• The Last American Virgin is essentially two films. The first is your standard teen comedy farce, an uninspired amalgam of other, better pictures about sex-obsessed teenage boys (like Animal House, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or even American Graffiti). The second is a sublime piece of subversive genius; coming-of-age as Passion play, humping.
• The Last American Virgin is the pinnacle of the sex comedy. It has boobs, butt, sexual harassment, female deviants, abortion, friendship, enemyship, and more set backs for gender equality that seems okay to me.
• The Last American Virgin (1982) The Last American Virgin. (1982) 'The comedy that puts ZIP into being a teen.' R 1 hr 32 min Jul 30th, 1982 Comedy. The friendship of a group of.

The Last American Virgin is a 1982 American sex comedy film written and directed by Boaz Davidson. It is a remake of Davidson's 1978 Israeli film Eskimo Limon (Lemon Popsicle).

The Last American Virgin

In The Last American Virgin, deceptive teenage boys are walking, stalking hard-ons and teenage girls are their confused, dimwitted prey. Boundaries are not only confusingly fluid, they’re never enforced. Mutual enthusiasm is rare. For a film about sex, it’s awfully joyless and disturbing. Released in the summer of 1982, this dangerous crapfest is as anti-feminist as it gets.

Early on, we meet Gary, a delivery boy for The Pink Pizza, a crude vagina joke if ever there was one. He’s fallen instantly for new student, Karen, a cute, curly-haired brunette. When he first sees her in a popular teen eatery, he does that thing all awkward, lonely, lovestruck guys do. He stares at her a little too long.

Later, through one of his friends, he finds her address. One morning, before she leaves for school, he drives by in the Pink Pizzamobile, gets out and deflates one of her bike tires. That way, she’ll have to ride in his car with him instead. Creepy. During the ride to class, he does another annoying thing by pretending to not correctly hear her name so she has to repeat it again and again. His game is so wack.

After being turned down for a date with her (because she’s busy), Gary goes to a party and becomes crestfallen when he spots his douchey horndog friend Rick dancing with her. Feeling a deep sense of territorial entitlement but not nearly brave enough to air his deeply felt grievances, he proceeds to get miserably drunk on Jack Daniels. Then, he’s asked to leave. And yes, he drives home drunk in the Pizzamobile. (He’s lucky he doesn’t kill anybody.) He further embarrasses himself in front of his family & their small group of guests by hitting on one of his mom’s friends and dropping a tray of drinking glasses.

When he’s not quietly moping, Gary joins Rick & their mutual friend Big Apple (a portly fellow really named David who locates Karen’s house) on gross sexual misadventures. Shortly after meeting Karen, a reluctant Gary is talked into entertaining three girls (picked up at that same popular eatery by David) at his parents’ place under the pretense that they’re throwing a drug-filled house party. (They’re only invited because they’re allegedly “easy lays”. Charming.) The girls make it clear they’re not interested in sex, just the drugs. In the film’s only funny scene, the lines of “Colombian cocaine” the boys offer is really just Sweet ‘N Low. The girls are too dumb to know the difference.

They’re also easily coerced sexually which is uncomfortable to watch. Despite saying stop numerous times while dancing to some vinyl, Rick’s date doesn’t actually end their endless make out session, especially when it moves over to the living room couch. Shortly thereafter, when they have sex in one of the bedrooms she notes in the middle of it she’s not on the pill. “Me, neither” is the callous reply. Again, nothing stops.

Big Apple’s date, the one who wanted the boys to keep their hands to themselves or they wouldn’t come to Gary’s house, is at first appalled when he mauls her in a different bedroom. (She thankfully makes him climb off of her in the middle of a refuted kiss.) Then, after saying she doesn’t want him to remove her blouse, she suddenly urges David to go outside, take off his clothes while counting to 100, then come back when he will discover that she will be naked, too. What?

Meanwhile, Gary is stuck with Millie, a bespectacled sourpuss who says “I don’t care” a lot yet still allows him to remove her shirt despite showing not the slightest bit of sexual interest. (She’d rather eat from that bowl of potato chips.) And then Gary’s parents come home just as he attempts to cut her stubborn bra strap while simultaneously putting her in what looks like a reverse chinlock. She has absolutely no reaction to this as she continues to munch away.

During one of his Pink Pizza deliveries, Gary meets Carmella, an oversexed Spanish woman who later services Rick & David during a return trip despite having a sailor boyfriend named Paco who picks the wrong time to pay her a visit. It must be said she is the only enthusiastic female in the movie, but of course this is seen as peculiar. She’s a “nympho”, after all, as an impolite David loudly declares. (It wouldn’t be an 80s sex comedy without all that harmful “slut” shaming. She’s not the only recipient of such antiquated thinking.) An impatient redheaded prostitute they encounter is far more irritable and, as it turns out, diseased. She’s so icky Gary becomes sick to his stomach after he gets his 30 dollars worth. And no, sitting in a chlorinated pool for many hours doesn’t cure the crabs, as these sexist idiots belatedly discover.

