The Last American Virgin

An early Cannon hit, this leering but ultimately surprisingly serious-minded teen sex comedy (virtually a scene-for-scene remake of Menahem Golan’s 1977 Israeli smash hit Lemon Popsicle) is a mash-up of Porky’s and Fast Times at Ridgemont High with a trio of suburban L.A. youths chasing girls and competing for the attentions of a cute transfer student. Time Out’s Sheila Johnston’s memorably blinkered review had it that “fear/contempt for the female festers like a squeezed pimple; an abortion is shown more lasciviously than any sex,” but she misses the point: as with Cameron Crowe’s Fast Times, the film’s rites of puberty hijinks eventually give way to darker, more painful experiences, until the true meaning of the film’s title becomes clear.