Valley Girl (1983) from Tuna

Valley Girl was written to be a low budget teensploitation film. Author/producers Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane realized that they were not expert at understanding High School girls, and approached Martha Coolidge. They got her to agree that there would be bare breasts from at least four girls in the finished film. They figured they had a good title and, with a little flesh and a little insight into teen girls, they should do ok at the box office. Coolidge decided to make a real film out of it. She had some luck along the way, casting Nicolas Cage in the lead role opposite Deborah Foreman. The two were magic together. Coolidge made the film in 20 days for $350K. When the producers screened it, they were speechless. They had a real film on their hands. They started to offer it to studios, who started a bidding war for distribution rights, and elected to release it themselves.

It is a love story, with Julie (Deborah Foreman) and Randy (Cage) discovering each other, and trying to stay together despite their differences and peer pressure. Julie's San Fernando Valley friends want her back with her old socially acceptable boyfriend, and Randy's Hollywood punk scene friends think he is insane going near the Valley. This film caused a huge awareness of "Val Speak", I mean like totally.

NUDITY REPORT

see the main commentary

DVD info from Amazon

  • Commentary by director Martha Coolidge

  • 3 Featurettes Including New Interviews With Cast and Crew

  • Original Music Videos From Modern English and The Plimsouls

  • Storyboard-to-Film Comparisons

  • 3 Optional Audio and Video Tracks

  • Widescreen anamorphic format

True to her word, Coolidge got 4 women to show breasts. We have full frontal behind a frosted shower door from a body double, an unknown shows her breasts in a bathroom petting scene, Tina Theberge briefly shows her breasts having sex with Cage and, in what is actually a pivotal scene in the film, Elizabeth Daily shows her breasts in a long scene in good light.

I enjoyed the film the first time I saw it, and liked it as much today. Cage and Foreman play well off of each other, and Sonny Bono does a great job as Foreman's ex hippy health store owning father.

The Critics Vote

The People Vote ...

 
The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a C+.

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