I personally have never been a huge fan of sex comedies
as most of the ones that I have seen generally rely too much on infantile
attitudes towards sex or gross bathroom humor as a means of generating laughs
and simply fail to provide a payoff. The good ones are the type that men and
women can comfortably watch together and laugh with rather than at. Porky’s
(1981) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) are two examples of this.
Gas Pump Girls, filmed in 1978 and released regionally in
1979, is probably the most entertaining movie ever made in Sacramento,
California. It takes place following a group of seniors’ high school graduation.
The film is big on nudity but soft on sex despite the suggestive ad campaign poster
boasting the tagline “You'll love the service they give…†Girls is the result
of director Joel Bender’s idea to use the tried-and-true film trope of a
dilapidated business that needs a much-needed injection of fresh blood for it
to be resuscitated and to prosper. George Cage’s wonderful Skateboard (1978) similarly
featured an avuncular Allen Garfield doing his best to marshal teenagers and
Leif Garrett into a skateboarding team that would make money for him. In Girls,
Huntz Hall of the “Bowery Boys†fame is Joe, the owner of a gas station desperately
in need of a make-over after his competitor across the street commandeers his patrons
with a souped-up, state-of-the-art service center. His niece June (Kirsten
Baker) enlists the help of her attractive friends Betty (Linda Lawrence), April
(Sandy Johnson), January (Rikki Marin), and Jane (Leslie King). They all give
the gas station a much-needed facelift via a new paint job and a new name:
Joe’s Super Duper. Who better than a group of beautiful and nubile young female
women to come to the rescue and make Uncle Joe’s establishment lucrative? This
premise is by no means original, but it works well in this film as the ladies
find an answer to every hurdle thrown their way through ingenuity, especially
when their tanks are empty and they need to get more gas for their customers,
and quickly!
With the help of skimpy work outfits to showcase their
considerable assets and the hiring of their boyfriends as mechanics, one of
whom is Roger (Dennis Bowen), the group is on their way to saving the day until
a three jerks who call themselves the Vultures, comprised of Hank (Demetre
Phillips), Butch (Steve Bond), and Peewee (Ken Lerner), come in to trash the
place out of a sense of boredom. These guys look like rejects from the Pharaohs
in George Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973) or gang members from Randal
Kleiser’s Grease (1978). June, however, is very persuasive in getting the
Vultures on their side as tow truck operators when the rival and cigar-chomping
Mr. Friendly (Dave Shelley) vows to shut them down by sending over two
hoodlums, Bruno (Joe E. Ross) and Moiv (Mike Mazurki), to intimidate them. The
ladies turn on their charms in some truly humorous moments which include adorable
April giving the time to a customer (Paul Tinder, who resembles a young Ronny
Cox) as he’s in the garage lift – you won’t look at oil changes in quite the
same way after this scene; April enticing a hilariously excited Bruno to stave
off a robbery; and the whole crew breaking into a dance sequence in the garage
(look fast for the little kid wearing the same Darth Vader shirt that I had in 1978!).
Sandy Johnson is the standout among the ladies. Introduced to the world as
Playboy’s Playmate of the Month in June 1974, Ms. Johnson made a memorable
albeit brief appearance in movies during the 1970’s and disrobes in Girls with
such glee that you cannot help but root for her. She is perhaps best known to horror
film genre fans as Judith Margaret Myers, the ill-fated sister of the indefatigable
killer Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978).
Sprinkled throughout the film is the voice of a radio
deejay, played by New York’s own “Cousin Brucie†Bruce Morrow, a cute device
probably lifted from the Wolfman Jack character in American Graffiti. This
appearance no doubt inspired K-Billy’s Sounds of the Seventies in Quentin
Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992).
The ending of the film is crazy, as the girls and boys
dress as Saudi Arabian oil magnates who feign their way into the office of the
head of the rival gas company. The sequence features a rarity in cinema – a
contrite businessman.
Unsurprisingly, the film wasn’t nominated for any awards
in the acting category and I will say that much of it is stilted and sounds
recited and forced. However, the ladies are so sweet and good-natured that this
is a minor quibble in an otherwise funny and entertaining romp.
