Mag Wheels aka Summer School (1978)

As I often do on long afternoons, I was browsing IMDb and thought, you know what? Mag Wheels is the best movie ever, I should look it up!

I was shocked to see that so few of the actors went on to anything else. I mean, the acting for the most part isn't very good... but it's not horrible either. OK, so the main girl Anita is kind of really bad, but she's pretty and at least she gets to be a part of conversations like this:

Anita: You want to rap with me?
Dad: No. I don't want to rap. I want to TALK.

For those of you not in the know, Mag Wheels was another late 70s entry into the beach teensploitation comedies that were so prominent then. The only difference is... this movie isn't funny. I mean, it's really funny, but not in any typical sense. The story itself is kind of heart-wrenching, very Romeo and Juliet, if you will. See, Steve hangs out with the guys who drive vans and Anita has found herself in league with the female pick-up drivers. Star crossed lovers never had it so bad...

Anita (Shelly Horner) is the new girl at school. When Steve (the luscious John McLauglin, who did go on to a nice acting career) gets one look at the voluptuous transfer, it sets his girlfriend Donna (Verkina Flower, Buck Flower's daughter) into a tailspin and she'll stop at nothing to make sure these two never unite. And she calls Anita a "Whozitt"! Damn, she's pissed...

Unfortunately, this isn't Anita's only problem. I mean, let's take her dad. He constantly yells at her and demeans her (not to mention the rapping part) and isn't all the interested in things like when she's almost been run off the road (by Donna, of course!)... Then there's her sleazy and extremely overweight boss (she works at the big hangout, The Boogie Bowl, no less), who decides that if she wants her paycheck, she'll have to dry hump him first - at least that's what I think he's doing. I'm pretty sure she doesn't get her check either... Oh yeah, and Anita gets expelled from summer school on the first day, although she does show up afterwards (thanks, dad!)... And I won't even go into Jill's weird homoerotic fascination with Anita... If Jill (Pheobe Schmidt) didn't look like Richard Lynch, then maybe, JUST maybe it would have worked...

Anita is one big walking drama. I'm not saying she brings all of this on herself, but dude, if only she'd listen to her best friend/wanna-be lesbian lover Jill and just "Shine it!" But instead, Anita kind of gets herself mixed up in all kinds of turmoil. She does get some female empowerment when she tells Steve she didn't mean to blow him away and still asserts herself enough to let him know that she doesn't ball for just any guy. Ah, that's good to know. She may just shine it all on yet.

All of this culminates in a near gang rape, which Steve feels bad about, leading to what we hip 70s folk like to call a "Drag Out", which is essentially a tug-of-war with vehicles! Can Anita save the day or will she just become another statistic of a free luvin' culture? Only the van and truck clubs know that...

A staple on USA's Up All Night as Summer School, Mag Wheels is an oddity to say the least. It's got all of the elements exploitive comedy - fast vans with awesome carpeting, nekkid ladies, rape, revenge, high waist jeans... but what comes together is a very unfunny and tragic story of a girl who just wants to belong. Luckily, the film itself is so inept that none of it comes across as offensive. Even the dry hump scene is amusing... It's also a great staple of 70s California culture with surfers, skaters and the like all whooping it up in the name of grooviness.

Is this movie worth checking out? Well in the immortal words of Jill, "Fly me".