The Swinging Cheerleaders

source: The Swinging Cheerleaders

The fact that a movie called The Swinging Cheerleaders (AKA Locker Room Girls and H. O. T. S. II) is so good rests on the fortune that this was co-written and directed by Jack Hill. It's a movie that promises cheerleaders and sex. Sure, it delivers that. It also gives you a crime story, a tale of journalism and a wife so enraged by her husband's infidelity that the one scene she shows up for is volcanic, ending with her screaming that she plans on carving her name into a girl's anatomy. Kate (Jo Johnston in her one-and-done role) is writing an article for the college newspaper about how cheerleading demeans women, so she joins the squad. Yet she soon finds herself bonding with the girls. There's Mary Ann (Colleen Camp), who wants her boyfriend Buck to stop sleeping around and marry her. Lisa (Rosanne Katon) is the one having an affair with a married professor. And Andrea (Rainbeaux Smith!) just can't go all the way. But there are bigger problems. All of the adults are betting on the football games, including the dean, the coach and Mary Ann's dad, a local businessman. They're willing to do anything it takes to keep their scam going, too. Strangely enough, when this movie and The Student Body played a Dallas drive-in, Randall Adams and David Harris were in attendance and used the film as an alibi when they were investigated in the murder of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood. When Adams said that he had to leave as he didn't feel comfortable with the content, it led to his conviction. You can learn more in the documentary The Thin Blue Line. I saw someone on Letterboxd say that "If Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was about college cheerleading, this would be that movie." What a great way to explain this. It's totally not the teen sex romp you think it is, yet it has a scene where multiple people in a row all punch a security guard in the face, which should be a moment in every film.

Okay, this is my second cheerleader movie in a row I'm reviewing having previously commented on The Cheerleaders. In this one, Jo Johnson is Kate, an aspiring reporter who joins the college cheer team to expose them for their sexual hijinks but ends up finding out about a corrupt fix involving the football games. Ms. Johnson is quite a sexy brunette here surrounded by a blonde Colleen Camp as Mary Ann, another blonde Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith as Andrea, and a female of color Rosanne Katon as Lisa. Yes, there's some sex scenes with the requisite nudity and some funny lines and sequences but there's also some nice dramatic ones concerning much of the plot I mentioned. If I hadn't read the credits on Wikipedia and this site, I would have been fooled this was actually written by two women but it's actually two men as one of them is really director Jack Hill (as "Jane Witherspoon"!). Still, it sometimes felt like there was a feminist spin in some of the scenes and I liked the way the tone changed partly on a dime. So on that note, I recommend The Swinging Cheerleaders.

The prolific Jack Hill directs an exploitation feature this time focusing on cheerleaders and a football scandal..now this is what I seek out for my entertainment. The story-lines(..there are a series of plots focusing on certain cheerleaders and their love lives)aren't that challenging, just simple basic scenarios wrapped up in a tiny bow at the conclusion. Mesa College Dean, Head Football Coach, and a Math Professor all take part in a betting scheme, fixing numbers in regards to scoring during football games since the team is so talented. An underground college reporter, working on a major assignment for her term paper, decides to join the cheerleader squad to find dirt for it. Joe Johnston is Kate, the sexually liberated reporter who finds herself befriending her fellow cheerleaders, falling in love with the All American quarterback stud, Buck Larson(Ron Hajek) in the process. Buck is the boyfriend of head cheerleader Mary Ann(Colleen Camp), the prim, proper(..and quite naive)daughter of Mesa's Dean. Mary Ann doesn't have a clue that her man is banging all kinds of chicks on campus. Other sub-plots include virginal Andrea(Cheryl Smith)giving her football wide receiver boyfriend a hard time with her sexual hang-ups and cheerleader Lisa(Rosanne Katon)conflicted due to her affair with her married Professor Thorpe(Jason Sommers). Kate must contend with her deteriorating relationship with a campus radical who gets revenge on her, exposing the ditched article on cheerleader exploitation, raising the ire of her colleagues. I admittedly enjoy this kind of 70's drive-in fare, and as expected Hill understands how to deliver for this market. While the stories are soap opera in college kind of material, at least there was an effort to incorporate social themes reflecting that period of time. There's plenty of crude sex comedy humor throughout which means Hill done his homework. Hill mentions on the audio commentary that he hated football and didn't know that much about it, but I commend his ability to evoke the atmosphere of this particular setting, establishing how the sport could be used for behind-the-scenes crooked activities. Johnston(..I'm quite shocked this was her only performance)is quite appealing as the central character who stirs the pot and Cheryl Smith is beautiful / vulnerable as the dim bulb Andrea without a clue regarding the methods of passionate love-making. I love me some Colleen Camp and she's a fox, looking mighty fetching in her cheerleader uniform. There's some nudity sprinkled throughout, but Hill cuts away before sex commences.

