Slumber Party '57 (1976) User Reviews

Needed some boys and a serial killer

[rlcsljo · 5/10 · 18 April 2001]

When the acting is this bad and the bodies this great and the plot this lame, you need someone to harass and murder off these babes one by one to give meaning to the theatrical movie experience.

The girls are gorgeous and oft times appear topless, bottomless, or naked and they do make fun of some of the sleazier aspects of 50's drive-in movies (and I like almost anything Chery/Rainbow smith is in--although she did not go nude in this one), but they did not capitalize as well as they could have on the foundation that was laid.

It seems like all things fifties, the best thing was the music.

Her not so secret garden

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 20 August 2022]

I always wondered, as a child of the 70s, why everyone cared so much about the 50s. Now, as an old man in the 2020s, I wonder why everyone cares so much about the 80s. Time is a flat circle.

Director William A. Levey made some wild movies. There's Blackenstein for starters. How about the Harry Novak movie Wam Bam Thank You Spaceman? Or The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington? Not enough? How's Skatetown U. S. A.? Or another Cannon movie, Lightning, the White Stallion? Hmm? Well, let me ask you, have you seen Monaco Forever, one of the first Van Damme movies? Or Hellgate, a rape revenge occult back from the dead movie with Arnold Horshack as one of the leads?

He also wrote the story for this movie (actor Frank Framer did his only scriptwriter on this), a tell-all about how some 50s girls lost their virginity. That said, this isn't a Her Secret Garden movie. It's still a softcore sex romp for guys, as evidenced by the sapphic barnyard scene and underwater camera that gets all the angles, like a pervert at an Irving Klaw camera club. Oh yeah, there's also a scene where the girls discuss how much they like when their dads spank them.

I don't want to be high and mighty here. After all, I can appreciate the charms of the leads: a very young Debra Winger, even before she was Wonder Girl in that backdoor Wonder Woman pilot, and in her book Undiscovered, she will only say of this movie "A cigar-smoking agent had signed me while I was waitressing, but that only resulted in a blue movie."; Noelle North from Carrie and Blood Song; Pamela Wood - Janet from Terror at Red Wolf Inn; Superchick herself Joyce Jillson, Bridget Holloman from Evils of the Night; Mary Appleseth of Planet of the Dinosaurs and most essentially, Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith, the sadly lost former Runaway who was in everything from Lemora and Caged Heat to Massacre at Central High, the Michael Pataki-directed softcore Cinderella and Vice Squad.

If you want a movie with Joe E. Ross playing his Car 54, Where Are You role as well as near wall-to-wall nudity - as well as a drive-in scene where the kids go to see Cauldron of Blood which wouldn't come out for thirteen years after this - well, here it is.

Ahhh, the 70's--I mean "the 50's"

[lazarillo · 3 May 2006]

This movie is probably most famous for celebrity skin in the form of a young and topless Deborah Winger, but frankly that's the least interesting thing about it. This is another warped and completely irresponsible movie about slutty 70's teenage girls (including such luminaries of the "genre" as Janet Woods and Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith)except here they're playing (very unconvincingly, I might add) slutty '50's teenage girls. The plot, to use the term loosely, involves five girls at the eponymous slumber party sitting around reminiscing about their "first time". These vignettes are neither funny nor usually even remotely believable, so this movie doesn't really succeed either as a comedy or as a realistic coming-of-age film. It does, however, excel on a level of pure sexploitative trash.

To illustrate, in a scene that even made a 70's sleaze aficionado like myself cringe, one of our randy virgins "loses it" to a middle-aged family friend who catches her reading "Lolita" (great literary allusion that). But then her father catches them and rather than thrashing the guy within an inch of his life like any normal father he dismisses him and instead puts his naked daughter over his knee for a spanking (!) which she apparently enjoys (!!)prompting the other girls to talk about how they too kind of enjoy being spanked by their fathers (!!!). In the movie's defense the actresses are all obviously in their early twenties and not remotely believable as teenagers (or virgins), but STILL you have to wonder what kind of perverts this movie was originally aimed at.

