Lunch Wagon (1981)
Innocuous early 80's nudie comedy
23 January 2011
This innocuous nudie comedy was made in the late 70's/early 80's between the great 70's drive-in sexplotation era and the 80's "Porky's"-style teen comedy era. The most obvious inspiration might have been "Gas Pump Girls" and "Teen Lust". While those two films were about three sexy girls trying to, respectively, run a gas station, and work as ride-along police cadets, this is about three sexy girls trying to run a lunch wagon for hungry (and horny) construction workers. Along the way they somehow get involved with two different gangs of inept jewelry thieves and have several run-ins with the (strangely uncredited) early 80's pop act Missing Persons.

Voluptuous blonde lead actress Pamela Jean Bryant, who very recently passed away, had only a brief career, but appeared in a number of seminal exploitation films of the era like "HOTS". She played the sexy older sister of one of the protagonists in "Private Lessons" (one of the very first of the 80's teen exploitation comedies) and she also had a small role as a topless victim in the sleazy slasher flick "Don't Answer the Phone". African-American actress right Roseanne Katon might be as well known today for her tireless charity work as her exploitation career, but the latter stretched all the way back to Jack Hill's "The Swinging Cheerleaders". Candy Moore, the least-known actress of the main trio, is kind of miscast as a female body-builder (since she has slender 110-lb.fashion-model body), but her character has a funny fetish for small nerdy guys who can she can really take charge of in the sack. A little further down the cast list is Louisa Moritz as a bubble-headed gangster moll. She was ubiquitous in supporting bimbo roles from the mid-70's to mid-80's, her most famous being as race-car driver in "Death Race 2000" and as hot-to-trot Latina who takes on three pizza boys in "Last American Virgin" (another seminal early 80's teen comedies).

The male cast are mostly supporting comic buffoons who provide some mildly entertaining antics between bouts of toplessness and generally drool over the female characters. They're not very memorable, but they're not too annoying either. Half-assed and leering as it may be, this movie still has a little of the 70's era feminism with the female characters taking center stage, whereas a couple years later movies like this were all about horny teenage boys trying to get laid. I have no idea how Missing Persons came to appear in this movie (or why they're not credited), but they contribute several memorable songs. They were definitely the best early 80's pop group fronted by a former Playboy Bunny.. .
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