Needing another member for the cheerleading squad at Mesa State College the cheerleaders open tryouts for anyone who might be interested. As it so happens a student by the name of "Kate Corie" (Jo Johnston) auditions and is accepted even though the head cheerleader "Mary Ann Putnam" (Colleen Camp) is jealous of her for flirting with her boyfriend "Buck Larsen" (Ron Hajak) who happens to be the star quarterback. What nobody knows however is that Kate only wants to join the squad to dig up some dirt for her journalism term paper. And in the course of her work she discovers a lot more than people fully realize. Anyway, rather than divulge any more of the plot and risk spoiling the movie for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this particular film had a reputation for being somewhat sleazy when it first came out. However, while it certainly had some nudity and scenes of a sexual nature, it wasn't nearly as graphic as I had initially thought back then. Likewise, although it was definitely a low-budget drive-in type of movie that one would find back in the mid-70's, it had a fairly interesting plot which managed to keep my attention for the most part. At any rate, while it certainly wasn't a blockbuster film by any means it wasn't that terribly bad either. Accordingly, I give it an average rating.

So I sat down to watch this expecting a waste of 90 minutes of my life. Surprisingly I found myself actually enjoying this seedy little mid seventies sexsploitation piece. The plot is nothing to speak of - journalism major decides to do a piece on swinging cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends. Where the film surprises is in it's scripting - surprisingly liberated considering this was 1974 and somewhat witty with a bevy of interesting performances from a game cast, this turned out to be far more entertaining than expected. Fun seventies drive-in fair and somewhat more layered than you may think. A solid six out of ten.

It's amazing how this movie made me realize how fond I actually was of the first movie "The Cheerleaders". It was trash but really entertaining and fun trash. I just can't say the same about this sequel. I just never really had any fun with this movie. It doesn't really has comedy in it, or at least not of the funny kind. It just isn't as fun or clever written as the first movie. As a matter of fact, you could even say that this movie is bit overwritten, as strange as that perhaps might sound. With that I mean, is that the movie takes itself and its story a bit too serious. This movie didn't needed to have a main plot line in it! It should had been about silly teenagers, doing silly teenagers stuff, all sex related. But you can't even really call this a sexploitation flick. Really, it has far too little sex and nudity in it for that. Like I said, it's just too heavy on its story, which does not suit the genre at all. Another reason why I really wasn't taken by this movie was because it was lacking some good, or likable enough, characters in it. This is something the first movie did really right! Every character had a very distinctive personality and was often very likable because of that. In this movie I still can't tell you who is who in it. All I remember is that one of the guy's name was Bucky Larson. It's not exactly the worst movie I have ever seen, also not within its genre but it's still a very lacking- and a just not fun enough movie. Just stick with the original! 4/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

In order to write an expose on how cheer-leading demeans women, a reporter for a college newspaper (Jo Johnston in her only role) infiltrates the cheer-leading squad. By 1974, Jack Hill was looking to escape being typecast as a "blaxploitation director" after making "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" for AIP. They were pleased by the success and gave him a script called "Rape Squad", which he turned down. This film was given to him with financing attached, although he was only given a title and had to develop the script from scratch (with help from David Kidd, who ironically also re-wrote "Rape Squad"). According to co-writer / director Hill, the film had a 12-day shoot, which meant every inch of film shot ended up in the final product. They started work on the script at the end of January 1974 and the movie was in theaters by May (at other times he says February and June, but the idea remains the same). The original title of the script was "Stand Up and Holler" so actresses would not think the film was about cheerleaders. I do love Jack Hill, and the fact he is called an "exploitation auteur" really sums him up. But this has to be one of his few misfires. The primary plot of the undercover cheerleader is not very interesting, though the booking subplot makes up for it to a point. You might expect this to be nothing more than an excuse for cheerleaders to get naked, but even in that department it is arguably tame compared to many 80s comedies. This more or less amounts to a cheesy made-for-TV movie that probably was never shown on TV. Arrow Video offers up a deluxe 2k restored blu-ray of the film. While the movie itself is not great (sorry), the Arrow Video version is worth picking up simply for all the extras, because it's always good when we have Jack Hill doing new interviews and providing new commentary. If he hasn't already, he really ought to write a memoir, because he is full of stories about Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola and many others. (The disc also has a 2006 archive interview with DP Alfred Taylor, archive interview with Johnny Legend, and a Q&A with Hill, Colleen Camp and Rosanne Katon recorded at the New Beverly Cinema in 2012.)

A feminist reporter (Jo Johnston) who wants to write an exposé on how cheerleading degrades women decides to infiltrate the cheerleading squad. Once accepted, she realizes that the cheerleaders aren't bad and finds out that the football games are rigged. She also falls for the team's quarterback (Ron Hajek), and this does not sit well with his girlfriend - the head cheerleader (Colleen Camp). Semi follow-up to 1973's "The Cheerleaders" is a disappointment. Too many subplots, amateurish performances and writing ruin this loser. Directed by Jack Hill ("Coffy," "Foxy Brown"). My evaluation: * out of ****.

In order to get an expose, an aspiring reporter (Jo Johnston), joins the cheerleading squad only to learn not to pre-judge people. Of the 3 movies in Anchor Bay's Cheerleader set (the Cheerleaders, Revenge of the Cheerleaders, & the swinging Cheerleaders), this one feels most like a movie. Yea, nearly all the cheerleaders shed their clothes at one point or another, but there's a little helping of social commentary to go with the exploitation. It's a bit easy to see that this is a Jack Hill directed picture and it's better because of it. My Grade: B- DVD Extras: Commentary; 2 TV spots, Jack Hill Bio