The Last American Virgin

Lemon Popsicle, a film produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and directed by their devoted collaborator Boaz Davidson, was released in Israeli cinemas in 1978. The film became an international hit and still holds the top spot on the list of most-seen Israeli films, and with its combination of vulgar humour and a serious approach to the problems of adolescence and first love, it laid the foundations for the teen-comedy genre as we know it today. Golan and Globus relocated to Hollywood a year later upon acquiring a majority stake in the failing Cannon Films and while they were looking for new commercially lucrative genres, they hatched a plan to dust off their Israeli hit for the American audience. The Last American Virgin is a literal and, in a number of scenes, even a shot-for-shot identical remake of Lemon Popsicle. Furthermore, it was filmed by the same director. The result is surprising as an odd mix of rollicking sex stories, as if cut out of any given low-grade eighties trash flick aimed at hormonally suppressed youths, which later yields to a dramatic narrative about the burden of unrequited love and even a serious treatise on abortion. In the context of teen comedies about initial sexual experiences, it thus represents a unique ideal that few other contributions to the category have managed to replicate, which, after all, is the reason that The Last American Virgin became a slight generational cult classic in English-speaking countries (much like Lemon Popsicle became in Israel and a number of European countries). Cannon Films tried to continue with the teen-comedy genre for a while, but soon abandoned it. Its superficial and sexually unbridled burlesques Hot Resort and Hot Chili could not compete with the rising trend of intelligent films for adolescents led by the brilliant works of John Hughes and hits with young stars like Tom Cruise and John Cusack. (28/08/2015)