The Pom Pom Girls

Director: Joseph Ruben

Starring: Robert Carradine, Jennifer Ashley, Michael Mullins, James Gammon

Bridging the gap between the mindless "Beach Party" movies of the 1960s and the teen sexcapades of the 1980s are the often overlooked "Cheerleader" films of the 70s. These straight-to-drive-in quickies, such as The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974), Satan's Cheerleaders (1977), and Cheerleaders' Wild Weekend (1979), were characterized by virtually interchangeable (and sometimes nonexistent) plots that served as little more than backdrops for stoner-friendly soundtracks and ample offerings of T&A.

Director Joseph Ruben's The Pom Pom Girls (also known as Palisades High) is no exception. The film, which more closely resembles a series of vignettes than a linear narrative, revolves around the exploits of a pair of high school cheerleaders and two hormonally charged jocks whose priorities include racing cars, pulling pranks against the rival school's football team, and engaging in as much carefree sex as possible. Besides these activities, it appears the characters' lives consist of little else, including attending class, playing football, or even (despite the film's title) cheerleading!

Unfortunately for the cheerleader film aficionado, The Pom Pom Girls features only a smidgen of the over the top titillation the genre is best known for. Arguably, the only noteworthy aspect of The Pom Pom Girls is how many Hollywood "names" wandered their way into this debacle.

For example, a baby-faced Robert Carradine (son of horror movie veteran John Carradine) stars as the film's instantly forgettable protagonist, Johnie Chrystal. Notwithstanding Carradine's abysmal performance here, the second-generation actor has nevertheless gone on to enjoy a respectable career in Hollywood, performing in more than 70 feature films and television series, including Lizzie McGuire. One can assume that he purposely leaves The Pom Pom Girls off his resume.

Carradine is joined by (now) veteran supporting actor James Gammon, best known as affable Cleveland Indians manager Lou Brown in the box office hit Major League. In a glimpse of things to come, Gammon plays, appropriately enough, Rosedale High's head football instructor, Coach Hartman. (Inexplicably, despite the film's alternate title, the film takes place at Rosedale, not Palisades High School. In fact, there is no reference to "Palisades High" anywhere in the film.)

And no 1970s cheerleader film would be complete without a cameo from cheerleading diva Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith (star of The Swinging Cheerleaders and Revenge of the Cheerleaders) as, what else, but a sexy cheerleader. Smith, a blonde bombshell best known for her off-screen theatrics as a mainstay at L.A.'s notorious Rainbow Room, eventually gained minor fame as a b-movie queen and member of the all-girl rock band The Runaways, before dying from hepatitis in 2002.

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