The creation of Grindhouse, from directors Robert
Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, gave home video distributors a nice way to
repackage and exploit the value of some of their library titles, but that film’s
less than stellar commercial reception no doubt somewhat put a dent in those
plans. Released this month under a “Welcome to the Grindhouse” banner that doesn’t
totally jibe with its actual product are two old flicks from Crown International
Pictures’ library, The Beach Girls
and Coach.

Released in 1982, The
Beach Girls is much more of a grabby, classic T&A comedy, told from a more
decidedly female perspective. The film’s opening montage of sunny non sequiturs,
set to the strains of “I Wanna Go to Paradise,” establishes the currency of naughtiness
and double entendres, and sets the bar quite high; in the first three minutes
alone, there’s a dog stealing a bikini top, a nun (in full habit) waxing her
surfboard, chesty women playing volleyball in slow-motion and a guy squeezing
mustard and a hotdog out of its bun when he sees a topless gal.

Then the air-quote story kicks in. Free from school, fun-loving
brunette Ducky (Jeana Tomasina) and blonde Ginger (Val Kline) head to the coast
to hook up with their virginal, bookworm friend Sarah (Debra Blee), who’s
house-sitting for her uncle, Carl (Adam Roarke). Along the way, they pick up handsome
hitchhiker Scott (James Daughton), but instead of turning out to be a serial
killer, he’s actually a decent guy, and strikes up a flirtation with Sarah, in
an arc that will span the entire movie. Partying and hook-ups ensue, much to
the chagrin of various neighbors and Carl’s fiancée Julie (Fern Fitzgerald). There’s
some peek-a-boo, and also a plot strand involving a crooked Coast Guard cabal,
which leads to the hilarious display of a giant bag of weed,
the worst fake marijuana ever depicted on screen. (It looks like moss, fake
moss from an art shop.) While the acting is uneven (Kline’s sing-song line
delivery is more than a bit grating), director Bud Townsend keeps things light
and airy, and the over-under on entendres is surpassed sometime after the
salami in a delivery boy’s pocket, exploding fireworks, uncorked champagne and squirting
garden hose.

Also directed by Townsend (who went legit after 1976’s X-rated
musical comedy adaptation of Alice in
Wonderland), 1978’s Coach,
meanwhile, is a loose-knit romantic comedy that presages the Title IX
revolution in sports. A losing high school basketball team hires a new coach chosen
by computer, then blanches when it finds out their number-crunching efforts and
selection of “Randy Rawlings” have actually produced a woman (erstwhile That’s Incredible co-host Cathy Lee
Crosby). As Randy goes about quelling the adolescent instincts of her hornball
charges and instilling in them discipline and the basics of rebounding, she
also falls for one of her players, Jack Ripley (a young Michael Biehn), and
shows some fleeting side-boob. Well, that’s inappropriate. The relationship, that
is, not the side-boob. Still, Coach —
with Craig T. Nelson nowhere in sight — plays it straight and sincere, and
Biehn and Crosby have a nice, easy-going chemistry. While this flick has more of a schematic
axe to grind than The Beach Girls, each
movie is well constructed and ably directed, proving that even filmmaking
talent of that era lies even in the margins.

Housed in a single Amray case, both The Beach Girls and Coach
are presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, and their superb transfers belie
the widely held assumption that older films of this era inherently have to look
like crap. While the colors don’t necessarily pop with modern lushness, each of
these movies looks great, and is almost totally free from any grain whatsoever.
There are also no problems with edge enhancement or other artifacts. Apart from
a single-play gallery of collected trailers for titles like The Van and other low-budget genre
flicks of the era, though, there are no supplemental features herein. That’s a bummer, somewhat, but it can’t be stressed enough — these movies look fantastic. A
separate two-fer October release from distributor BCI, meanwhile, groups 1974’s
The Hellcats and 1971’s Chain Gang Women, starring Barbara Mills,
Linda York and Michael Stearns. To purchase the film(s) via Amazon, click here. B- (Movies) B- (Disc)