Completely oblivious to all of this is sweet, dopey Karen who makes the mistake of having sex with the sleazy, philandering Rick near the high school football field. Like Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, she pays the price for not using contraception. Rick soon blows her off rather cruelly and manipulative Gary finds his opening.

Unfortunately, he’s very controlling as he urges the meek Karen to get it together and not blab about her situation. (He actually looks for her at the football field like the insecure creep that he is.) Incredibly, after selling his stereo and borrowing some money from his Pink Pizza boss, Gary pays for her $250 abortion, a word that is never actually said out loud. Clearly expecting to be rewarded with her love, especially after declaring his own to her days after the procedure (she gives him a hug and a kiss after thanking him for being a good “friend”), he gets quite the rude awakening in the final scene which is supposed to be heartbreaking but is absolutely hilarious. Even funnier is seeing this jerk driving with tears streaming down his face as the end titles begin to run.

This point can’t be stressed enough. Gary’s “nice guy” act is so transparently phony, even naïve Karen, who gets knocked up by a different asshole and very clearly has low self-esteem, doesn’t fall for it. (Don’t believe her crocodile tears for one second. She never really wanted him.) In one respect, the ending is a twisted form of justice. In another, it’s a horrendously self-inflicted punishment on a confused kid who has zero clue what she’s doing. Considering all her pitiful options, she’s better off being celibate, quite frankly.

Speaking of punishment, in place of actual emotion, The Last American Virgin bombards us with repeated snippets of overly obvious early 80s pop ballads like REO Speedwagon’s Keep On Lovin’ You and Journey’s treacly Open Arms not to mention way too much Lionel Richie (via The Commodores). We care so little for these screwed up characters, almost none of whom are sympathetic (including the pervy, big-dicked nerd who looks like Fred Armisen), these garbage retro hits make us hate them even more.

While it’s always delightful to hear classic tunes from The Police, The Waitresses, Devo and The Cars on any soundtrack, they belong in a better movie. Ditto U2’s I Will Follow which is heard during the abortion sequence. In this context, Bono’s lyrics now mirror the domineering toxic masculinity of Gary as Karen passively gives him the reins to her own uterus. It’s an ugly juxtaposition.

It’s hard to feel too sorry for him when he attracts the genuine interest of Karen’s cute, bespectacled, bubble gum-loving friend Rose. (He even makes out with her in the front seat of a car.) But Gary wants the unattainable, the so-called dream girl that seems so close, yet is completely out of reach. And he’s not good at being vulnerable, not until it’s too late. By then, he doesn’t recognize the young girl he’s long fancied is a seriously flawed human being who can’t possibly live up to his overwrought imagination.

The boys in The Last American Virgin don’t see girls as their equals. They see them as reluctant play-things who only submit to aggression and chicanery, instead of consenting through honest, heartfelt connection. The girls are not autonomous, eager sexual beings but rather reluctant, conflicted receptacles who aren’t allowed to enjoy physical intimacy on their own terms. They only exist to please immature boys and not entirely willingly.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
6:55 p.m.

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Diane Franklin

1. […] Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, No One Lives, Night Of The Creeps, Bending The Rules, The Last American Virgin, Bloodsport, The Last Exorcism Part II, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Basket Case, Krampus, […]

2. […] production Bending The Rules featuring the retired Edge and the decidedly unsexy horndog fiasco The Last American Virgin which, to its credit, does have a decent soundtrack, one of its few redeeming qualities. […]

Spoilers - this review discusses the film's ending.

The Last American Virgin is a member of the Teen Sex Comedy Class of 1982, which represented the first wave in a genre that gained popularity during the early and mid-'80s. With a late July U.S. release, The Last American Virgin was situated between Porky's (which came out in mid-March) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (which opened two weeks later). The presence of common elements makes it seem like a hybrid straddling the line between Porky's unapologetic T&A humor and Fast Times' more down-to-Earth examination of life in high school. It's an odd mix that causes The Last American Virgin to evidence a split personality when director Boaz Davidson proves unable to balance the film's comedic and dramatic elements.

The Last American Virgin is best known for a downbeat, true-to-life ending that comes like a shock of cold water. Had the film concluded in the 'expected' manner, with milquetoast hero Gary (Lawrence Monoson) strolling off into the sunset with dream girl Karen (Diane Franklin), no one would remember the movie. More than a quarter of a century after its release, when people recall The Last American Virgin, they don't think of the locker room scene or the corny first-act sex scene. They remember the image of Gary seeing Karen kissing Rick (Steve Antin), then driving away with tears streaming down his cheeks.

