Cheerleaders Wild Weekend
(1979)
Some movies, stuck in videotape limbo, cry out for a
first rate digital treatment, if not BluRay then at least DVD. The Wrong Man,
for instance, screams "digitize me, high def please," for only then will the
Rosanna Arquette stripping scene find its place at the top of the heap, all-time
best topless performance by a woman of significant celebrity. At a much lower
rung on the ladder is the movie entitled Cheerleaders Wild Weekend. Was filmed
in 1979 for next to nothing and the only copy I had watched until a week ago was
a second-generation videotape. Capped that bad boy a time or two, with the kind
of quality that brings a cold sweat to the brow. No matter, because it is now
available on DVD with the alternative title of The Great American Girl Robbery.
The only celebrity (of B- variety) is Kristine De Bell and she gives up none of
the goods, except to walk around braless in a tight blue cheerleader outfit. A
few other women are sort of, kind of semi-hemi-demi-recognizable and they do get
nekkid. There is Marilyn Joi, who was 34 when the movie was made and still she
plays a high school cheerleader (??!!!!!). She earned roles in a bunch of movies
including this one by showing off her impressive pair of hooties but did I
mention she was 34 when she showed them in this film? Wally Ann Wharton reveals
her own superstructure repeatedly in this and a few other films and she is a
decade younger. Elizabeth Halsey and Janie Squire were each topless in
Cheerleaders and in one other movie and Leslie King, also topless here, went on
to write and direct a few movies, none of any particular distinction. Joan Wolf,
Janet Blythe, and Courtney Sands were one hit wonders - see them here and
nowhere else. But the star of the show, IMHO, is Lenka Novak, who is credited
here as Hana Byrbo. Lenka was a true natural wonder, with an angelic countenance
and a form like mortal sin. She posed for the Hefmag a time or two and has four
or five skin-revealing performances to her credit, but... and this is why
Cheerleaders was her last movie for almost a decade... she could not act to save
her life. Truly horrible at it, which is too bad because she could been somebody
with all those outstanding physical features.
So I have caps and clips of these women. The highlight of the movie comes around
the 30-minute mark when Wally Ann, Marilyn, Elizabeth, Leslie, Janie and the
divine Lenka strut around as though in a topless beauty contest and then
continue the toplessness into a dance routine. All of that is followed by a T &
A bath scene with Lenka and Courtney. We are talking several minutes of
hooterville. Before that we have a Janet shower scene and a performance on a bus
as Wally Ann and Joan Wolf compete to distract a yokel so that he runs his
pickup off the road. And then there is this odd fight scene in which Marilyn
loses her top. After the prolonged sequence of all-natural hooties everywhere
you look, there is nothing, nada, zilch. Makes the last half of the movie
hopelessly boring.
One of the highlights of the DVD was a set of stills. Janet Blythe is the star
of the most impressive ones, some were taken during the shower scene and others
were during a deleted sport-humping scene that was cut from the final print
because of the rape elements to it. Both sets of stills show Janet in her
full-frontal glory - the only evidence that any of these gals possessed
equipment south of the waistline. And then there were stills of the catwalk and
dance scenes but these scenes were shot under odd lighting conditions and the
results tend to be uneven. No matter - they are welcome additions. Wish they had
included all the outtakes of the dance scene but who am I to quibble?
Bottom line here is simple - the movie is a miserable mess of loose plot points
and idiotic premises, spiced by performances that were often compelling enough
to make you wish this had been done by someone with some idea how to make a
movie. That would have made this a must-see for any and all of my fellow
Funhouse readers, a veritable Citizen Kane of toplessness. Instead? Well here is
the best the movie has to offer.
FILM CLIPS:
COLLAGES:
Courtney Sands
Elizabeth Halsey
Janet Blythe
Janet Blythe shower stills
Janet Blythe deleted scene
Janie Squire
Janie Squire - bonus features
Joan Wolf
Kristine DeBell
Lenka Novak
Leslie King
Marilyn Joi
Wally Ann Wharton