Amazingly, for such a thoroughly disreputable movie, it has an incredible soundtrack of top 50's hits. Not since "The Last American Virgin" have I witnessed such a collision of bad cinematic taste and famous pop music. I don't know what it would say about ME to recommend this thing to anybody, but if this kind of irredeemable sleaze does it for you . . .

The only terms of endearment for this is the soundtrack.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 23 April 2021]

If a bunch of semi nude 20 somethings playing teenage girls is your thing, then this seemingly deliberately bad movie will put a thrill on your blueberry hill. Thee only happy days these girls have is when they are not in school, and I doubt that they even open their books. We get an anti-sex lecture from a very masculine female gym teacher at the beginning, and they even refer to her later in a derogatory manner after openly insulting her in class.

A slumber party is on their agenda, and don't expect any of them to act like Olivia Newton John as Sandy. Future John Travolta leading lady Debra Winger is the only actress worth mentioning, and she's actually the only one who appears to be close to 18. The most embarrassing performance is by the Ellie Mae Clampett wannabe who looks too far along in the tooth to be in high school, like one of those "High School Hellcats" that terrorized movie goers nearly 20 years before this.

All you have to do is look at the names of the characters in the credits to get an idea of what kind of film it is going to be. Poor Rafael Campos, once one of the most promising young Latin American actors, is billed as "dope fiend", while some dreadfully stereotypical hillbillies are a part of the Ellie Mae clone story, dreadfully unfunny even if played in the roadrunner / coyote frame of mind. The only thing that kept me interested in this was see what songs would pop up and how they would be used. Otherwise, it's just another piece of evidence of how rotten cinema made for teens in the 1970's could be. This makes films by Arch Hall and early John Waters look like they came out of the MGM vault.

Stag Party '57

[Varlaam · 2/10 · 7 March 1999]

That pretty much describes the style of this tawdry, cheesy, grainy, amateurish sexploitation film. Aren't those old stag flicks better left forgotten?

Most people will be tuning in to see the zaftig Debra Winger romping around in the buff. That she certainly does.

There is a "comedy" interlude about a cat burglar. It stars Dr. Bernie Tupperman, the diminutive urologist from the first Bob Newhart show (aka Vinnie the poker player from "The Odd Couple"), and Officer Toody, reprising his role from "Car 54, Where Are You?". Hey, it's not funny, but at least they get to keep their clothes on.

I have been excited until the last minute of this film!!!

[greenpiss_1369 · 10/10 · 2 April 2001]

Slumber party...oh, what´s sweets memories... I have seen it when I had ten years old and I discover the sex during its vision. When the movie finished, I started again... and again. More than five women naked in front of me... and mum and dad will not leave until ten o´clock in the morning... The swimming pool scene... Debra Winger and the banana...the drive-in... All of that excited me me more than every women in my life. I give it an excited, hot and gorgeous ten. Thank you for this wonderful, amazing auto-sex time, Mr Levine. God bless you America!!!!

Harmless fun

[edinman · 6/10 · 27 August 2006]

This is really just a harmless and amusing 70's teen T&A flick that drive-ins were famous for back then. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and neither should you.

For example, for a movie supposedly set in 1957, nearly all the songs on the soundtrack were actually released between 1958 and 1964. Furthermore, the movie being shown at the drive-in, "Cauldron of Blood," didn't come out until 1967! But this movie isn't really about sophisticated things like "details" (LOL). It's about beautiful girls frolicking around, showing off their bodies, and boasting about their sexual conquests. The late Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith is stunning as always (though her character never gets as fully developed as the others). Debra Winger (in her first role) is also beautiful. And look for the late "Superchick-turned-astrologer" Joyce Jillson as a carhop! What's not to love?