For a while, The Last American Virgin plays like a Porky's wannabe. How much Davidson was influenced by the Canadian import is unclear. By the time Porky's became an unexpected hit, The Last American Virgin was already in the can, and there's no evidence any last minute editing or re-shooting was done to increase the quotient of sex and crudity. However, Porky's was completed approximately six months before The Last American Virgin started shooting, so it's not impossible that some elements (such as the locker room peep sequence) could have provided an 'inspiration.' On the other hand, similarities between The Last American Virgin and Fast Times are almost certainly coincidental, since the films were in simultaneous production.

At the outset, The Last American Virgin introduces us to protagonist Gary, an average high school Joe who's looking to do what most average high school Joes are looking to do: get laid. It's interesting to note that Davidson chose to establish Gary as a nondescript individual rather than a stereotypical nerd. In subsequent teen sex comedies, the hero would invariably be socially awkward. Gary's best friends are studly Rick and portly David (Joe Rubbo). Their first exploit involves meeting a trio of girls and bringing them back to Gary's house for a little nookie. In the middle of this, Gary's parents come home. There are bare breasts, open-mouthed adults, and a mistaken identity - the kind of silliness one expects from a sex comedy.

The main plot involves Gary's infatuation with new arrival Karen. For Gary, it's love at first sight, but she hardly notices him, even after he comes to her rescue when her bicycle develops a flat tire (a situation he causes by bleeding the air). Instead, Karen wants Rick, and she eventually gets him, leaving Gary out in the cold. The tables turn, however, when Karen ends up pregnant and Rick wants nothing to do with her. In comes White Knight Gary, who arranges for an abortion and provides Karen with a place where she can recuperate in privacy. But, just when it looks like Gary might end up with his dream girl, Rick re-enters the picture and steals her back.

If the abortion subplot sounds familiar, it's almost identical to something similar in Fast Times. It's also The Last American Virgin's strong suit because it reveals layers to Gary and Karen's characters. These scenes are played straight and they are crucial to establishing that Gary's feelings for Karen run more deeply than a simple crush. His kindness toward her makes her betrayal at the end feel like more than a casual slap in the face. She's just as confused as he is when it comes to love, sex, and relationships, but we despise her as the credits roll.

I have never been a fan of sex comedies because, more often than not, I find their brand of 'naughty' humor to be unfunny. Such is the case here, where the best thing that can be said about The Last American Virgin's first half, with its sex hijinks (including the opening gambit, a 'pizza delivery,' and a visit to a hooker) and frequent nudity, is that it offers a few laughs. The second half, with its dramatic underpinning, is more solid. Davidson has stated that the basic plot is derived from an event from his youth - one assumes he is referring to losing a girl and not the penis-measuring locker room contest. This is the second time Davidson filmed this story - the first time was the Israeli feature Eskimo Limon, which was released in 1978.

The aspect of The Last American Virgin that prevents it from becoming more than an offbeat '80s curiosity is the poor quality of acting. It's no coincidence that none of the film's leads proceeded to have high-profile careers. (Compare them to the cast of Fast Times.) Lawrence Monoson has trouble with any kind of strong emotion - during the final scene, it looks like he's forcing the tears. Diane Franklin is gorgeous (and does something leads in sex comedies no longer seem willing to do - take off her clothes) but stiff as a board. Post-Virgin, Steve Antin, like Monoson, has managed to eke out a living making guest appearances on TV shows. Writer/director Davidson, who assembled this group of D-listers, has had a successful Hollywood career, although more as a producer and writer than as a director. The behind-the-camera deficiencies evident in The Last American Virgin's static look were not corrected in his subsequent directorial outings.

The Last American Virgin has its defenders, most of whom are more impressed by the guts displayed by Davidson for the uncompromising ending than by the movie as a whole. I'd have trouble recommending that anyone unfamiliar with the film rush to see it but neither does it need to be avoided at all costs. As '80s teen sex comedies go, it's a peculiar entry because of the ways in which it differs from its cousins. The Last American Virgin tries to inject some honesty and emotional depth into an otherwise silly and raunchy storyline. Its success is mixed but that element at least makes it more interesting to watch than at least 75% of its contemporaries.

Last American Virgin, The (United States, 1982)

• (There are no more better movies of Lawrence Monoson)

• (There are no more worst movies of Lawrence Monoson)

• (There are no more better movies of Diane Franklin)

The Last American Virgin Trailer

• (There are no more worst movies of Diane Franklin)

• (There are no more better movies of Steve Antin)

The Last American Virgin Amazon

• (There are no more worst movies of Steve Antin)