[7]

While we were all enjoying the happy horny homogeneity of early ’80s teen sex comedies, along came The Last American Virgin, a remake of a 1978 Israeli film Lemon Popsicle. It starts off like any other of its ilk, with three teen boys trying to lose it, whether it’s to coked-out party girls, an over-sexed Spanish pizza delivery customer, or a hooker with crabs. And if you enjoy a good sex comedy (I confess I do), The Last American Virgin won’t let you down. But the film takes an unexpectedly serious turn in its final act, with one of the boys (pretty-boy Steve Antin) knocking up a girl (Diane Franklin) who has been the object of another boy’s (Lawrence Monoson) affection. The two boys naturally have a falling out, and Monoson ends up paying for Franklin’s abortion before confessing his love for her. It’s disturbing enough to see an abortion montage set to an ’80s love ballad, but just as boy and girl fall in love and you anticipate the credits to roll, girl goes back to the douche who knocked her up and abandoned her, and the nice guy gets his car and drives off in tears. The end. WTF? It’s so weird and out of left-field, I kinda admire it. You get the raunchy comedy part up front, and the cold hard, nasty reality at the back end. The like-totally-80s soundtrack doesn’t hurt, with songs by Blondie, The Cars, Devo, Journey, The Police, and REO Speedwagon.

You can gain a little insight into the making of this film in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films.