The Cheerleaders (1973)

The original 1973 film The Cheerleaders (1973) - a soft-core sexploitation classic, led to a three-part series of "Cheerleader" films, forerunners of the high school-based teen sex comedies prevalent in the 1980s. The three films were:

• The Cheerleaders (1973)
• The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) (aka "H.O.T.S. II")
• Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976) (aka "H.O.T.S. III")

The first film in the group was inspired by the sexploitation, soft-porn 3-D movie The Stewardesses (1969), although now, the profession of the group of females had changed to cheerleaders.

The sophomoric, drive-in sexual romp by director Paul Glickler was originally rated with a self-imposed X, and predated the similar hard-core porn film Debbie Does Dallas (1978). The film's poster invited the viewer: "Come and Huddle with the Cheerleaders." The narrator on the film's trailer also stated:

"Statistics show that the more active the cheerleader, the more successful the team...It's fair to assume that if three cheerleaders can lead a team to six victories, imagine what six cheerleaders can do...Come huddle with the cheerleaders. They will do anything to make their team win."

The many fake actress' names who portrayed the six cheerleaders were:

• Jeannie (or Jennie) Davis (Stephanie Fondue), baby-faced, the newest virginal recruit - chosen because she was less apt to get pregnant like the previous squad member
• Claudia (Denise Dillaway), a sultry brunette team captain
• Debbie (Brandy Woods), a redhead, horny
• Bonnie (Jovita Bush), well-tanned
• Patty (Kimberly Stanton/Hyde), a blonde pot-smoking lesbian
• Suzie (Sandy Evans/Clair Dia), an exhibitionist

Its simplistic tale was about the strategy of the Amorosa High School (known as The Bears) cheerleaders - they planned to sleep with their opponent football team members from Central City High the night before the game, exhausting them so that they wouldn't perform well on the field. A subplot involved the newest replacement cheerleader Jeannie (Stephanie Fondue), a virgin whose initiation into the squad included showering in the boy's locker room, where she tried to accomplish the feat, but was discovered and chased:

Guy: "Hey, who are you?"
Jeannie: "I'm a cheerleader."
Another Guy: "What are you doing here?"
Jeannie: "I'm being initiated."
Guy: "Far out!"

Jeannie's (Stephanie Fondue) Boy's Locker Room Shower Initiation

Her biggest challenge was losing her virgin status after numerous botched attempts (she was told: "You must be the last one in California!") The cheerleaders had failed to weaken the opposing football players when they found themselves sleeping with their own team during a wild sleepover orgy scene the night before the game ("This is our team! You f--ked our own team. There's a game tomorrow. They can't play now"). Their solution was to track down all the opposing team's players and also sleep with them. They found most of the other players in a movie theatre.

End of Orgy with FB Players - Their own team!
	Jeannie with 4th String QB Paul During Halftime

The film culminated with Jeannie's volunteering (even without experience) to bed the fourth string quarterback named Paul (P.J. Karparti) in Central's locker room during halftime - he hadn't been present on the roster and incapacitated the night before with the other players - and her successful efforts ultimately won the game. The opposing QB had to be carried onto the field after the halftime show.

The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) (aka Locker Room Girls, H.O.T.S. II)

Writer/director Jack Hill, already well-known for directing a pair of blaxploitation films, Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), helmed this R-rated sequel film that progressed from high school to college coed sexual antics. The drive-in film was fairly tame as exploitation flicks in the 70s went, with only a few glimpses of actual nudity. It offered these taglines:

• "They gave their all for the team."
• "Not all the playing was on the football field. They live their fantasies on & off the field."

