{"id":13845,"date":"2026-01-19T21:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13845"},"modified":"2026-01-19T21:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T02:18:18","slug":"spring-fever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/01\/19\/spring-fever\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Fever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Spring Fever <\/strong>(1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Comworld Pictures\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, crude humor, mild sexual content, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joseph L. Scanlan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Stuart Gillard and Fed Stefan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Fred Mollin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Donald Wilder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 4, 1983 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0 \u00a0 Cast: Susan Anton, Frank Converse, Carling Bassett, Jessica Walter, Shawn Foltz, Stephen Shellen, Brain Crabb, Martin Schechter, David Main, Stephen Young, Maria Hontzas, Alan Fawcett, Derrick Jones, Lisa Foster, Lisa Brady.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Even though I like Spring Fever<\/strong>, I must call it out for its poster art. It\u2019s the most blatant case of misleading marketing since millionaire businessman Meshulam Riklis tried to pass off Pia Zadora (Butterfly, The Lonely Lady) as the next big movie actress. The poster shows two bikini-clad bimbos pouring beer on the crotch of some Speedo-clad himbo on a beach. What does that say to you? To me, it says teen beach party flick with lots of dirty jokes, partying and gratuitous nudity. It\u2019s a reasonable assumption given that we\u2019re talking about the early 80s when horny teenager flicks like Joysticks and Spring Break were popular.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now the big tip-off about Spring Fever<\/strong> should be its PG rating. That\u2019s right, PG. The truth is that it\u2019s NOT a horny teenager movie. It\u2019s actually about young teenage girls competing in a major tennis tournament. The girls briefly attend a beach party at the beginning of the movie. It has a few off-color jokes like the double entendre about a boy\u2019s frozen balls (it\u2019s a tennis-themed movie, think about it). As for nudity and sex, there\u2019s nothing to see save for a brief scene of implied sex (between two adults!) in the shower. Oh yeah, that well-endowed Amazonian goddess Susan Anton (Cannonball Run II) gets to shake her stuff in a couple of scenes. It\u2019s hardly the stuff of Porky\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That being said, I actually like Spring Fever<\/strong>. It\u2019s a cheapie Canadian production that was filmed in \u201981 under the title Sneakers. That may be the more accurate title, but it\u2019s one that would likely attract a very limited audience of tennis fans and foot fetishists. For what it is, it\u2019s not bad. And yes, I did see this one at the movies. Twice in fact, the second time on a double bill with Fast Times at Ridgemont High at the local $1 theater.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Karen \u201cK.C.\u201d Castle (real life tennis pro Bassett) lives in Las Vegas with her showgirl mother Stevie (Anton). She makes pocket money hustling unsuspecting victims at the public tennis courts. How are they supposed to know that she\u2019s a ranked player about to compete in a tournament in Florida?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unfortunately, K.C. and her mother find themselves the target of snobbery amongst the spoiled brats in the competition and their stuck-up parents. This is especially true of Celia Berryman (Walter, Arrested Development) whose champion daughter Missy (Foltz) is favored to win the tournament. She sees K.C. and her mother as her inferiors and wants them gone. The only one who really shows them any kindness is Andy (Shellen, Casual Sex?), a tennis pro who agrees to help K.C. train for her upcoming matches.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The other parents feel that Stevie is a bad influence on their daughters with her free-wheeling ways and good-time attitude. Stevie hooks up with a journalist (Converse, Solarbabies) who writes a negative article about Missy. This just makes Celia more determined to have K.C. disqualified from the tournament. Meanwhile, K.C. and Missy strike up a friendship and agree to do a TV interview together. The girls go out on the town afterwards which leads to a situation that involves a false accusation and K.C.\u2019s possible disqualification from the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As you can see, Spring Fever<\/strong> is NOT the T&A comedy that the poster art indicates. It\u2019s pretty much as low budget as a movie can get and still manage to get a distribution deal. It was released by an outfit called Comworld Pictures. The name didn\u2019t ring a bell, so I looked it up on IMDb and saw that this studio also released Night Warning, One Dark Night, Ator, The Final Terror and Getting It On before folding in \u201986. I can\u2019t find any more information on Comworld, but it\u2019s interesting to learn of yet another low budget studio whose pictures helped define my teen years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Spring Fever<\/strong> is hardly what I\u2019d call a great movie; in fact, it\u2019s not even that well made. Most of the acting is pretty bad and there\u2019s an inconsistency in tone that\u2019s kind of strange. For example, just moments after the \u201cfrozen balls\u201d gag, a father suffers a heart attack during his daughter\u2019s match. There\u2019s also a shocking scene of child abuse about midway through that clearly belongs in a more serious-minded movie. It doesn\u2019t really belong in a light comedy aimed at teens looking for a good time at the movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In addition, some of the music is just awful! In the sequence where K.C. and Missy spend the day together goofing around, a song entitled \u201cJust One Chance to Be Free\u201d (by somebody named Taffy McElroy) plays over the soundtrack. Talk about cheesy AND sappy! At least the producers had the good sense to throw in a couple of hit songs by Pat Benatar (\u201cHit Me with Your Best Shot\u201d) and Loverboy (\u201cTurn Me Loose\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then there\u2019s the acting. HOO BOY! Here\u2019s the deal, Anton is HOT! She\u2019s less impressive as an actress. Bassett, on the other hand, cannot act at all. She makes a strong effort, but it\u2019s clear that she shouldn\u2019t even consider quitting her day job. She\u2019s a bit annoying at times, but she sure knows how to hit that ball.<\/p>\n

\u00a0All of this aside, I kind of like Spring Fever<\/strong>. It\u2019s entertaining enough if you keep your expectations low. It has a few funny moments. There\u2019s a nice little throwaway gag at the expense of John McEnroe (that temperamental of all tennis players!). I just can\u2019t bring myself to criticize Spring Fever<\/strong> too harshly. I have to give the producers credit for trying to pull a fast one on unsuspecting teens looking for a little T&A action. It\u2019s a shrewd albeit unfair trick that didn\u2019t translate into big bucks at the box office. Oh well, it was just a harmless stunt for a harmless movie. See it if you want a nice shot of 80s nostalgia Canadian style. That\u2019s Canuxploitation to all the movie geeks out there.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring Fever (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Comworld Pictures\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, crude humor, mild sexual content, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joseph L. Scanlan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Stuart Gillard and Fed Stefan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Fred Mollin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Donald Wilder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 4, 1983 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0 \u00a0 Cast: Susan Anton, Frank Converse, Carling Bassett, Jessica Walter, Shawn Foltz, Stephen Shellen, Brain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,18,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-comedies","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Spring-Fever-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13845"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13907,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13845\/revisions\/13907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}