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Reviews
H.O.T.S. (1979)
Revisited after 30 years
I saw this picture when it was released 30 years ago, mainly because of the topless football game. I enjoyed it back then, but seeing it again on Netflix TV after three decades was a disappointment. Not that the movie doesn't have its positives: (1) high-quality cinematography, lighting, editing, and photography; (2) beautiful, often topless, babes; and (3) a couple of recognizable (real) actors from the past (Dick Bakalyan and Louis Guss as the gangsters).
That being said, the flick went overboard trying to be "zany," cramming into practically every scene some sort of tired, infantile gag that draws winces instead of chuckles. Further, beneath the ostensible light, good-natured goings-on, with everybody supposedly having such a great time acting crazy or simply being weird, runs a subliminal hostility and meanness that progressively depresses the viewer. Ha, ha. Isn't the fat girl funny, especially when she outweighs her nerdy boyfriend by 200 pounds? What a riot! Ha, ha. The opera singer bellows off-key and then falls into the pool! How original! Whoever thought of that? Brilliant stroke of comedy! As bright and cheerful as H.O.T.S. makes itself out to be, it's actually kind of repulsive.
As one reviewer noted years ago, H.O.T.S. is one of those movies better watched with the sound off. The outstanding beauty of (my personal choices, in order) Kimberly Cameron, K.C. Winkler, Sandy Johnson, and Lisa London shouldn't be marred by idiotic dialogue.
Five stars: ten for the feminine beauty and the vintage actors, zero for everything else.
Return to Treasure Island (1954)
Two 1954 films by this name.
The Tab Hunter/Dawn Addams "Return to Treasure Island" (1954) is mildly entertaining, but banish all notions that it has anything to do with 1930s Hollywood swashbucklers. This low-budget flick used to appear on TV, but it has not made it to DVD (or even VHS, as far as I know). It disappeared from TV long ago, perhaps partly because of a scene in which Dawn Addams is tied to a tree and whipped to make her reveal some information (probably the whereabouts of the treasure, but I don't remember—I haven't seen this picture for decades).
Note that another (much better known) 1954 film, with Robert Newton as Long John Silver, now goes by the same title. I believe it was originally simply "Long John Silver." This is the picture whose DVD cover erroneously appears on the IMDb.com page.
Note: I see that IMDb has corrected the graphic. (Wow, nine years have flown by.)