Weekend with the Babysitter (1970)

That was an excellent one.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Another poor exploitation movie from Crown International Pictures. This one's about a tired, hen-pecked old middle-aged guy who falls for the young girl babysitting his kids, and begins an affair with her. The movie was shot by Don Henderson, not the actor, and is a virtual reprise of the same director's film of the previous year, THE BABYSITTER, allowing for some self-referencing moments. Overall though it's a kind of sad, wish-fulfilment type film with a bit of a grubby edge to it.Sadly, as with a lot of Crown fare, this one has dated a lot and not in a good way. The film just sort of dawdles along while the characters take drugs and indulge in various pleasurable activities which don't transmit to the viewer. There's a lot of talk and none of it is very interesting. It's clunky throughout, performed by a cast of low-level actors who fail to make much of an impression, and never as controversial as it wants to be. Saying that, the director does manage to cram in a fair few nude and sex scenes for his young starlet, so WEEKEND WITH THE BABYSITTER does have a requisite sleazy feel to it.

I watched WEEKEND WITH THE BABYSITTER as part of BCI Eclipse' Drive-in Cult Classics (featuring Crown International Pictures releases) on DVD.I liked this film as much as I did "The Babysitter." This movie packs a lot of story into a very short time. You have new-age bikers, lesbians, sexual impropriety, drug smuggling, addiction; and high-seas adventure, all in one spot! George E. Carey wrote, produced and starred in this movie; and, I found the plot to be believable and interesting. Some may feel the movie was overly complex; but, hey, life happens even to big Hollywood movie-men.Some of the drug-use and characterizations were a bit cliché. However, I can forgive that, knowing the film was made almost 40 years ago! The supporting cast did an outstanding job, making the premise that much more believable.The musical score is absolutely spot-on, for the times, the tempo, and for moving the story forward. I particularly enjoyed the back-and-forth cuts during the two love scenes (on on the boat; and, one at the mountain retreat).Like the Baby sitter, the movie hinges on the idea of a wayward husband brought to redemption. In this "episode" he is truly a hero, after his wife suffers her own ill-fate from years of drug abuse. He receives a lot of help, from the babysitter and her pals; and, emerges a better man.

This is another 1970's "sex-with-the-babysitter" movies (the best of these probably being "Jailbait Babysiiter" made a few years later). They don't make these kind of movies today, and personally I wouldn't want to see them if they did (after you reach a certain age you may still harbor a nostalgic attraction for the teenage girls of your own youth, but that doesn't mean that you really want to see modern-day teens having sex with anybody). That's not to say that this movie is all that racy. There's some nudity, and some gratuitous showering and spanking. The character is underage, but I don't think the unknown actress actually was.The real problem with this movie is how shamelessly it pandered to the perverts of the day. The male protagonist is very middle-aged, bordering on elderly--a lot more likely to have grand-kids than kids, and hardly any teenage girl's dream date. He even gets to be a hero when he rescues his unfaithful wife from the clutches of a vicious drug dealer, thus morally glossing over the whole infidelity and statutory rape issue. I liked "Jailbait Babysitter" better because it was told from the perspective of the girl and the middle-age lech in that one is treated to a heart attack(!) rather than to hero status. Neither is very realistic, of course, but even blatant moral hypocrisy is preferable to this kind of sleazy pandering.Two things are of interest about this otherwise forgettable movie though. It was directed by Tom McLoughlin, old "Billy Jack" himself, a guy who(perhaps erroneously)was considered in touch with the "youth culture" of the day (making it all the more curious why this movie is told from the perspective of the middle-aged codger). And the gangster's sleazy girlfriend is played by Anik Borel, an interesting European actress who appeared in the ludicrous trash-cult favorite "Werewolf Woman" because the director thought she had a face like a wolf (albeit with a body to die for). There's absolutely nothing else to recommend this though. See "Jailbait Babysitter" instead.

Annik Borel is wonderful. Some of her best nude scenes are in this film, and her acting is brilliant. I bought this film solely because she was in it, but if I'd known how good the film was I might have bought it anyway. The fairly mediocre acting of the rest of the cast is made up for and more by Annik's usual perfection.