June (Kirsten Baker) and her friends at Hometown High have just
graduated, and look forward to spending one last summer hanging out with each
other. But when her Uncle Joe’s (Huntz Hall) gas station is ready to go
out of business from a combination of Joe’s failing health and fierce
competition from the more upscale Pyramid gas station directly across the
street, June connives her buddies into pitching in and bringing the dingy, old
gas station back to life. Through the
miracle of erections.
Joel Bender’s Gas Pump Girls
(aka The Mechanic Girls) is a fairly typical
teen sex romp that plays fast and loose enough with the standards of the genre
to be slightly refreshing. The girls,
with the exception of one (January, played by Rikki Marin), are distinguished from one another. There’s Plain Jane (Leslie King), the wallflower who barely speaks at all. There’s April (Sandy Johnson), the sexual (but eager) innocent. There’s Betty (Linda Lawrence) the busty, high maintenance brunette who knows all
about manipulating men’s lechery to satisfy her material desires. And, of course, there’s June, the energetic
go-getter with a purpose.
Their boyfriends (or boy toys, if
you want), by contrast, are largely forgettable dullards who only prove Betty’s
theories true (but, let’s face it, every guy in this movie does). June’s beau Roger (Dennis Bowen) is the isolated case, as he genuinely wants to spend
time with June, and is upset that he may never see her again after summer’s end. The third group in this triangle are the
local biker “gang” The Vultures, led by the Fonzarelli-lite Butch (Steve Bond). The Vultures make Eric von Zipper’s Rat Pack
look like The Satans. They are juvenile
delinquents only in the sense that they think they’re juvenile delinquents. They don’t do much more than a little
loitering, but this fits with the film’s breezy attitude.
The other way that Gas Pump Girls stands out from others of
its ilk is in the portrayal of its main theme.
Primarily, this is an underdog/save the rec center plot, but instead of
a bunch of teens confronting some greedy land developer, here the conflict is
with the esurient gas station owner across the way, Mr. Friendly (Dave Shelley). It’s a socioeconomic struggle between a united
working class and a soulless corporation, and we know it’s essentially soulless
(outside of the mere fact that it’s a corporation in a movie) because they are
homogenized and gentrified, as opposed to the creative, all-inclusive workers
of Joe’s Super Duper. The Pyramid goons
conform to the standards of what’s expected of a gas station in generic terms,
but Joe’s Super Duper provides an individualized, exciting gas-pumping
experience (there’s even an extensive double entendre about the process [“Grab
it, stick it in, squeeze it, and let it peter out”]). Joe’s Super Duper is the new blood in the
local gas pumping industry. They are the
rebirth of a dead business from out of the ashes, fueled (ahem) by youthful
enthusiasm. Why more full service (ahem,
again) gas stations didn’t follow this film’s business model in real life, like
bikini car washes, is beyond me.
Yet, even the film’s antagonists
comply with the movie’s jaunty disposition.
Friendly mocks the girls, but aside from sending useless thugs Bruno and
Moiv (Joe E. Ross and Mike Mazurki, respectively, and please
note the ethnic spelling of Marv, just so you get the full picture) to
intimidate June, things never get too personal for the upscale station
owner. Friendly is easily thwarted, even
when he ups his game and gets the gas supply cut off to Joe’s pumps. Further than this, when the youngsters go
straight to Pyramid corporate headquarters (disguised as Arabs and belly
dancers, naturally), the expectation is that corporate fat cat Mr. Smin (Jack Jozefson) will be even more
heartless and venal than Friendly.
However, he’s one of the biggest pushovers for a sob story ever, and the
whole thing is executed so as not to get in the way of the fun.
Another aspect of the film that I
found intriguing is the notion of childhood’s end. At the high school commencement, a practical
joke by The Vultures leads to our female leads baring their boobs for all the
audience to see. The girls are all technically
adults now, and though embarrassed at first, they are pretty hunky dory about
it in the next scene in the same sense of discovering the joys of drinking
alcohol and then discovering the joys of drinking alcohol legally in a
bar. As previously stated, Roger takes
the inevitable departure of June from his life pretty hard. He goes from playful flirting to stunned
contemplation, though June seems okay with it all until she gets the phone call
regarding her uncle’s health which perhaps reminds June of the transitory
nature of life. That said, June also
gets a little song to sing to herself while hanging out at her uncle’s closed
gas station which belies her original nonchalance (curiously, the only song any
character in the film sings, and it made me suspect this was actually a musical;
it isn’t). Its title is All Of My Friends, and it includes the
lines, “Just gimme all of my friends, and I’ll be happy again,” “bring ‘em back
home, where you know they belong,” and most importantly, “I’m lonely.” It’s half-lament, half-retrouvaille for long
held friendships that are slowly dispersing.
The kids’ entire business escapade is a final fling for them to both
solidify and begin letting go of their relationships. Even The Vultures’ sudden sense of community
spirit appears to stem from their connection to these teens specifically and
their realization that soon they won’t be around to prank and harass (plus, the
age divide between them and active high school kids is only widening, so these
may be the last high school kids with which they can partake in their
particular brand of mischief without just being creepy). The film, then, is a last hurrah for youth,
as well as being a call to seize the opportunity to do something, have some
fun, and maybe use your body to sell some petroleum products. And that’s the big take away; the film is an
ultra-casual ode to youth. As a dyed in
the wool nostalgist, it works in spades for me.
For as much as the film is a snapshot of the West Coast in the late
Seventies (something I never tire of seeing), its message applies to youth
(American and otherwise) on the whole: Grab it, stick it in, squeeze it, and
let it peter out.
MVT: The film’s innocent
joie de vivre joined with its slightly melancholic undercurrent.
Make or Break: The locker
room scene, wherein the girls talk about how they feel about what happened and
how they view the world.
Score: 6.75/10
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