"What's to be modest about in an all-girl school?"
A. Gammill | West Point, MS United States | 12/11/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"If the above quotation from Christina Hart's character in GAMES GIRLS PLAY intrigues you, congratulations. You're just the kind of person for this movie.
Scoring higher on the Cheesy Meter than a Swiss Colony catalog--and setting back the women's movement by at least a hundred years--there's little point in defending this seminal work of softcore yucks from the mid-70's. And that's the point, I suppose. It's so bad, it's good.
Plot? Uh, o.k., sure. Man-crazy Bunny (Hart) is shipped off to an girls' school in England, where she proceeds to engage her roomies in a game of Bed The Politician. The bet is on and the clothes are off.
Really. That's pretty much it.
Directed by once-respectable veteran Jack Arnold (Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came From Outer Space, etc.), GAMES GIRLS PLAY is best viewed as a product of its time. Personally, I first caught the film as a teenager on Cinemax's notorious "Friday After Dark" in the early 80's. If you came of age during that era, Bunny's exploits may hold a certain naughty nostalgic charm. And compared to today's smarter but far more cynical "adult" comedies, there's a goofy innocence about the film that might still win you over.
The extras include the R-rated trailer as well as t.v. spots, and a painful modern interview with Christina Hart. Painful? Well, her memories of the film aren't all that fond, and (with apologies to Ms. Hart) she looks very different these days.
The bottom line is simple enough: Either you're into this sort of thing or not. If, like myself, you have actually have fond memories of the film, you'll find it's really not that bad. As 70's teen sex comedies go, you could certainly do worse.
"