From the Vault: Summer Girl
Some delicious 80s made-for-TV movie slop, just like Mama used to make.
In addition to dance schools, multiple births, old-fashioned romance, the state of New Jersey, and basic human decency, another thing reality television ruined is the trashy made-for-TV movie. Oh sure, Lifetime still serves up some piping hot slop every now and then, but the golden age was on network TV in the 80s, when movies existed with such titles as The Hustler of Muscle Beach, The Making of a Male Model, and Beverly Hills Madam.
Despite its innocuous title, 1983's Summer Girl is some premium garbaggio. A cautionary tale about why you should only hire ugly old women to watch your children, it concerns Gavin and Mary Shelburn, and their disastrous decision to take on some extra help at the beach house they’ve rented for the summer. Their marriage is already strained due to financial issues and an unexpected, complicated pregnancy, which Mary (Kim Darby) is clearly more excited about than Gavin (Barry Bostwick), who grumbles about how “trapped” he feels before they even leave for their trip.
It’s a situation just waiting to be complicated by a ripe young babe, and they don’t get much riper than Cinni (Diane Franklin), whom Mary, ordered by her obstetrician to get some rest, hires as a live-in babysitter. Initially dressed like a 19th-century schoolmarm in a high-necked blouse and horn-rimmed glasses, Cinni swoons at the mere sight of super DILF Gavin in a photograph and tells Mary, in what can only be a veiled threat, that she’s “very determined if I put my mind to it.” Mary, in what will become a pattern of ignoring warning signs so obvious they’re practically up her nose, decides to hire her anyway.
When Gavin, Mary, and family arrive to pick up Cinni and drive to the beach house, Cinni has lost the Mormon housewife look, all woman and ready to party in a clingy sundress that leaves nothing to the imagination. “Didn’t you tell me she was on the plain side?” Gavin asks, to which Mary replies, looking a little ill, “She was.”
It’s literally not even a minute into the car ride before Gavin is checking out Cinni in the rearview mirror, over shrieking saxophone music. In fact, every man Cinni encounters behaves like a Tex Avery wolf in her presence, and even women, including Gavin’s mother, remark upon her “hot little body.” While Mary, who doesn’t even look pregnant, wears what appears to be bed sheets fashioned into crude, shapeless jumpers, Cinni’s clothes get hilariously smaller and smaller. One expects by the end of the movie that she’ll be wearing nothing but three carefully placed eye patches.
As soon as they arrive at the beach house, Cinni puts herself in charge with a cold, Machiavellian efficiency not often found in high school students. First, she works on Gavin, who just needs to have his fading youth and masculinity appealed to before he’s rendered a slobbering heap at her feet. The very first night, Gavin, speaking in the sulky, petulant tone of someone a decade younger, tells Mary that he’s chafing against the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood, and that he’s still a “kid at heart” who’s looking for a good time. This is after he and nubile sexpot Cinni have spent much of the day eye-fucking each other, which does not go unnoticed by Mary, and yet she doesn’t immediately shut down this veritable red flag factory.
Next, Cinni goes to work on the kids. Despite being occasionally neglectful and even cruel to them, all it takes is playing a few games and claiming she knows about a “secret island” for the kids to swear allegiance to Cinni, refusing to leave her side and being disrespectful brats towards Mary, their own perfectly nice mother. This whole family is a bunch of gullible dingbats, and one wonders if the financial problems Mary and Gavin argue about at the beginning of the movie come from investing in Amway products, or trying to claim a Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes prize.
As for Mary herself, she just gets gaslit, as Cinni messes around with the water heater, misplaces her keys, and throws away the kids’ bathing suits. It would be easier to feel sorry for what Mary is going through, but she’s such a wet rag that even when Cinni disappears for three hours with the kids and a never-mentioned older boyfriend (whom Cinni stole away from his wife), she can barely raise her voice in dismay.
When Mary airs her grievances to Gavin about Cinni’s behavior, his only response is “What boyfriend?” with a pout that says “She was supposed to be my piece of underage ass.” He won’t have to be jealous for long, though: in a great obvious dummy moment, Cinni pushes her boyfriend off a cliff! After she musters up some crocodile tears, Gavin, who in addition to being incredibly gullible, is also super gross, finds a “grieving” Cinni even more alluring, and takes a moonlight stroll with her on the beach. She literally uses the “you look tense, let me give you a massage” trick on him, which takes about twenty seconds before they’re rolling around in the sand.
Though Gavin later insists to Cinni that they can’t sleep together again, when Mary finally demands that they get rid of her, he protests. “We hired her for the whole summer, it isn’t fair!” he says, as if she’s a union plumber on contract instead of a 17 year-old babysitter. After another day or two of dithering over it, Mary decides to just fire Cinni herself, and she doesn’t take it well. Despite Cinni’s anger, and Mary’s (correct) belief that Cinni is trying to steal her family away by any means necessary, she still takes a cup of coffee from her, which–surprise!–has been drugged. Mary falls asleep on the beach, and when she wakes up, she finds Cinni and the children gone.
After Gavin saves the kids from drowning, Cinni is arrested, and claims that she took the children to protect them from their abusive mother. While most mothers would attack Cinni at a level that can only be described as “Tasmanian Devil-esque,” Mary, a quivering, useless pile of Jell-O to the very end, just looks mildly annoyed and slaps her. She doesn’t even demand an apology from Gavin, cutting him off with “You don’t have to say anything.” “Sometimes I forget how lucky we are…to have each other,” Gavin tells her, and he’s immediately forgiven for having sex with his teenage babysitter, who then attempted to murder his children.
Folks, they just don’t make ‘em like this anymore. There’s not a single minute in Summer Girl that isn’t at least slightly sleazy, and the fact that it’s played straight makes it even more riotously entertaining. Diane Franklin’s performance mostly consists of smug smirks, sultry gazes, and murderous glares, and her saccharine Mary Poppins in hot pants act at the beginning fools no one, except, of course, every single character in the movie.
Like the similar Fatal Attraction, released four years later, the audience is expected to reserve a considerable amount of sympathy for the male protagonist, who just can’t resist the lure of crazy pussy being all but shoved in his face. Also like Fatal Attraction, that sympathy is a bit hard to come by. Gavin’s protests as Cinni mauls him on the beach are so laughably weak you’d think she was offering him a slice of cheesecake after a Weight Watchers meeting, as opposed to illicit sex with a girl young enough to be his daughter.
Summer Girl also doesn’t shy away from suggesting that frumpy, passive Mary is also somewhat to blame for almost losing Gavin to another woman, even if that woman was a murderous psychopath. Take heed, housewives: if you want to keep your husband from straying, don’t be lazy and do everything yourself.