Corvette Summer
On the first day of summer, my Netflix sent to meeee…a Corvette and Bonadoo-cheeeee! Please welcome the Couch Baron as he kicks off our 12 Days Of Summer Movies coverage with Corvette Summer.
Before I can even start, I have to tell you that the DVD artwork alone is worth the rental price. A huuuuge shot of a ‘Vette on one side is counterbalanced by Mark Hamill striking a “sexy” pose on the other while a frizzed-out Annie Potts, sporting six-inch heels, cutoffs that go higher than Daisy Duke ever imagined, and a tank top that gives new meaning to the term “sidal nudity,” climbs all over him like a dog in heat. You guys, her fingers are literally down his pants. This is going to rock.
Hee hee. So, the overall plot of the movie can be summed up very quickly: Kenny (Mark Hamill), a graduating high-school senior who’s into cars more than school or even girls, rescues a Corvette Stingray from a junkyard and, with the help of his fellow shop-classers, restores it to its full tricked-out splendor. Unfortunately, the car quickly gets stolen (a young Danny Bonaduce is partially responsible!), leading Kenny to Vegas in hot pursuit of the hot ride. Joining him along the way is Vanessa (Annie Potts), a girl from his hometown whose ambition in life is to make it as a hooker, and who apparently gave Jennifer Tilly the inspiration for the way she talks. With Vanessa’s help, Kenny tracks down the ‘Vette and temporarily ends up working for the people who stole it, only to snatch it back from them. Kenny and Vanessa win the movie’s climactic car chase and return to Cali, where Kenny realizes that Some Things in life are More Important than cars. I swear I am not high.
Summer Timeline: Although the film does adhere to summer-movie conventions in that it starts right at the close of the school year, it departs from them in that the protagonist, freshly done with high school, isn’t going on to college, and thus doesn’t really have to finish his mission by the end of summer. Yet when alternate titles “Corvette June Through October” and “Corvette Sumtumn” came up short in focus groups, Kenny’s work was cut out for him. Them’s the breaks!
Enviable Vacation Locale: Summer in Vegas is no joke at the best of times, and the side of the city that Kenny sees consists solely of gas stations, fast-food joints, and the U-Haul (really) in which he ends up sleeping. I’ll take my two weeks somewhere else — no, make that anywhere else.
Coming Of Age: I will say this: the movie certainly wants you to think it’s a coming-of-age tale. You see, at the beginning of the film, Kenny is completely gung-ho about cars, to the point where he’s neglected his studies and is a virgin. This requires us to assume that Kenny could have scored tons of tail if he’d only wanted it, despite the fact that he leers like a psycho through half the movie and his hair looks like Chris Meloni’s in Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle. And that he’s, you know, Mark Hamill. (He was in a disfiguring car crash! I’m not judging!) Kenny’s shop teacher and apparent father figure (his mom is single, lives in a trailer, and gives Dawn Atwood from The O.C. a run for her money in terms of parenting efforts) tries to tell him that there’s more to life than cars, but Kenny isn’t hearing that, particularly when his ‘Vette goes missing.
Kenny then meets Vanessa (so called because she drives a van; again, I’m not high) and her overt sexuality initially repels him but ends up attracting him, culminating in him tenderly boning her on the waterbed in the back of her van (did I mention this movie’s from 1978?). This development evinces a revelation that would be unfair not to transcribe: “I drive my first car at nine, I overhaul my first transmission at ten, at thirteen I turn a quarter mile in twelve seconds, and I wait ’til now to get laid?”
The other plot point contributing to Kenny’s coming of age is his discovery that his shop teacher/mentor is the one responsible for the car theft, and the sad-sack speech he gives Kenny about how hard it is to make ends meet makes me think it’s a shame that “(S)he Works Hard For The Money” hadn’t come out yet. Kenny’s shocked response to this revelation: “Oh, Mr. McGrath. We laid up all that fiberglass together!” Eventually, Kenny successfully returns the car to his school, only to realize that getting laid is more important than driving a fast car. And while the movie may be silly, that particular message is hard to argue with, especially since that car, despite everyone in the movie’s assertions to the contrary, is fugly. It looks like a scary smiling clown (even more so when The Dooch is driving it).
Random Awesomeness: The opening scene may well be the most overwrought of any movie I’ve ever seen, and it is great. Some high-school males are touring a car-crushing lot, where the dramatic music leads us to believe that one of them is going to be the victim of a horrible accident that will render him a thick, gooey, horny paste. But! The action actually ratchets up when Kenny flops down on a couch just as, like manna from heaven, a name plate reading “Corvette” in cheesy flowing script falls from a car on its way to certain doom! Mark Hamill gets as hysterical as he did when Luke was in the garbage smasher on the Death Star, and that may not say much for his range, but it’s at least got a certain logic to it.
Kenny tries to stir the junkyard’s denizens to action, but they all do their best Cletus impressions, so it’s left to him to sprint across the yard, climb over some threatening-looking trash, and single-handedly SHUT THE MACHINE OFF as the music turns from urgent to triumphant. You guys, I just totally watched that scene again. Other points of note are the liberal use of “far out” as an unironic expression, Kenny catching up to the apparently unbelievably fast Stingray while riding a bicycle, and Kenny “explaining” to his mentor in a letter, “I’m going steady with a girl from Los Angeles. But don’t worry, I still like cars.”
I’ll close with this unintentional (?) howler: “You’re never gonna be a prostitute. You just don’t have it in you.” Indeed, Kenny. Indeed.
