Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Carl Reiner
• Written by Jeff Franklin
• Starring
  • Mark Harmon
  • Kirstie Alley
  • Robin Thomas
  • Patrick Labyorteaux
  • Courtney Thorne-Smith

While Summer School didn’t make the same box-office smash as other Carl Reiner pictures like The Jerk (1979) did, it’s positioned well to have become a sleeper favorite on TV. One reason is that only minimal editing is required to render it broadcast-friendly. The other is that, dang it, it’s just plain fun.

Freddie Shoop (Mark Harmon) is a laid-back high school gym teacher about to embark on his end-of-year Hawaiian escapade with his girlfriend (Amy Stock). Unfortunately, one of the teachers slated to teach summer school wins $50,000 in a scratch-off lottery and immediately flies the coop. Desperate, the conniving vice-principal Mr. Gills (Robin Thomas) ropes Shoop into teaching by threatening his upcoming tenure review. The girlfriend decides not to let the Hawaii plane ticket go to waste, so Shoop is left at home with his dog Wondermutt and a classroom full of misfits.

It’s not the most likely premise in the world to attract my attention, as I don’t really relate to students who’re in remedial education because they couldn’t pass the state’s minimum profiency requirements in English. But that’s okay, because the script-engineered assortment of students under Shoop’s tutelage (after a high percentage of them decide to play permanent hookie) aren’t believably the students you would see in such a class in the real world. To wit:

- Larry (Ken Olandt), who sleeps all day in class because he’s “nocturnal.” (Turns out he’s working nights in a strip club.)

- Chainsaw (Dean Cameron) and Dave (Gary Riley), two teenaged alcoholics with a passionate devotion to horror movies, in particular The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

- Pam (a young Courtney Thorne-Smith), the distracted surfer chick who quickly develops a crush on Shoop. (Gotta tell you, when I first saw this movie almost two decades ago, I thought Thorne-Smith was running neck-and-neck with Jennifer Connelly for the title of the cutest thing I’d ever seen.)

- Denise (Kelly Jo Minter), the African-American motormouth. She later turns out to be dyslexic.

- Alan (Richard Steven Horvitz), the pseudo-geek; he’s got no social skills and comes from a family of honor-roll brains, but can’t get good grades. Worst of all possible worlds.

- Kevin (Patrick Labyorteaux), the jock. (If you recognize Labyorteaux, it’s probably because he went on to co-star in Heathers (1989) — as a jock. What range!)

- Rhonda (Shawnee Smith), the pregnant teen.

Notice something? That’s right — a public high school in California, and not a single Latino in the remedial English class. The best they can do is introduce Anna-Maria (Fabiana Udenio), an Italian exchange student who sits in on the class for added practice before fall semester (and whom Chainsaw and Dave immediately fixate on), but it’s a cheat.

Even among the students we DO have, most of them really don’t belong in a class for those who failed to pass minimum profiency. Chainsaw and Dave? I can easily imagine them flunking every class, but they also exhibit linguistic skills beyond anyone else in the class. Rhonda, whose grades dropped from C’s to F’s when she got pregnant, certainly wouldn’t belong in a class like this. Frankly, of them all, only Denise would believably belong in a class like this, and then only until a 20-second assessment of one of her papers diagnoses her with dyslexia and gets her sent to a special counsellor.

Do I sound like I’m complaining? Hardly. I’m glad that a diverse and witty group of students is shoehorned into this summer school class, because stocking the classroom with the realistic population you’d get in a Los Angeles public school would turn this movie into Dangerous Minds (1995).

So. For the first half of the film, Shoop is as much of a slacker as his students are, taking them on endless “field trips” to amusement parks and petting zoos. It’s only when Gills suspends him pending dismissal that Shoop works a deal: If he can get all the kids left in his class to pass, he gets to keep his job.

But motivating a bunch of kids who already think they’re failures is tough, so he has to bribe each of them with a personal favor: a Fourth of July party at his place, chauffeur service, accompaniment to Lamaze class, an in-class showing of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…

And naturally, he gets all involved in their lives and they come to trust him and yadda yadda yadda. Oh, and his efforts start to get him in good with Robin (Kirstie Alley), the history teacher next door who wants to dismiss him as a shiftless goof.

All of which sounds like standard, hackneyed teen movie plotting, so why in the world would I like this picture so much?

The gore.

See, Chainsaw and Dave love to play with foam latex and stage elaborate scenes of grue. And thus the high point of the movie: When Shoop walks out on the kids in frustration, Gills calls in a substitute, and Chainsaw and Dave arrange for a little tableau to greet her in the classroom:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s not all the movie’s got going for it, of course. The decompressed plot allows for lots of fun little vignettes and scenes that don’t seem to really go anywhere, but entertain nonetheless. And despite the “classroom massacre,” the movie doesn’t really try to be “edgy” in that way that scenes designed less to entertain an audience and more to make the audience feel empowered for having watched it when the parents weren’t around.

I ask you, how could anyone with a love of B-movies not enjoy this movie beyond all rational thought?

Interesting Side Note: I discovered this tidbit about Dean “Chainsaw” Cameron on the IMDb:

Is the inventor of the Bill of Rights: Security Edition cards, which are study, playing card size, pocket-sized sheets of metal with the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution printed on them. These cards are for those who are frequent fliers on commercial airliners, considering that they can set off the airport metal detectors. The idea is that, if federal inspectors and workers find these cards, one will have to give up his Bill of Rights when searched before boarding a plane. With the exception of the Fourth Amendment which is printed in red, all the other nine amendments are printed in black.

Priceless.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 1 goldfish
• breasts: close, but no
• explosions: half a dozen, all fireworks at the 4th of July party
• dream sequences: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 6
  • Kirstie Alley (Robin Bishop) played Lt. Saavik in Star Trek 2
  • Ken Olandt (Larry) played “Jason Vigo” in the TNG episode “Bloodlines”
  • Tom Troupe (”Judge”) played “Lt. Harold” in the classic episode “Arena”
  • Conroy Gedeon (”Mr. Winnick”) played “Civilian agent” in Star Trek 3
  • Carlos Lacamara (”Beach Cop”) played “Retaya” in the DS9 episode “Improbable Cause”
  • Jack Blessing (”Student”) played “Temporal Security Agent Dulmer” in the DS9 episode “Trials and Tribble-ations”