The Last American Virgin (1982)

Fresh and Exciting

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Early on in The Last American Virgin there are some clever instances of the film tapping into its kind of teenage humour. Gary, Rick and David have invited three girls back to Gary's house in an attempt to score. Naturally, Gary, the film's protagonist and the only virgin of the three, is stuck with the most frigid of the girls. But she is a teenager too, and so the shirt comes off, in the midst of her half-heartedly attempts to deflect him with a bowl of cold popcorn. Gary quickly goes for the bra, which to the teenage boy is like the last barrier to the holy grail, but its a clunky, unsexy contraption (form matching its owner). Their end position that his parents stumble onto is something of a masochist's fantasy; Gary, in his enthusiasm to unsnap the bra, has her in a makeshift choke-hold while she fidgets and shifts around in her seat. Before that the boys nervously offer the girls high-grade 'cocaine' in an attempt to impress them, without revealing it is merely powdered artificial sweetener. Davidson reaches for the natural humour that is squeezed out of the self- consciousness of the scene; the boys are trying to play it off like hotshots, and the girls pretend like they know what they are doing and have done it all before. It's sweet because neither side is willing to admit just how inexperienced they really are. We all know how the scene ends, of course. The film is from a period of teen sex comedies that advertise raunchiness for raunchiness' sake, so the outcome must be having everyone rush into the room at the same time half naked to the shock, horror and heart attack of the prudish mother. If there is any other dimension of these characters, it is not even slightly explored. Davidson sets up the film to subvert via its ending, by having Gary's hopes crash down and mar what the conventional audience expects. But nobody learns anything from this ending. It's been praised widely for its 'realism', but it just beats the poor idiot relentlessly with the close-up of his teary face. Every facet of the film is constructed to serve Gary's misery, but Davidson has missed the step where he acknowledges exactly where it was he went wrong and how he will move forward. Without this, it's so easy for a viewer to veer in the wrong direction after those credits. It is supposedly built on the destruction of what would later be dubbed the 'friendzone'. We see this in Gary, in the way he swoops in as the nice guy after Rick, and how he is suddenly donning leather jackets and brimming with confidence once he has found his girlfriend. The crux of it is that this is all based on his initial attraction to Karen, and his desire to have sex with her, which makes his crusade hardly more noble that Rick's. But this message isn't earned because the women in the film are all terrible caricatures. Of course Gary is stuck with the dumpy third girl, and then coveted by Karen's heavily bespectacled friend Rose. Karen herself is this fuzzy, vague bundle of characterisations brought in to service the plot. See Davidson's treatment of her abortion, as some sinister, defiling procedure, urgently cross-cutting between the two as if they share a special bond because he helps her get through the ordeal. And then a day later she is back to being the bouncing, smiling Diane Franklin. The whole plot falls apart because she isn't a character that forces Gary's hand, but merely a device to rip out his heart. Davidson relies so heavily on the shocking treatment of Gary's ending that he forgets to separate these characters from the wild, irrational sphere of the teenage period where anything goes and rational thought is succeeded by passion and desire. This conclusion would work better if these characters had the agency that they deserve, and instead of the soppy, sugary kiss in the bathroom, Gary heads to the party with the expectation and anticipation of that kiss. Then the blow is valid, and his demise is a piercing and justifiable critique of his mindset. But there is none of that, and there is no moment of post-realisation ala 500 Days of Summer that enables growth. So all in all, it's barely an upgrade from the formulaic happy ending, which makes a lot more sense from Karen's perspective anyway.

