’m too used to Carradine playing a nerd to see him as a jock. Adler became something of a teensploitation mainstay in the late 70s with appearances in The Van, Malibu Beach and Van Nuys Blvd. The three female leads plus co-star Rainbeaux Smith (The Swinging Cheerleaders) are HOT even if they don’t take off their clothes but once in the locker room.
The most interesting person involved with The Pom Pom Girls isn’t in the movie but behind the camera. It’s Joseph Ruben, a director who would go onto bigger and (sometimes) better gigs like Dreamscape, The Stepfather, True Believer, Sleeping with the Enemy, The Good Son and Money Train. It’s hard to believe he’s responsible for this empty-headed teen fluff, but filmmakers have to start somewhere. That being said, it’s not bad for a low-budget quickie. It’s not as artistically sound as his subsequent features, but do you really think the drive-in audience cares? They’re too busy necking.
I would say that The Pom Pom Girls is more amusing than funny. It has a few chuckle-worthy moments like the kids stealing a fire truck to prank the opposing football team at practice. There’s also an oddly subdued food fight punctuated by other students shooting straw wrappers at the ceiling. The best way to describe The Pom Pom Girls is likable. It’s a pointless but pleasant affair refreshingly free of the sleaze that would come to define the teen sex movies of the 80s. It’s all quite innocent really. Wouldn’t it be nice if teen comedies were still this innocent?
