Mischief (1985)

Ohio, 1956: shy high-school dork Jonathan Bellah (Doug McKeon) dreams of scoring with his beautiful classmate Marilyn McCauley (Kelly Preston). When rebellious teen Gene Harbrough (Chris Nash) moves into the house next door, he offers to help Jonathan to get into Marilyn's pants.If you watch Mischief purely to check out Kelly Preston in the altogether, you might be pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable you find the film as a whole. A nostalgic coming-of-age story, Mischief delivers fine performances from its likable young cast, a heart-warming love story (between Gene and Marilyn's pretty friend Bunny, played by Catherine Mary Stewart), a touch of excitement as Gene and Jonathan rumble with rich jerk Kenny (D.W. Brown) and his cronies, and a smattering of familial drama, all accompanied by a cool rock 'n' roll soundtrack.Admittedly, at times, the action does get a little silly, with Jonathan and Gene's reckless trashing of their fathers' cars proving hard to swallow, but even so, this is far superior to other nostalgic teen sex films of the '80s such as Porky's and Screwballs.Oh, and look out for early appearances by the excellent Terry O'Quinn as Gene's father and lovely Jamie Gertz as nerdish Rosalie, who goes from geek to glamorous with the removal of her braces.

There is not much of a story or character development in this movie. The movie leaves you with no clear idea what the real characters of the 4-5 protagonists really are. It gives you not much of a reason to identify with any of them. We don't learn who these people really are, where and how things had started and what they had been doing with their lives aside from the fact that the nerd used to dream about the hottie and the jock is wandering around with no reason. We can forgive the poor beginning in the hopes of an interesting story would follow. Then when the story doesn't improve and becomes interesting over time, this time you would at least start to expect the movie to move faster and see where it goes. But this doesn't materialize, either. Despite the story is poor, pacing is still slow. There is not even enough conversation between the characters as you would expect in this type of movie. And the other characters aside from the 4-5 protagonists had nothing to contribute. The 50s feeling of the movie which is the background setting, drive-in movie theaters, Eisenhower and James Dean references, the classic cars, dresses, the charm of the two leading actresses and the major supporting actor and the lovely soundtrack saves the movie. SPOILERS: Especially since the writer didn't bother to build a bond between the nerd and the jock first, the jock's suddenly befriending the nerd and decide in the first day of their acquaintance to shoulder all his problems ends up appearing totally unconvincing. And even though the main theme is suggested to be that, the jock doesn't seem to teach and the nerd doesn't seem to learn and try interesting ways to get the girl to give us an interesting story. So the hottie suddenly liking the nerd and sleeping with him even without any effective effort from the nerd aside from appearing even more bumbling and goofy on the way is also unconvincing. One couldn't understand why and how the hottie would go out with the nerd here. A guy with no confidence, no looks. Not even academic record or nervous but sincere advances by him towards her which the hottie might appear to find cute like we see on many nerd&hottie movies. And it's a pity that even after sleeping with her, even though he still likes her, the nerd still couldn't get some confidence to start a relationship with her, so remains passive and so get dumped by her despite she had asked him out for the prom.

The title and DVD cover, as well as the first few scenes of Mischief, may give the wrong impression: it's not a sexy-hi-jinx comedy in the vein of Porky's or other such movies made in the 80's. Rather, it's a nostalgic coming of age film, the legitimate spiritual successor of American Graffiti and The Last Picture Show, even if it's decisively more light-hearted and sexy than those films. While the characters in Mischief are based on familiar stereotypes, none of them are flat caricatures - Jonathan isn't a nerd but a very realistic shy, reserved boy of 17, and Gene is a slick, cool Don Juan but he also has the problems and insecurities of a teenager. Likewise, while the plot hangs tightly unto many clichés of the 50's-set teen comedy, it has enough heart and soul to set itself apart, to grab the viewer and make him care about the characters, who fill real and full. While it's not a masterpiece and it's very much a product of its time, Mischief is one of the better teen sex comedies of the 80's and a surprisingly mature and touching film that's still well worth seeing.

Jonathan Bellah (Doug McKeon) is a 17 year-old virgin, who wants the most attractive girl in Shcool and her name is Marilyn (Kelly Preston). But Jonathan is somewhat nerdy, foolish and shy. When a new kid on the block lives close to Jonathan's neighborhood. His name is Gene (Chris Nash), a poor city kid from Chicago. Gene is willing to teach Jonathan a few ticks, how to attract woman. Gene finds out teaching Jonathan is harder than expected. Gene starts to have an attraction to a sweet, intelligent girl named Bunny (Catherine Mary Stewart). Which Bunny feels the same way about Gene. When Jonathan finally dates his dream girl. Later he learns the hard way about having relationship with girls, sex and especially life.Directed by Mel Damski made a pleasant sex comedy that has plenty of laughs, likable characters and moments of truth growing up as a young adult. This film was made in the days of "Sex Comedies" were popular in the 1980's. Especially when most comedies tried to outdo "Bob Clark's Porky" but they mostly failed. But thankfully "Mischief" is a different movie, which it takes things more much realistic in this movie. This has a good 1950's music soundtrack and vivid re-creation of the looks of that era is the standout in the production design of this picture. Jami Gertz and Terry O'Quinn have small supporting roles in the film. If you liked sex comedies like "Porky" and "American Pie", don't miss it. (****/*****).