Superchick (1973)

This is probably my favorite kind of picture, the kind where hot seventies broads frolic around naked. Sometimes these things bother with plot, sometimes not. I'll take them either way. Anyway, this picture called Superchick is one of the ones that tried to tell a story and I have to tell you it was pretty fucking funny. What they did here was riff on the Superman mythos and instead of a guy with super powers created by exposure to our yellow sun or however the hell that worked, we are treated to a woman, a stewardess with incomparable sexual powers. By day, she is just an ordinary, demure, shy flight attendent with brown hair up in a bun. By night, she is a blonde sex goddess in hot pants and also usually no pants at all. The broad even goes into a phone booth at the start of her layover and comes out all dolled up. This is the kind of picture I can get behind.

Joyce Jillson was some kind of famous hollywood astrologer at one point but she pretty much had her big break with Superchick. I'm not sure, but I think this was the only time she took off her clothes for a film so therfore, this is a picture that must be treasured. She stars as the stewardess named Tara B. True and flies between New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. In each city, she has a different man. Her New York man is some rich doctor type, a surgeon who is desperately in love with her. Unfortunately, he's a germophobe so they spend their evenings sharing a bath because he apparently doesn't know about the organisms that love nothing more than to swim around in a tepid pool of filth. They also play naked black jack in bed which would be a pretty good time I would think. The next day, his limo drops her off at the airport where his proposal of marriage is rebuffed. No way can she settle down with just one man. She's got far too much love to give. He tells her he'll be thinking of her while performing surgery that afternoon. Good for her. Not so good for the patient.

Next stop, sunny Miami where she meets up with buff Johnny (Tony Young) , a good looking guy with a gambling problem. Johnny's in pretty deep to the local mafia boss who is kind enough to wipe away all his debts for a roll in the sack with Ms. True. Johnny's not a complete scum bag though so he'll think about it. Meanwhile, he and Tara enjoy hours of water skiing (she loses her bottoms!), night clubbing, and other stuff. Johnny, like most degenerates, doesn't have the energy to keep up with his starlett. When the bartender tells him "look pal, we're closing in ten minutes", Johnny replies "can you make it sooner?"

Her beau in Los Angeles is none other than the hot, new, suddenly over the hill at 21, rock star Davey Charles (Timothy Wayne Brown). He's in love with Joyce for the part of her that has a great body, the kind of body that can help him keep ahead of the constantly evolving music scene. By that, I mean they have sex on the piano and record the sounds it makes. This gets old for Tara pretty fast. Her further adventures in L.A. involve a karate class, a typical hollywood pot party, a hollywood pot party bust, and a near gang bang at the hands of a ruthless biker gang ("listen guys..uh...let's dispense with the biker movie lingo and just gang bang her."). John Carradine portrays a John Carradine like actor (except for the vast mansion) who lives alone with his memorabilia placing ads for young women to come and tie him up, listen to his mother, maybe be killed, etc. His scene kinda comes out of nowhere, but even he is no match for superchick (Tara: Wow, someone must have dropped acid in his geritol).

I guess the main story involves the mafia based out of miami. They use Johnny to try to smuggle guns on board one of Tara's flights ("they never check the stewardess' bags") so they can hijack it and rob one of the rich passengers. This seems like an awful lot to go through just to come out with $500 K (estimated loot), but I guess this is one of those pre 9-11 movies where a hijacking could possibly be amusing.

Shit, I forgot about the solider ("I'm a marine") on the flight out of miami. He confesses to Tara that he's got limited experience with women and she becomes even more turned on when she realizes he was stationed on Guantanomo with 50,000 cubans yelling "american go home." She quickly turns into superchick and tells the young soldier ("um, marine") to meet her in the bathroom and cough three times where they will try to deal with the turbulance and likely make some of their own. Yeah, this picture is almost a porno.

I love the ideals behind the thing though. She loves all three of her men, but why should she settle down with them and why should they settle down with her? Her job allows her to bring her brand of love all over the world. I guess that later she will be promoted and moved beyond domestic flights or something. Not only is she, apparently, great in the sack but she's also pretty good at the ass kicking; biker gang, japanese karate champion, hijackers, etc...she defeats them all. Superman was not very great in the sack from what I've heard...or at least none of his conquests lived to talk about it. Superboy from Superman Returns was a product of artificial insemination. Anyway, if you love a good seventies movie full of seventies styles, seventies nudity, and seventies theme music then you can't really go wrong with this picture. Note: Tara says "Last one in bed, get's no head!"

Coach (1978)

Over the Christmas holiday, while perusing the only Best Buy in Vermont, I picked up a ten disc, ten double features, twenty picture “Welcome to the Grindhouse” collection for a mere twenty bucks that may be one of the best things I’ve purchased in my life. I’ve never seen this particular collection in any best buy (or on Amazon for that matter) since. I’ve encountered the separate single disc double features for ten bucks. They’re all over the fucking place. So basically, that’s a savings of eighty bucks for an incredible collection you’ll apparently never find anywhere else. Black Candles alone made the whole god damned thing worth it. In addition, we’ve got Don’t Answer the Phone, Trip With Teacher, Sister Street Fighter, Malibu High, etc, loads of trailers, nudity, gore, etc. Solid buy is all I’m saying.

