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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: January 30th, 2018.
Director: Bob Vosse
Cast: Shanna McCollough, Jacqueline Lorians, Lilli Marlene, Erica Boyer, Herschel Savage, Paul Thomas
Year: 1984
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The Movie:
Bob Vosse's 1984 film starts out at a girl's slumber party where a handful of lovely young ladies are goofing around, 'pretending' to be lesbians. One of these girls, Mary Ann Rogers (Shanna McCullough), takes it too far by actually going down on her friend (Valerie LaVeaux), which makes said friend upset. She's ostracized from the group for this. Later we see her messing around with her female phys-ed teacher (Lili Marlene). Thus, begins the 'coming of age/sexual awakening' story that is Young Girls Do, reportedly based on Erica Boyer's own experiences growing up with Mary Ann standing in as the surrogate Boyer.
From there, Mary Ann heads off to college but not before joining the mile high club in an airplane bathroom with some guy she's just met (an uncredited Jon Martin). Once she settles in she befriends Erica Thompson (played by Erica Boyer herself), a frisky little number that works at a strip club as a dancer. This opens up a whole new world for Mary Ann, who winds up doing the local tennis stud (Paul Thomas) and then picking up a gay guy (Billy Dee) while is paid to Erica get it on with a hot chick named Norma Jean (Jacqueline Lorians) before it all ends with a big old orgy wherein Mary Ann and an unidentified Asian girl take on a bunch of dudes including Herschel Savage, Don Fernando and a few others.
There are a few amusing subplots here, the most comedic of the bunch being one McCullough's character finds out after sleeping with Paul Thomas' tennis champ that he prefers the company of men, at least occasionally. Her reaction to this probably wouldn't fly in a movie made today, but in 1984, it's not really surprising. Political correctness was clearly an afterthought when making this movie.
Production values are really strong here. Aside from the fact that there are at least two occasions where you can see cameramen and crew members in the shot, the photography is really nice. The film makes great use of bold colors, really hammering home the eighties nostalgia in that regard. Lots of blues and purples and reds and other lighter, brighter colors make the film a lot of fun to look at. The picture's stand out set piece sets certain characters against a remarkably garish backdrop clad in their eighties finest while Wall Of Voodoo does the weirdest cover of Johnny Cash's seminal Ring Of Fire that you'll ever hear while Boyer and Lorians get it on in front of a rich pervy guy who wants to make dirty movies.
If the story itself seems to come second to the sex scenes and honestly isn't that engaging on a cerebral level, at least the characters are fun and quirky.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Young Girls Do is presented on DVD in a 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer taken from a new 2k scan of the original 35mm negative and it looks excellent. This is a very colorful film and that comes through really nicely on the disc. Black levels look good, skin tones are nice and natural and detail is about as good as you can get on a standard definition presentation. The image is also very clean, showing little if any real print damage outside of some occasional small white specks.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 English language audio is nice and clean. Dialogue is always easy to understand and there are no issues with any hiss or distortion to note. There are no alternate language or subtitles options provided.
There are no extras here outside of a trailer for the feature, just a menu offering chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Young Girls Do is an entertaining mid-eighties adult feature that showcases solid production values, good cinematography and some decent and memorable performances. The story itself is a bit old hat, but the film is still well worth seeing for the quality of the cast and a few stand out set pieces.
