The Pom Pom Girls

"The Pom Pom Girls" is about as coherent as Liza Minnelli on day three
of a bender, and appears to be edited by her as well. Yet I plug it time
and time again into the DVD player, perhaps to sate my overwhelming
masochistic impulses.

The "film" is a slice of modern life in what seems to be California circa
1976, as seen through the eyes of a group of degenerate, lawbreaking
teens, a group of high school football players and cheerleaders whose
innocent hijinks include making off with the town's fire truck to hose off
an opposing high school's football team and pep squad, the obligatory
food fight, underage beer drinking, good ole back-of-my-van fucking,
and vandalizing a number of cars in the town rival's high school parking
lot. Oh, those were the days. If there were a sequel to "The Pom Pom
Girls", it would mostly take place in jail.

It stars a youthful, pre-back hair Robert Carradine as Johnnie, a football
player who loves to go cruising and chug beer (most of it spilling down
the front of his shirt), and Michael Mullins as Jesse Davis, (or as he is
lovingly referred to, "Jesse Dogshit") the star quarterback and class
stud, with a van the color of French's Yellow Mustard that doesn't seem
to impede his ability to gets the chicks. Strangely, it's the frumpiest
-looking cheerleader, Laurie (Jennifer Ashley), that Jesse seems most
interested in. Check that; it's not so strange, as there are hundreds of
casting agents' cousins that have followed a similar path to stardom.

And with Halloween coming, what better time is there for a review of a
Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith film? Granted, her role in "The Pom Pom
Girls"(1976) is miniscule, but here at the Bad Movie Index, we take what
Rainbeaux we can get. Cheryl plays Roxanne, one of said pom pom
girls. As in every single film she made, save for her 15 year-old turn in
"Evil Knievel", take note of her wildly fucked up eyes (for more of those,
take a peek at our "Laserblast" review for more.

I will give the filmmakers special credit for the scene where Johnnie
slams down TWO six-packs of Budweiser on the convenience store
counter, which he purchases with his fake I.D. Now, for some reason, in
most coming-of-age flicks, a single six-pack marked BEER seems to
get a gaggle of teens loaded. What makes it even better is that Johnnie
isn't buying it for a shitload of people, just himself, and his gal Sally, who
is never shown taking a drink. Now that's real on a "Medium Cool" level.

The film's disjointed structure seems to want the "Big Football Game" to
be its central point, and much tension builds to that moment, just halfway
into the movie. The struggle between Jesse Dogshit and his
antagonistic coach, the always-gruff James Gammon is a major plot
point, it would seem. But the director cuts back and forth between so
much teen angst, ennui, mayhem, and fucking that nothing ever comes
of it. To put an exclamation point on the de-tension, Jesse puches out
the coach, only to find the world-class asshole asking him to "put it
behind us".

That brings us to another of the movie's subtleties: the obligatory
homerotic subtext. If you didn't find the confrontation and subsequent
kiss-and-make up between Jesse and Coach disturbing enough, you
will find more outward expressions of repressed man-on-man lust
between Robert Carradine's Johnny and school pseudo-tough guy
Duane (played by a guy named "And Introducing Bill Adler"). The two
engage in a homosexual cat-and-mouse food fight, blow kisses at a
pep rally, and to be sure that we believe our eyes, Duane shows up at
the battle royale game of "suicide chicken" at the end of the film in a
butch leather outfit. I had to rub my eyes to make sure I hadn't
accidentally inserted "Can't Stop The Music" into my DVD player.

The cloyingly sweet bubblegum soundtrack by Michael Lloyd is
nauseating, but, again, you have to love it. We found it on Rhino Home
Video, as a double-sided disc with "The Beach Girls" (1982).

Qotable Quote: "I ain't windin' up no pancake on no telephone pole!"