BETSY RUSSELL STARRING IN 'TOMBOY' W/ KRISTI SOMERS

year: 1985 cast: Betsy Russell, Kristi Somers rating: ***

An hour-and-seven minutes into this jovially pointless low budget exploitation comedy, familiar to any and all former USA Channel’s UP ALL NIGHT insomniacs, something miraculous occurs: an actual plot is introduced as Betsy Russell’s Tomasina 'Tomboy' Boyd, otherwise known as Tommy, gets a chance to take on her new boyfriend, a famous race car driver. But for the first half of the film she stares longingly at his poster image inside the dingy garage where she’s the sole mechanic.

Tommy is, especially when her tight T-shirt gets soaked, an extremely sexy girl. Behind the grime of a tedious workaday life, she’s the best looking babe in the rural small town. Her slutty best friend Seville Ritz, played by 80’s cult starlet Kristi Somers (SAVAGE STREETS), wants her pal to be more feminine in order to land a dude and have some well-deserved fun.

Betsy Russell as Tommy

The duo go to a party, where a spoiled car racing mogul’s son Ernie Leeds Jr., played by Kirk’s son and Michael’s Brother Eric Douglas, tries landing a lucrative racing deal with Randy: the guy that Tommy takes on in the finale, driving a supped-up hot rod she built on her own.  And before the race, when Tommy and Randy are first dating, they ride around on motorcycles and box each other during the kind of cheesy montage sequence famous during the 1980’s.

Perhaps the most laidback and, dare it be said, involving scenes occur in the first hour before Tommy meets her dream man: joining a start-up basketball game, avoiding horny locals, zipping around on her dirt bike, or hanging around town with her poufy black curly hair, resembling a younger Adrienne Barbeau. All the while her wild best friend (Somers) appears in commercials and tries anything she can to make it big: without the hindrance of clothing as TOMBOY succeeds at a breezy template reminiscent of the seventies exploitation drive-in flicks that need no stinkin’ plotline to be fluffy and fun, every frame backed by glossy rock songs that are relatively catchy, at least while they’re orchestrating our sexy heroine.  

Betsy Russell ready to roll

Betsy Russell under another car

Eric Douglas as Ernie Leeds Jr.

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