Worth The AC?: Totes.
Overall Suitability As A Summer Movie: A-minus.
Tags: 12 Days Of Summer Movies
OMG!! The title was vaguely familiar and as I read the recap, I flashback to that awful summer day in my teen years (pre-cable) when there was absolutely nothing to watch on television and it was too hot to go outside. So a movie with the geeky kid in the pajamas from that Star Wars movie was in it, and I thought what the harm could it be. It beats watching golf (the only other thing on television that day).
I think what I remember most beside on the cheestastic moments was the disbelief that Kenny’s love of cars and his Corvette had nothing to with his desire to getting laid. That and Vanessa’s goals in making in the world’s oldest profession. I really wished they showed her going to her guidance counselor and asking what she needed to do to on that career track.
Okay could have been the start of some really bad porn, but I was hot that day. And the only thing on tv. Except for golf but with Tiger just a little tiny kid at the time.
So I googled the movie and one of the posters has Luke clutching her round the waist while she’s wearing flippers. What’s that about? Does that have something to do with her waterbed?
Oh, Mark Hamill. You are, without doubt, the only actor who shined his best light under the hamfist of George Lucas. That, in and of itself, makes you Corvette-worthy.
I think I need to read the book first…
http://www.pandora.ca/pictures24/169038.jpg
i used to know a girl who worked as mark hamill’s personal assistant for a couple of years (in the late 80s/early 90s), and she said he had a life-size cardboard cutout of himself as luke skywalker in his living room and that he pretty much only wore his underwear around the house. so, yeah.
Oh, I actually remember going to see this at the movie theater with my friends when it came out! We were, I guess, 14? I remember we thought it was terribly adult because it had sex and stuff in it… (I? Am old.) I don’t know that I’ve seen it since then, though.
“But I was going to Las Vegas to pick up some po-o-o-o-o-ower converters!”
Just the thought of that slipping out of Luke – sorry! Kenny’s mouth makes me desperately want to see this movie. :)
You guys, he was just going into the tachi station to pick up some power converters!
“culminating in him tenderly boning her on the waterbed in the back of her van”
This phrase has made me laugh repeatedly. I am so looking forward to the rest of these reviews.
“he had a life-size cardboard cutout of himself as luke skywalker in his living room and that he pretty much only wore his underwear around the house”
I think I dated that guy in high school.
What I remember about Corvette Summer:
Wendy Jo Sperber was in it.
Ms. Potts was a Golden Globe nominee for her role in this film. (I’m not high, either)
What Emerson said.
My gearhead ex, who bore a striking resemblance to young Mark Hamill, introduced me to this cinematic tour de crap. It was like sportscar porn. I remember sitting there gobsmacked, watching Luke Skywalker and Mary Jo Shively in the most ridiculous high school “romance” ever, while he was drooling over the cars. “It’s right-hand drive!” Just, wow.
Oh my God, there’s a book! I have to update my wishlist…
And I, at the tender age of 9, did not know what to do with this movie… because I loved Star Wars, and consequently Luke Skywalker (repeat: 9 years old ) because he did all the things I wanted to do: skipped school and went on Adventures! won wars against the bad guys! flew x-wings without adult supervision! was the hero that saved the world! And he whined *all the time*, so he must be a kid too, just like me! Wooooooooo!
But then there was this Corvette Summer movie, which had 1) Mark Hamill (synonymous with Luke), but 2) no X-wings, Wookies, talking robots, or stormtroopers to shoot with laser guns. Wasn’t sure how to resolve that. I seem to remember telling my mom I wanted to see it, and she told me I could just forget about it.
I better get out a card, and thank her for that right now. Waterbed in the back of the van?
“tenderly boning her”
HEE! And hee! God, I laughed so hard at that.
Unfortunately, I was 16 that summer, and hadn’t yet realized that Mark Hamill couldn’t hold a candle to Harrison Ford in bringing on the sexy, so I saw the movie. Eagerly, even.
Well.
I remember very little of it, actually, and thank God. :)
“A FIBERGLASS ROMANCE”?!?!? Oh my god, I’m hyperventilating.
@Cindi:
Well, in your defence, while Harrison Ford may have won the sexy in the long run, at least Mark Hamill didn’t run like a douche in the Star Wars films (see Return of the Jedi, Ford running away from the about-to-explode station powering the shield around the Death Star towards the end of the movie).
I actually own a copy of this, on VHS. Don’t judge. You know you all have some stinkers in your collection. It’s so…70s sunshiney summer California-kids-behaving-badly tousled blond hair drive-through burgers and cokes – like the original “Bad News Bears” and “Car Wash”: a little time capsule.
Oh, and Sars’ review is accurate, and hilarious, as usual. “[T]enderly boning” was my favorite, too.
I really really really think I really want to see this now. I have never heard of it. It sounds more than awesome!
@Ellen: That’s actually the Couch Baron on this review, so I can’t take credit for it.
This is the sort of movie I actually have a kind of protective tenderness for now, because it’s the sort of flick that doesn’t get made any more. A modest little coming-of-age story, no really big stars (Hamill was of course riding a wave at the time, but didn’t really have a following that would see him in anything), no attempts at big laughs or sex…. it just hung around in theaters for a while (as they did then, pre-home-video) and then went away quietly. I kind of liked it then, but that was a loooong time ago….
Thank you, Sars. I put this on my Netflix list and watched it last night.
Viva the terribleness!
Oops! Sorry about that! Well my compliments go to the Couch Baron then, and I promise to read more carefully in the future!