wrightiswright
You know the drive-in experience... Trying to find a good parking space... The queue at the intermission for snacks... And of course, the *ahem* entertainment you can have in the backseat if the movie sucks...Which it invariably will.Tomboy is one such 'delight' of a bygone era. You may think, looking at the packaging and tagline, it's an attempt to tackle the very serious subject of a young female trying to make it in the man's world of mechanics and motor sports.Heck no.This is instead, a rather cunning subterfuge for it's REAL agenda... Which is of course, to display as much female flesh as humanly possible. It does a pretty good job of it, I suppose. Not a moment goes by where our director concocts a situation that he can exploit to load the back and foreground with soft core naughtiness.Naked Swimming. Stripping. Shower scenes. Hot dancing. Wet T shirts. And of course, the predictable moment when the music turns soppy, and everything is shot in soft lighting... Yep, the Obligatory Sex Scene (TM). This particular one is filmed in a gym, and features our heroine literally having her top TORN off, by the aptly named Randy.I hope she got reimbursed for her damaged clothing post-coital. The film never specifies if this is the case. Talk about your plot holes...Betsy Russell tries her best, she really does. An actual film promoting her struggle in a male-dominated industry might have been interesting. Alas, all we have is this collection of cheesy montages and Carry On-esque humour, so I guess you'll have to make do with it...Actually, no. You don't. 4/10
SnoopyStyle
Tomasina 'Tommy' Boyd (Betsy Russell) is an independent girl. She's a mechanic and had always been a Tomboy. Her best friend Seville Ritz is boy crazy and wants to be a famous dancer. Tommy only has eyes for race car driver Randy Starr. Seville needs an investor for a TV pilot and she talks Tommy into taking her to a party with Randy Starr and his rich friend Ernie Leeds Jr. Randy wins over Tommy but he won't consider her as his equal in the car. She challenges him to a race.Betsy Russell is not the best of actresses but the rest of this cast makes her award winning by comparison. Kristi Somers does have a fun shower scene early on. There are a few scenes that shows the film knows that this is a cheese fest. Betsy is as sexy as ever even when she's Tomboyed up. This has its fun cheesy moments but it never exceeds its B-movie characteristics.
Mike K.
Tomboy is just another entry in a sea of indistinguishable 1980's T&A films. Bad music,bad clothes,bad hair,bad acting and lots of boobs are the requirements for 80's teen sex films and Tomboys got em all.There is something like-able about Betsy Russell but her acting in Tomboy is just awful.She is totally stiff,and her lines are delivered with no emotion and are often delivered too early or too late and don't feel natural at all.Seems like she is just repeating memorized lines like someone who's just starting acting school.There are a few cringe worthy scenes where she has no lines but has to act like she's laughing hysterically and its so fake that its painful to watch.She also emits some bizarre noises when she laughs.The race at the end is so bad,it looks like they are going about 40 mph and the cars that i guess where supposed to look bad-ass look like awful kit cars that were made in Mexico and are about to fall apart.Dumb movie with enough boob scenes to get you through 90 min but one viewing is enough. Movie 3/10 boobs 7/10 overall 5/10
blackcapricorn2003
This is perhaps one of the best "worst" movies ever made. This movie is so bad that most people who worked on it never worked again in Hollywood. The earliest anyone worked after this movie was 1989. It was certainly a career killer. But it was much more than that. If you think a girl shooting hoops on a motorcycle is hilarious or that a race car goes faster because cardboard accessories and onboard computers, this is the movie for you. This is one of the finest examples of the teen "sex-politation" genre in the early 80s. It stars the the recently deceased Eric Douglas and Betsy Russell (who was the Gretta Garbo of this genre). If you can find this movie- buy it. It is that good.
AD
