Well, the first official meeting of the Clown Car Brigade convened at the Alamo Drafthouse for Weird Wednesday, and it went as well as could be expected. Greg had his usual assortment of fried snacks with a caffeinated drink, Jim his bucket of beer, Pete a salad (huh?) and yours truly a couple pints of Guinness. Much fun was had by all, and nothing more should be said about this event. But sadly, as a pseudo-entertainment journalist, I have been tasked with this difficult review. This week's entry: Teenage Mother.
The Alamo Drafthouse's website advised that everyone stay until the end of this movie. Why they recommended that, I'm not sure. Perhaps they needed an excuse to hose down the theater. Sadly, at the end I was the only member of the CCB who could honestly say that he had kept his eyes open the whole time, so here I am.
We start at the beginning, where most good stories start. The first 70 or so minutes of this movie play like a counterculture version of "Beach Blanket Bingo", with bad dancing, hoods and kids trying to be cool. There's a new teacher in town, a Swedish one named Arlene, and she's here to teach the kids sex ed. Of course, this is a controversial move in the 60s, so the new teacher is in conflict with other figures around town such as the druggist and the school librarian. We're also introduced to Tony the jock, Dookie the hood (yes, his girlfriend called him Dookie), Tony's girl Erika, and various and sundry other characters. The somewhat quick-witted will recognize a spry Fred Willard playing the role of the school's baseball coach. Now that introductions are over, on with the show.
I'm not going to lie to you here, people. The first 70 minutes of the movie were not the greatest in cinematic history. We learn that Erika is a teen slut who keeps wanting to marry Tony and has what appears to be a 50 year old friend still in high school. Dookie turns out to be bad news, as he isn't your generic hood: he's peddling porno and pot, and at one point attempts to rape Arlene the sex ed teacher. Plus he's smitten with Erika, and can't dance worth a crap. We learn that the discotheque that the kids go to has a pretty decent in-house band, but these kids need dancing lessons. And we learn that this school's baseball team probably has never won a game, as we only see 2 players on the team at any time. I think they should give up baseball and switch to cricket. At least then they'd have a sporting chance.
Anyway, enough of that diversion. Erika, who always seemed kind of distant to Tony, decides that if Tony won't marry her, that seduce him. So to the sterilized love scene we go! After a visit to the doctor where she is informed that she "isn't even a little bit pregnant", Erika does what any logical person would: makes up a pregnancy and tells everyone but her parents. However, instead of waiting for Tony to marry her, she runs away with what appeared to be B.J. Hunnicut in his post-Korean War job as a truck driver. Her parents call over the girl who looks 50-something, and finds out that she's pregnant. So of course they blame the sex education program. To the town council we go!
Meanwhile, at a truck stop on the outskirts of town, Erika and the driver run into Dookie and his gang. Erika, being the indecisive little whore that she is, goes off with Dookie, leaving the truck driver without his promised 'rest'. It turns out to be a bad decision, as we see Dookie's penchant for rape come to the forefront of his conscious mind for the second time in the movie. This being the 60s, the rape is stopped by Tony just in time. Erika tells Tony her secret about the pregnancy being a lie, and they head back to town to stop the town meeting.
Flash over to said town council meeting. As people criticize the sex ed teacher, we the audience started to sense impending doom. You see, in her introduction to the class, Arlene promised to show a film to the class which documented the natural childbirth process, a c-section and the birth of twins. Well, unfortunately in this town council meeting we can see said film sitting on the table. And making a case against her, the council decides to screen the film. Big mistake. Huge.
This would be the point in the movie at which you put down any food or beverage you might be holding. For they show it ALL, people. I'm not so sure what the Swedish call a "natural" childbirth, but I'm pretty damn sure natural childbirth doesn't involve the amount of metal that was shoved inside of this woman's hoo-haa. The film shows a doctor shoving approximately 20 pounds of stainless steel inside the woman, twisting and turning some knobs like a corkscrew, and then yanking the baby out by the head with these giant salad tongs. Now, I'd think that a doctor would be a little gentler with a baby, but this doctor just grabbed the head and yanked the kid out of there. I half expected the kid's head to pop off like a Transformers Headmaster. We see it all, and it is not good. Of course, after the audience is subjected to this pain, Erika and Tony bust into the city council meeting informing them that she is not pregnant. An A.P.B. is put out on the hoods, the council apologizes to Arlene (for what? that film was still messed up), and the audience is scarred for life.
So what did we learn here? First of all, there was no teenage mother. Secondly, there were tramps in the 60s just like there are tramps today. And third, if you're a father and are in the delivery room during childbirth, DO NOT look below the curtain set up to shield the lower body from view. Keep your eyes on your lady's head, for there are some things that a common man was just not meant to see. Please, if you see this movie, for your own sanity keep your eyes closed once they go to the town council meeting. You will thank me later.
3 Comments
Wonder if Dr. Giggles got hold of any of that equipment...
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Good