Director: Bud Townsend Starring: Cathy Lee Crosby, Michael Biehn, Keenan Wynn, Channing Clarkson Certificate: X (UK), PG (USA)
"Everybody Loves A Winner"
Plot A high school mistakenly hires female Olympic gold medallist Randy Rawlings to coach the boy's basketball team. After threatening the principal with disciplinary action if she is fired for being a woman, the principal tries instead to make sure the team loses so he can fire her for poor performance. In the meantime, Randy is enjoying the attention of student Jack Ripley.
SPOILERS AHEAD...
Women can't coach basketball, they're too busy doing their hair, wearing dresses and having periods, right? Well, if that's your opinion prepare to have your mind slightly changed by this fantastic piece of 1970s film fluff as not only can women coach basketball, they can have inappropriate affairs with their students too. Hurrah! Someone better call the Women's Lib; the revolution is here!
Ok, I have to admit this movie is a total guilty pleasure of mine and I've watched it more times than I care to admit. Firstly let's be honest Biehn is stunningly beautiful in this movie. If I were him back then, I would have spent my days checking myself out in every reflection. It's also one of the few films where he appears to have been allowed to smile, Michael is a great actor and would later play some heavy roles to reflect that but here it's just nice to see one of his characters having some fun.
Now let's get the negative stuff out of the way; this was obviously a sexploitation B movie of its day with a budget of about $12. The lighting is poor, the sound is so bad you can't hear some of the dialogue at all during the gymnasium scenes (I'm guessing the budget didn't stretch to looping) and some of the acting and dialogue bar the main characters is a bit ropey but dig through the crap and you're left with what is quite a genuinely sweet love story if you forget its inappropriate nature.
Cathy Lee Crosby is likeable as Randy Rawlings. Initially, her character is the subject of an onslaught of sexist comments ("little lady") which is probably not helped by her spending the majority of the movie in the teeniest, tiny shorts, but hey this was the 70s and if this movie taught me anything it's that it was ok to be a dick to women back then apparently?! Randy handles everything like a pro and with the team quickly on her side she proves herself as a more than a worthy coach.
Scenes of the basketball team playing and gradually improving (with a bit of help from some hypnosis) are interspersed with Randy and Jack getting to know one another and to be honest, these are the scenes that held my attention more; Biehn and Crosby have genuine chemistry. We're also treated to some cute montages involving fondling in the sea, roller skating and badly washing a car, whilst some incredibly dated 1970s plinky-plonky music accentuates the love fest further.
I did genuinely find myself rooting for the team to win and for Randy to prove the doubters wrong and because this is a feel-good movie, they do of course succeed. This kind of movie would never get made these days and imagine the uproar had it been a male coach sleeping with one of his female students. Sadly there was also never a sequel where Jack has to confront his parents and admit he knocked up his school coach. 'Coach 2 - Mama I got the hot teacher pregnant' has a nice ring to it.
Conclusion
Approach this movie without 21st-century cynicism and you'll probably enjoy it as much as I did. It's cute and whimsical, everyone is gorgeous and the good guys win; I can imagine watching this at a drive-in movie theatre on a hot evening in the 70s and having a great night out. Yes, it won't blow you away but it'll leave a smile on your face. I feel sad we didn't get more of this version of Michael Biehn as he got older; this movie proves he would have made a fantastic romantic leading man.
Coach is available to rent and buy on iTunes.
IMDB: 4.7/10 Rotten Tomatoes: Critics = Not enough ratings, Audience = 0% (As of October 2021)
Dies? / Villain? ALIVE! But what happened next?? / He's leading boy, there's no villainy here!
What Does Michael Say?
"I was very young, I was very enamoured with Cathy Lee Crosby… [Laughs.] As I think she was with me. I haven’t seen that movie in 20 or 30 years, but I think it was cute enough, I think it was fun enough, I don’t think there was anything horrifically stupid about it. It was an exploitation movie. It used sex exploitation. But I think I had a character in there who was attractive, and I had a lot of fun making it, playing basketball and hanging out with Cathy Lee Crosby. It wasn’t too bad for a 19-year-old kid from Arizona." AV Club February 2012
What Did This Movie Teach Me?
Michael Biehn cannot sing.
Asking how the digestive system works was a legitimate form of flirting in the 1970s.
Anything Else?
Quentin Tarantino owns a 35mm copy of this movie confirmed by Michael himself in this interview with AV Club. I'm sensing the need for a Coach/Reservoir Dogs cinema double bill one of these days.
If you own this movie check out the state of Michael Biehn's feet as he goes up the stairs to sleep with Randy at the 1:02:35 mark. They're filthy! Biehn or not, he wouldn't be getting into my bed with feet like that!
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