I remember being 13 and going to the drive in to see this movie with my friend and his 16 year old brother who had just got his license as well as two other friends. We piled into his moms Ford LTD and headed out. It was august of 1982 and we had actually went to see Tootsie as the feature and Virgin as the encore. We were not going to stay for Virgin after Tootsie but I am glad we did! By far the best the teenage coming of age flick you have never heard of. Funny, raunchy, and full of inappropriate humor and nudity! But unlike other teen comedies of that era such as Porky's etc. It had more to it. A little something special. Maybe it was the characters, the story, or perhaps the more serious tone the film takes the last 30 min. I remember leaving the drive in thinking the ending was messed up comedies are not suppose to end like that! Then I seen the movie about 7 years later, on VHS. I was 20 then with my own apartment, and having been through a couple relationships and fresh out of my teens the movie was even better! The Last American Virgin just seems to epitomize what it is really like to be a teen. Hanging with your friends, chasing girls, relationships, sex, High school. Oh yeah and broken hearts! There maybe be more well known teenage comedies of 80's, but none quite like this!

A trio of sex-obsessed high-school lads—nice guy Gary (Lawrence Monoson), stud-muffin Rick (Steve Antin), and lard-arse David (Joe Rubbo), spend their spare time trying to get laid as often as possible. Their friendship falls apart, however, when Gary falls for the new girl at the school, Karen (Diane Franklin), who unfortunately for him, has the hots for Rick (ain't that always the way?).If I had already gotten around to reviewing Israeli teen sex comedy Lemon Popsicle, it would make writing about The Last American Virgin a whole lot easier, for the latter is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of the former. Having already made a fortune with Lemon Popsicle (and its subsequent sequels), producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus targeted the US market by taking the main elements from their proved hit—the dynamics of the main characters' friendship, their sexual escapades, and the ultimate outcome of the movie—and relocating them from 50s Israel to 80s America. The result: The Last American Virgin, and a whole load of dollars to go with their already massive pile of shekels!Being a huge fan of Lemon Popsicle since the early 80s (I saw it many times as a teenager, there not being much to choose from at my local video rental shop), I personally wouldn't class The Last American Virgin as an 'essential' teen sex comedy, however I still found it very entertaining stuff, with impressive performances from its young cast, a wonderful pop/rock soundtrack (R.E.O. Speedwagon rule!), and some very welcome female nudity, particularly from the oh-so-cute Franklin (who has been a favourite of mine since seeing her way back when in Amityville II: The Possession).Before watching The Last American Virgin, I strongly suggest checking out the original (and in my opinion, superior) Lemon Popsicle, but if you're absolutely sure that a Middle Eastern rock 'n' roll sex comedy won't be your cup of Café Afuch (yes, I had to look that up!), then definitely give this one a go—it's still one of the better films the genre has to offer.

Who would have guessed that a teenage sex comedy could be so deep? In today's movie environment, where the good guys always win in the end, this movie wouldn't make it out of the cutting room . As other reviewers have stated the first hour of the movie starts out as your typical teenage sex comedy of the 1980's. About an hour into the movie it's like someone flipped a switch. It was like, now I got you, here is a lesson in real life kids.I remember seeing this movie for the first time, and I was totally floored by the ending. The real lesson of this movie is that Love is a mysterious thing. You can't force love on the person of your dreams, sexual attraction is always a mystery. Several people have commented that you should watch this movie as a teenager or with your teenage kids. I don't know if I agree with that. How do you handle the discussion with your kid if they ask "Was Mommy/Daddy the person of your dreams?" Many times the answer would be .....I remember when I saw this movie I was furious at the girl. But in hindsight, she didn't ask for the boys help with her problem. He offered it to her, but so what? She is just trying to find happiness. Just because she's attracted to a jerk doesn't invalidate her feelings. Ultimately one of the messages of this movie is that you have to find your own way in life, and just hope that the stumbles don't break your heart too much.I'm amazed that this movie got made in 1982. I suspect that the director pitched it as a teen sex comedy, and the studio said, sure go ahead and make it. Did he then slip the second half in under the studio's nose? If you want to see a brutally honest movie about the teenage human condition, without the sappy clichéd endings that most modern movies have today, rent this relatively unknown gem. Just expect to be a little uncomfortable two hours later.