Monday, August 30, 2010

The Babysitter (1969)



Movies like this one easily get labeled “male sexual fantasies”, and it’s not as if that’s an unfair assessment- after all, this is the story of a hot young girl who screws the middle aged father of the family for whom she’s a babysitter, who in reality she’d likely have no interest in, and he’d likely have prostate problems anyway; and the old fart screwing the hot young girl wrote and produced the film. Okay, actually, it’s exactly like a male sexual fantasy! On the other hand, how about those romantic comedies in which a neurotic, asexual, irritating twit finds a hunk who willingly sacrifices any hope of future happiness to, instead, spend the rest of his life putting up with the sort of behavior that white, wealthy westerners call “quirky” and the rest of the world calls “entitled”? You see anyone calling Julie & Julia a “female sexual fantasy”?

The Babysitter was put out by Crown International, who specialized in drive in exploitation fare. Luckily for them, a story about a turned-on, groovy, love generation, far out, way out, hip etc etc slut having sex with an older dude was not exactly anathema to the drive in crowd. An obvious influence here was Lolita and what really saves The Babysitter is that Patricia Wymer in the title role really is very fuckworthy: likeable, cute, and endearing as she delivers ridiculous dialogue like “If you want me, then take me.” The old fart, played by George E. Carey, is a district attorney in a chilly marriage with a lesbian daughter and a baby girl who everyone forgets about after the first scene. A subplot involves a drugged out biker chick trying to blackmail him in order to get her beau out of jail, which gives the director (Tom Laughlin! That’s right- Billy Jack himself) a chance to film the lesbo daughter screwing her hot friend in the family steam room. Yes, the family has a steam room.

Meanwhile, the groovy slut has proven herself to be not such a great babysitter by inviting over an acid rock band- The Food (really, that's their name. The name of their side project band is The Beverages)- to play in the basement while her cute friends dance around naked, instead of actually watching the baby. Dad decides he's okay with that and she, in turn, decides to teach the dad about the turned-on, way out love generation by screwing him. They have a love affair and after that ends, the babysitter beats up Dad's blackmailer with some friends. Meanwhile, his boss and wife find out about the affair with the babysitter and both decide that they're okay with it. A man's got to do what a man's got to do. And besides, his wife needs to be nicer to him.

So, like I said, a bit of a male fantasy, but plenty of entertainment value (i.e. nudity).

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