Movie – Porky’s (1982)

Porky’s was only the second R rated film I ever saw.  My brothers-in-law took me to see Semi-Tough when I was 13, but it really wasn’t that bad in regards to content.  Porky’s, on the other hand, was raunchy from beginning to end.  I saw it at a drive in and my sister, my female cousin, and I all laughed our asses off.  I’ve seen the film a couple of times since then, when I was more “mature”, and I still found it to be very funny.  When American Pie came out and everyone was talking about the raunchy humor in it, I kept thinking to myself that those people really needed to see Porky’s if they wanted to see what raunchy humor was all about.

Porky’s is set in the 1950s.  Writer/director Bob Clark (A Christmas Story) had been collecting stories for many years from his friends about their sexual misadventures when they were younger.  He combined many of them for this movie.  That translated to a 1950s setting.

In this movie a group of male high school students are obsessed with girls and getting laid.  They want to get into the local strip joint and whorehouse, named Porky’s after its owner, but they are too young.  They try to get some fake IDs, but Porky can easily tell they are fake.  He lets the boys in, but then plays a prank on them by dumping them in the water by the club.  One guy decides to get his revenge on Porky, and this subplot actually gives some seriousness to an otherwise very funny film.

The funny orgasm scene involves a young Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City).  She plays the younger cheerleader coach who is being pursued by one of the boys’ basketball coaches.  This was the first movie I ever saw her in.  I don’t want to describe the scene too much since it would spoil a good laugh.

Speaking of good laughs, probably the funniest scene in the movie involves the basketball coaches, the older cheerleader coach, and the principal of the school.  The scene requires some setup first.  The boys had found a way to peep through holes at the girls when they were showering.  The girls caught them, but far from being horrified, some of them decide to tease the boys.  After some back and forth, one of the boys sticks his penis through the hole in front of him just as the older cheerleader coach – Miss Balbricker – walks into the shower.

She is sure she knows who the boy was so she goes to the principal.  That is how the scene starts.  It runs for more than four minutes without edits.  I don’t know how the actress who played Miss Balbricker (Nancy Parsons) managed to keep a straight face through this entire scene, but the woman deserved some kind of award.  Her character is trying to convince the principal to line up a bunch of male students, with their penises in view, and she will pick the perpetrator out.  Needless to say, the principal is uncomfortable with the whole thing and refuses.  He’s also trying to keep a straight face as the basketball coaches are laughing like crazy, suggesting things like bringing in a police sketch artist to draw the penis.  I just watched this scene again to time it and by the end of it I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.

This movie was extremely popular.  It ran in theaters from March to August and made over $100 million in the U.S.  This may not sound like much now, but this was in 1982.  That’s more than $250 million in today's money and the $100 million mark was the acknowledged sign of a big movie back then, kind of like getting 3,000 hits in baseball.  It was the highest grossing Canadian film for almost 25 years.  It was also the first film to ever make more than one million pounds at the Irish box office, despite, or possibly because of, the fact that it was banned originally and only got released upon appeal.

This movie was followed by two sequels, each of much lesser quality than the first one.  Go ahead and watch them if you want, but don’t expect them to be anywhere near as funny as this film.

If you are offended by raunchy humor then you should probably avoid this movie.  I am not, and I laughed harder at Porky’s than almost any other movie I’ve seen.  For everyone who won’t get offended, I highly recommend this film.

Chip’s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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