High-school senior Barbara Ann Greene has a lot to overcome to reach her dreams to be popular, get a job, find a husband, and maybe even be a movie star: she’s poor, her parents are divorced, and her mother is a cocktail waitress. Right beside her, though, is her best friend and Svengali, Alan. He helps her get 12 cashmere sweaters, a job in the principal’s office, spring break at Balboa, and more. Along the way, the satire bites teen mores, beach-blanket bikini movies, adults in charge, the country-club set, Christian-youth programs, older men’s fantasies, and teen girls’ innocence. How popular will Barbara Ann become, and what lengths will Alan go to get her there? —IMDb
I have no point of reference to make a comparison with this one... It gets a little mean spirited down the stretch, but it still offers up a unique nihilistic view on love and sex. No matter how one feels about the final product, it is worth a watch. Tuesday Weld is outstanding, and Axelrod himself lends an anarchic quality to the film in how bizarre it is.
A Hal Ashby-style black comedy masquerading as a kooky teen movie - complete with incest, murder, class divisions, perverse Puritanism, and the American dream in all its selfish glory.
The appreciations roll in as New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center presents a 10-film retrospective.
Roddy McDowall (who would have been around 37 at the time) plays Alan ‘Mollymauk’ Musgrave, a high school senior who pledges to get what ever Barbara Ann (Tuesday Weld) wants, whether it be 12 cashmere… read review
