Woodyanders Review of The Pom Pom Girls

The Pom Pom Girls (1976)

A strictly so-so 70's drive-in cheerleader comic romp

[6/10 · 14 September 2006]

This strangely lackluster Crown International Pictures offering was a massive drive-in success, but alas it barely earns passing marks as a merely acceptable timewaster. The main problem with this film is that there's too much emphasis on the supposedly funny, but more often just plain dumb and annoying hotrod-racing antics of Rosedale High School students Robert ("Massacre at Central High") Carradine and Michael Mullins. The much more luscious and enticing female stars Lisa Reeves and Jennifer ("The Centerfold Girls") Ashley are relegated to secondary supporting status while the always appreciated and invigorating presence of the immensely adorable and angelic Rainbeaux Smith is shamefully wasted in a minor small part. Worse yet, this pretty tepid movie isn't anywhere near as raunchy or energetic as other entries in this funky sub-genre. Only a slight smattering of skin and the sporadic hoppin' moment (two couples tumbling down a hill, the mandatory chicks-peeling-out-of-their-threads locker room scene, the climactic "Rebel Without A Pause"-inspired chicken car race) alleviate the general tedium. Still, dependably gruff character actor James Gammon makes for a marvelously hateful villain as a brutish football coach, Reeves, Ashley, Smith, Diane Lee Hart and Susan Player Jarreau are all real easy on the eyes (and all of 'em take off their clothes, albeit only briefly), and the film does kill 90 minutes in a relatively painless and diverting manner. Director Joseph Ruben eventually graduated to bigger and better things with the superior 80's thrillers "The Stepfather" and "True Believer."