BEGINNERS' LUCK

US, 1983, 85 minutes, Colour.
Sam Rush, Riley Steiner, Charles Homet, Kate Talbot.
Directed by Frank Mouris

Beginners' Luck is a sex comedy. Some critics find it charming and delightful, if a bit silly, others found it just a bit silly.

It has a stylised manner, opening with limericks and people in boats rowing to a wedding at a tomb. However, the wedding does not come off. Aris cannot commit himself to Teck. As they go home after the non-wedding, the don't notice that they have a lodger downstairs, Hunter, a very prim law student who coaches other students and who is engaged to a rather large Southern daughter of a millionaire.

The couple upstairs decide that they will help their lodger with some initiation and experience of sex so that he will make a good marriage. They try the Personals column - with some silly sequences with a swinging couple who want nothing much more than to play childish games in the bathroom or the kitchen. However, Teck falls in love with Hunter and, after several semi-comic episodes, they form a menage a trois.

When the fiancee arrives and Hunter decides to conceal her identity, there is a crisis on the third week anniversary of their friendship. However, Aris wants to help Hunter out. Teck is moody and they interpret this as her being pregnant. She has an eccentric mother who has a younger man in tow who helps her with business. The plan is for the younger man to marry Teck. However, after a madcap chase, and another attempted wedding, Mum and the boyfriend marry, Teck chooses Hunter, Hunter consoles the fiancee.

The film aims for comic style rather than in-depth portrayal of characters. The cast is good and does bring the range of characters alive. However, the trite way in which relationships are explored with the poking fun at stereotypes makes this a mixed bag for exploring the morals and mores and relationships of the '80s.