Compared to the other two entries in the "Cheerleaders' series, this one featured the least nudity and had a more realistic plotline. The squad of swinging cheerleaders included:

• Andrea (Cheryl (Rainbeaux) Smith), at first wide-eyed and virginal (afraid of sex) who was dating football player Ron (Ian Sander), but then became self-destructive by wishing to be "gang-banged" (offscreen only) by Kate's despicable ex-boyfriend Ross and his friends: (Ross: "It's gonna be your night of nights, kid, make up for all those wasted years you've been savin' it")
• Lisa (Rosanne Katon - future September 1978 Playboy Playmate), engaged in an affair with her cheating, married college professor; ultimately, she was discovered and told off by the wronged wife Mrs. Jessica Thorpe (Mae Mercer) wielding a knife
• Mary Ann Putnam (Colleen Camp), the stuck-up, rich and blonde, bitchy head cheerleader who was dating and engaged to the promiscuous, handsome star FB quarterback; also the daughter of the corrupt college's Dean
• Kate Corie (Jo Johnston, her sole film appearance), a sexually-liberated journalist-reporter who at first was dating her radical paper editor - slimeball Ross (Ric Carrott)

Andrea (Cheryl (Rainbeaux) Smith)	Lisa (Rosanne Katon)
Mary Ann (Colleen Camp)	Kate (Jo Johnston)

Mesa State College campus activist/feminist and aspiring journalist Kate Cory (Jo Johnston) infiltrated the cheerleading squad in order to write and publish an expose in the radical underground campus newspaper about the demeaning aspects of cheerleading. The manuscript was titled: "THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS - An Examination of Female Exploitation In Contemporary Society." She ran into conflict with Mary Ann when she flirted with her star quarterback boyfriend Buck Larsen (Ron Hajak).

Also, in the film's most powerfully-acted scene, Lisa was confronted by the wronged wife of her lover, Mrs. Jessica Thorpe, wielding a switchblade, verbally threatening her and calling her a flirtatious "tramp" with a "black ass and those tits":

"That's my man you're playin' with. If you try to take my man away from me, you're askin' for a lot of trouble...You think you can take my man away from me?...I ought to carve my name on that tit, then see what he got to say the next time you flung it out for him...OK, you got the message..And make sure you're careful about the man you f--k with, the next time you f--k with somebody's man."

Kate discovered something more sinister - the fixing of football games by corrupt school officials (including the college dean Mr. Putnam (George Wallace) - the president of the Alumni Foundation, the FB coach Turner (Jack Denton), and math teacher Professor Thorpe (Jason Sommers), a bookie).

Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976) (aka Cheerleaders: The Musical, H.O.T.S. III)

This third film in the series of Cheerleaders teen-sex comedies was from director Richard Lerner. It again followed the antics of the cheerleaders - of Aloha HS (in Aloha, California), this time including disco-dance musical numbers.

The film's tagline was:

• "It's High School the Way We Remember It ... Although It Never Happened Quite Like This!"

The stars (or cheerleaders) included:

• Gail (Jerii Woods)
• Heather (Rainbeaux Smith, pregnant during filming)
• Leslie (Helen Lang, future July 1976 Penthouse Pet)
• Sesame (Patrice Rohmer)
• Tishi (Susie Elene)

Cheerleaders in Girl's Bathroom

Boner (David Hasselhoff) in Toilet Stall

Leslie (Helen Lang)

Cutting class, changing into their cheerleader uniform tops while riding in an open convertible, having sex with teachers, and acquiring a bad reputation for the school - these were just a few examples. Sex-crazed Boner (David Hasselhoff in his feature film debut) - a star basketball player (who was having sex in a stall of the girl's bathroom with one of the cheerleaders, Sesame, in an early scene), added to the film's notoriety.

Aloha High School was threatened with closure because of a supposed "morality crisis" - with depraved teens and "sex and drugs rampant." The front lawn of the school was littered with tents, those who believed in free love and sunbathers, allowed by the progressive Principal Dr. Ivory (Carl Ballantine). The cheerleaders exhibited their licentiousness by holding the high school's teachers and students hostage with a fire extinguisher to force them to turn over all their liquor, pills, and pot. All of the stolen drugs and booze were then laced into the cafeteria's spaghetti sauce with drugs (to cause the state's school inspectors to get high - and to inspire a wild food fight).