Also included is a little film from 1978 called Coach. Cathy Lee Crosby (“That’s Incredible”) stars as Randy Rawlings, a beautiful Olympic running champion who becomes the coach of a lousy high school boy’s basketball team and leads them to victory while simultaneously leading the starting point guard right into her bed. Yeah, it’s that kind of picture.

Only it isn’t, really. This is like if Lifetime had decided to make a movie about a teacher (or coach) bedding her student only they decided this was a perfectly acceptable thing. Well, that starting point guard is none other than Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Terminator, Navy Seals) and I suppose it helps matters that he and Crosby exhibit a wonderful chemistry. Yes, she looks to be about 10 years his senior but what the fuck do I care when he looks 25? The 1970s were a simple time, a time when if a young student could bang his teacher then good for him. Today, the teacher goes to prison and someone usually ends up dead. Also, where the fuck were these teachers when I was in high school? I call bullshit.

Keenan Wynn (Once Upon a Time in the West) is Granger, some sort of principal-superintendant-rich son of a bitch hybrid. He’s old school in his beliefs; i.e. woman are good for making dinner and making babies. He wants his basketball team (“the stallions”) to win, sure, but at what price? I’m sure you’re wondering why he hired Rawlings in the first place? After a particularly humiliating loss, and the forced resignation of the former coach, the school desperately sent out applications around the country. Somehow, one ended up on Rawlings desk. She was immediately offered the job (being a former Olympian and all) so it comes down to a lousy screening process on Wynn’s case. Olympian or not, she’s still a god damned female, am I right gents?

Well, I’ve got no idea where I’m going with this review at this point. Uninspired basketball team. Woman trying to make it in a “man’s world” (see I put it in quotes so I’m not being sexist), etc.

I love a good sports picture. I love a good picture with exploitative elements. Why not combine the two? Unfortunately, this is just a sports picture with some loose morals. The only ass we see are the players as they hit the showers. We get some side-al breast action from Rawlings but it’s all too brief. Her passionate sex scene with Biehn is interrupted by a fade to black and then, later, her passionate shower sex scene with Biehn is interrupted by the janitor. I couldn’t get away from the idea that these two never got caught. Their relationship is perfectly fine. I kept thinking the horny teacher that liked Rawlings would find out or maybe Keenan Wynn would find out and use it to try to get her canned. It never happened. At one point, Biehn sees Rawlings kissing that horny teacher. Predictably, he becomes upset, showing up late to a game, ignoring her, etc. Then he learns that she kissed the guy because he was going to bring a college scout to the game. Perfectly reasonable, Biehn. Fogive the broad already. He does.

I loved the camaraderie between the teammates. They pulled for each other. There was the guy set up to be the asshole (Wynn’s grandson) but he ended up being a pretty nice guy and even stood up to his bigoted family at one point. Ned was, by far, my favorite “stallion”. He's a terrible student, bit of an airhead, threatened with removal from the team. The stallions desperately need his size on the court if they are going to compete for the championship. Instead of helping the guy study, they realize his situation is borderline hopeless. So, they hypnotize him into remembering the formulas for the big exam (as soon as they say the code word “jabberwocky” he becomes a math machine). Hilariously, all that time spent hypnotizing Ned (he get’s an A+) doesn’t really help Biehn much (D). Later, they hypnotize Ned into thinking he’s Sydney Wick (NBA legend who also guest stars) cause apparently he's not very good at basketball either.

Shit man, if you like Hoosiers you’ll probably disapprove of this one unless you wanted to see Dale and Chitwood going at it in the showers. I love a good basketball picture though and this one gets my seal of approval. I even learned a few things about the game. Elbows out, ball high when rebounding. Splitting the post I guess isn’t very good when it’s being done against you. If I were to hypnotize myself into believing I was Lebron James then I’d be a pretty good player. If I hypnotized myself into believing I was Sydney Wick I might start “talking black” and slapping five a lot. Also, dunking.

The game footage in this one was pretty solid. I swear they showed us the entire first quarter of the championship; every missed hoop, every Biehn turnover (he was distracted), every Ned hookshot from halfcourt…it was all in there. Of course, I loved when Coach Rawlings said "fuck ethics" when she found her team down twenty points. As soon as she screams out “jabberwocky” Ned starts teen wolfing his way up and down the court, swatting shots, stuffing home balls, probably causing irreversible brain damage. Win at all costs I guess. The final montage of game action is completely indecipherable….I’ve never seen so many misses in the final two minutes in my life. Finally, there’s Biehn…no time left, on the foul line…tie game. Will he choke? Who gives a shit? He gets to go home and bang the coach.