Bowling Alone

Screwballs (1983)
directed by Rafal Zielinski
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Less the "grandfather of 80s sex comedies" than an old man masturbating just outside school property, Screwballs is historically interesting - for about one second - as one of the first big hits on home video. Maybe someone else is qualified to talk about the social ramifications born of the cultural segue from drive-in exploitation features to sneaking smut onto TV when friends are over and parents are in bed. Not me.

Zielinski, a Canadian, reportedly based the color scheme of Screwballs on Archie comics, but that implies an awareness that the endless parade of sexual harassment simply doesn't support. I'll summarize it anyway: five delinquents at Tafts & Adams High School ("T & A is proud to say / that T & A goes all the way") team up to humiliate the one girl on campus who hasn't undressed for any of them. They're helped by Purity Busch's sex-crazed co-eds, and since everyone (boy and girl alike) can't stand her, their mutual bad behavior... sort of balances out? Just kidding. It's an embarrassment, although I did like this exchange:

"I heard you're going out with my brother."
"Probably! Who is he?"