Like the previously reviewed Supercock
(1975), the script utilizes sexual innuendo as a means of obtaining laughs,
specifically in the scenes wherein June is told how to hold a gas pump and
where to put it, or when the Vulcans initially bully the workers and give them
a lesson on how to “service†a car. It's no accident that the gas station is
referred to as a “body shopâ€. What sets this movie apart from others of a
similar ilk is that it occasionally doubles as a musical, something that I must
admit I never would have anticipated. There are a few catchy and original songs
and even though the credits advertise the availability of a soundtrack album on
Blockbuster Records I couldn’t locate one online anywhere. This reminds me of 1982's
Blade Runner when, despite the movie poster advertising the electronic score by
Vangelis being available on Polydor Records, one was never issued at the time.
This film comes on the heels of 1976’s Car
Wash which also utilized original songs in an upbeat soundtrack. That film
did, in fact, provide a commercially available soundtrack album and was a
feel-good film with a big heart and an eclectic cast of characters.
Girls has been missing in action for a while on home
video, however the fine folks at Scorpion Releasing have released it on Blu-ray
and have done it justice. The transfer is excellent, with the source material
being in exceptionally good condition. The colors are very rich and are a
much-needed improvement over the Vestron Video VHS and CED
transfers that were sourced from a 16mm blow-up to 35mm in 1982, although a
laserdisc was issued in the 1990s and was probably the best transfer available
until this new Blu-ray. The audio on the Blu-ray is sourced in monaural. Lensed
by cinematographer Nicholas Von Sternberg, he also shot the ultra-creepy Tourist
Trap (1979) for David Schmoeller the same year. He and George Costello (Art
Direction), Leslie Heeter, Jennifer Lane, and Susan McCaslin (Set Decorators)
beautifully contribute to a film that is far more pleasing to look at on
Blu-ray as opposed to the previous, substandard video transfers wherein all
their hard work was sadly lost.
The Blu-ray is light on extras; however, it does provide
a very interesting and fun audio commentary that runs the length of the film
and is worth listening to. Moderated by film historian Jeff McKay, the
commentary features the film's director, Joel Bender, who offers great insight
into how the movie came about, how it was made and how the cast was formed.
What's interesting is that he originally intended to make a horror film, called
Blood Relations, however that never got off the ground. Gas Pump Girls was the
result! It reminds me of George A. Romero's desire to make a European drama in
the vein (no pun intended) of Ingmar Bergman, only to jettison the idea in
favor of a loose film adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend under the
title of Night of the Living Dead. Keenan Wynn was originally offered the role
of Mr. Friendly but was unable to do it as he suffered a heart attack at the
time. At the 57-minute mark, the director talks a little bit about the fate of
the film’s soundtrack album, which is an interesting and very unfortunate
anecdote.
The disc also contains an on-screen interview with the
director which runs five minutes and contains tidbits that are also found in
the commentary.
There is also a section of trailers to the following
films: Record City (1977 – this is a movie that I wish someone would release as
it looks like a lot of fun!), Act of Vengeance: The Story of the Rape Squad
(1974), Youngblood (1978), Bucktown (1975), Angel Unchained (1970). The
trailers are all in varying degrees of bad shape, with Youndblood suffering the
worst in terms of print fade and scratches. For some reason, there is no
trailer for Gas Pump Girls.
The movie is silly to be sure as men are portrayed (quite
hilariously) as fools who are easily entrapped by women with a simple smile and
a flash of skin, perpetuating the notion that breasts are the answer to
society's ills. It reminds me of Terry-Thomas’s smirk-inducing diatribe on
American culture and the “positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms†in
Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). As a side note, actor
Mike Mazurki who played Moiv appears as a man who gets a ride from Phil Silvers
in Mad World, while actor Joe E. Ross (Bruno) appeared on The Phil Silvers Show
in 1959.
The actual physical location where the gas station was
filmed remains to this day, incredibly (Mr. Friendly’s super center gas station
across the street is gone!) The building is located at 3201 Marysville Blvd., Sacramento,
CA. The Google Maps shot of it looks as though it could use some love as it
doesn’t look much different from how it does at the start of the film. I
couldn’t help but feel an elegiac pang when looking at it on the computer,
thinking of the silly shenanigans that took place there over 40 years ago while
the film was being shot during my favorite decade for movies. It’s no longer a
gas station, now it’s the California Recycling Center.
Recycling Center Chicks? Hmmm…Sounds like a good idea for
a musical!