The promiscuous and anarchic cheerleaders also engaged in wacky hijinks - they snuck into the basketball players' locker room, tiptoed into the shower area, and romped in an orgiastic soap-sudsy scene with the athletes. Due to the effects of the drugs, the hallucinating, elderly school inspectors also wandered into the showers for group sex with the cheerleaders and the basketball team.

Cheerleader Sesame (Patrice Rohmer) in Sudsy Orgy Shower Sequence

The school board (and an evil industrial developer) plotted to merge Aloha HS with its competing inner-city rival Lincoln HS, and to eliminate the out-of-control Aloha HS. When Aloha's principal was replaced with a strict ex-military man named Hall Walker (Norman Thomas Marshall) who wanted to clean up the school - he decided that the reason for Aloha's immorality was its cheerleaders. He "fired" them in his office and recruited a new group of cheerleaders. The outcast group angrily vowed revenge. Walker vowed in a newspaper article:

WALKER CLEANS UP ALOHA - Claims Basketball Victory Over Lincoln Will End All Talk of Merger - Walker Says New Cheerleaders Will Assure Victory.

One of the new cheerleaders was Joanne (Carrie Dietrich), the spoiled daughter of the evil land developer Walter Hartlander (William Bramley) of Park 'N' Lark Industries.

New Aloha HS Principal Hall Walker Reprimanding Cheerleaders in His Office

During a field trip to "Forgotten World" (a dinosaur park), two of the uninhibited cheerleaders left the group and wandered off into the woods - Sesame and dark-haired Leslie. After coming upon a long-haired, blonde, handsome Boy Scout, they all stripped down and experienced a sexy threesome - first skinny-dipping.

On their way back (still naked), the two cheerleaders were stopped by a policeman in his squad car. He charged them with a "violation of Chapter 8, section 314 of the criminal code." They were ordered to spread their legs after they were led to the side of the car, to facilitate his frisky search for hidden weapons or illicit drugs - although they were completely nude. He said they were guilty of a misdemeanor - they had lewdly exposed themselves to public view - and they were under arrest. Three fellow cheerleaders grabbed the officer, knocked him out against a tree trunk, and rescued Sesame and Leslie. Then, the group stole the police car and drove back to school.

Leslie and Sesame - Nude and Confronted by Cop

The group of cheerleaders arrived during the playing of the big BB game - between Aloha and Lincoln, with Aloha losing by a wide margin due to the uninspiring rookie cheerleaders. The fired cheerleaders assaulted the new group of Aloha HS cheerleaders and forced them into school lockers, then took their places on the basketball floor and rallied their basketball team to a victory over Lincoln HS. The key to victory was reviving a chloroformed Boner with a whiff of Sesame's panties.

[Note: Boner had been drugged by evil Nurse Beam (Eddra Gale) who had been bribed by the evil developer Walter Hartlander with a stack of $20 dollar bills to insure Aloha's defeat.]

As a result, the merger between the two schools was called off. The newspaper reported: "State Board Rejects Merger" and "Walker Will Reinstate Cheerleaders." They had helped to save Aloha HS. However, soon after, the demented Nurse Beam bombed Aloha HS and Principal Walker vanished and was taken hostage. The newspaper's headlines reported: "ALOHA HIGH SCHOOL BOMBED. Principal Walker Vanished." The cheerleaders again sprang into action - they rescued and saved Aloha's principal who was being held at 'Forgotten World' (the dinosaur park), and prevented Aloha HS from being destroyed.

The film's sub-plot was then revealed - the real reason for the consolidation of the two schools was that Hartlander, the greedy developer, was planning to build a shopping emporium or plaza on Aloha HS' property. The cheerleaders' saved school was returned to its former carefree self - drugs, dancing, sex, and various other improprieties - a celebration was held during the final credits. The final headline read:

CHEERLEADERS UNCOVER PARK 'N LARK PLOT - Hartlander Indicted, Resigns as Ed Head. Cheerleaders to Be Feted at Victory Dinner Tonight. Nurse Beam Freed After Turning State's Evidence.