Funny how one can stumble upon something utterly unheard of before and discover that it contains the work of people you're fully aware of. Such was the case with the VERY obscure 1979 tennis "comedy"
Racquet, which was a labor of love for its star, but which landed out of bounds in theaters. It came up as a suggestion for me on Tubi (you may view it
here free with occasional ads should you wish to do so.) Despite its tennis court setting, it was an utter ripoff of the 1975 Warren Beatty hit
Shampoo (about a promiscuous hairdresser trying to achieve his own salon), this was instead washed-out and rinsed away! Having gone through strenuous rewrites and changes in conception, it wound up a TV-movie level sex comedy with the novelty of hearing people like Edie Adams and Phil Silvers cuss (even dropping the F-bomb.)
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Cast as tennis pro-turned-instructor who wants his own school and who beds down wealthy women as a side hustle we find 46 year-old game show host Bert Convy! True Tattletales could get a little suggestive at times, but this was still a bit of a surprise for his fans.
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In a bid for authenticity, Convy's boss was played by Bobby Riggs (!), who was the number one tennis player in the world for much of the 1940s. Get a load of those choppers...! Times have really changed when it comes to celebrities and their dental work.
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Riggs is not exactly Laurence Olivier, even in this familiar sort of part. But what got my attention was the blond dude in back with one racquet resting on another...
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Soon enough, he's introduced to Convy as an up and comer at the club.
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This is Terry Lester, who'd begun with a bit role in Airport 1975 (1974), but soon was starring on the Saturday morning kids' show Ark II. In 1981, he originated the role of Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless and was a sensation for a time.
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Clearly able to play tennis in real life (as could the athletic Convy, who had been a minor league baseball player in his youth and ran a charity tennis event later in life), Lester and Convy go at it on the court. At least some of this sweat is surely real!
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Riggs was married three times and fathered six children, but Lester was gay and died of a heart attack at only age 53 in 2003.
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One of Convy's principal "tricks" is Edie Adams, who insists on fantasy role-playing in bed. She has what would be compared to the Lee Grant role from Shampoo, complete with a younger niece who takes Convy for a ride, too.
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This movie brought back memories for me of just how big (in popularity and size) houseplants were in the late-'70s! It seemed like everyone had big ferns and other plants hanging in macrame holders!
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Convy is seen here with Adams in a Cleopatra-esque fantasy. Before long, her husband Phill Silvers is home unexpectedly, donning a turkey outfit to chase her around in.
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The still in-shape Convy is continually removing his clothes, though we don't ever see a whole lot. Here, he's coming home where he lives with a female roommate and instantly begins to shuck down. Note the plants... Oh, and you'll never guess who plays the roommate! (Unless you already read the poster carefully.)
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There's this blink & you'll miss it moment of him in his tighty-whities.
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His roomie is played by Tanya Roberts! She'd been working on TV and in movies for about three years at this point, but would make her biggest splash in 1980 when she became the newest member of Charlie's Angels.
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His chief love interest in the movie is Lynda Day George. The two share a variety of dating and love-making montages set to music.
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Her husband Christopher George had doffed his duds for Playgirl in 1974, but this is probably the closest thing Lynda ever did to a nude scene. She has a braless embrace under a waterfall and is canoodling with Convy in the de rigueur hot tub.
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One other casting notable was the outre Susan Tyrrell as a real estate agent showing Convy a prospective site for his tennis school, but winding up getting balled herself. LOL
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It's during this sequence that Convy offers up some revealing blue jeans. He's not generally one who pops up in the many posts here concerning bulges.
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The movie isn't good, but it's undemanding and goes by pretty quickly. It also contains a number of interesting L.A. and Malibu locations and shots of the city from a time long gone. (It must be said that the type of humor in it is also long-gone for the most part, with fat jokes, gay jokes, etc...)
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Needless to say, since he's almost the whole show here, fans of Convy don't want to miss it!
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As these Australian lobby photos can attest, the movie was intended to be even racier than it was in the end. The shot of Bert in his undies is not in the movie, nor is that angle of him and Day George in the hot tub. The locker room scene at bottom left never happens at all. He does play Bjorn Borg, though, during a tournament near the climax of the film. Three women (who may or may not have landed in the finished movie) were part of a Penthouse tie-in spread, but the film was in-and-out of theaters in a heartbeat. Players (1979), which also had a tennis theme and debuted the same month, was moderately more successful.
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The End!
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