PORKY'S

US, 1981, 94 minutes, Colour.
Dan Monahan, Roger Wilson, Cyril O'Reilly, Kim Cattrall, Susan Clark, Nancy Parsons.
Directed by Bob Clark.

Porky's was a very popular film of 1982, especially in the United States. It was written and directed by Bob Clark who made such films during the '70s as the thrillers Dead of Night, Breaking Point, Black Christmas and the excellent Sherlock Holmes film Murder By Decree. He also directed Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in Tribute. This film is partly memoir and Clark wrote and directed it.

The setting is Florida in the '50s, the college campus and the young men preoccupied about sex. The film recreates the frequently seen atmosphere of the campus, the classroom, the locker room, the basketball stadium, sports practice etc. There is the usual gallery of adults though very little is seen of parents: the headmaster, the gym masters (carrying on with the mistresses!) and the hefty gym mistress who spies on everyone. This is almost cliche material but it is handled with crude verve here.

The film remembers with some nostalgia the happy days of the '50s with the smiling President Eisenhower. However, it shows the unpleasant bigoted rednecks and there is a lot made of racial clashes, especially against the Jews.

The main focus is on adolescence, the preoccupation with sex and losing virginity. The screenplay is full of old sex jokes and quite a number of pranks. These are staged as to get the maximum humour from them. The whole film can be seen as an adolescent memoir, a serious underlying tone but getting the maximum out of crudity and humour. The film is not leering and never pretends to be anything other than what it is.