I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I had this movie confused with another one called "The Cheerleaders," which was basically a raunchy exploit flick that looked like a hardcore movie, with the hardcore cut out. But "The Swinging Cheerleaders" is surprising in that it has a plot; several interlacing dramatic stories actually, and it's truly a fun movie. And the "Raincoat crowd" will be disappointed in the fact that this is VERY tame in the sex department. I searched this out because I'm a devoted Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith fan, and she is her usual sweet, beautiful self here, as the last cheerleader to lose her virginity, which she does in a sad way. Yes there is actually some good drama here to accompany the comic elements, and it's all really tasteful. So check out this early 70's time capsule; it's one of the good ones. I'm excited to see the sequel. "Revenge of the Cheerleaders."

In order to write an expose on how cheer-leading demeans women, a reporter for a college newspaper (Jo Johnston in her only role) infiltrates the cheer-leading squad.By 1974, Jack Hill was looking to escape being typecast as a "blaxploitation director" after making "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" for AIP. They were pleased by the success and gave him a script called "Rape Squad", which he turned down. This film was given to him with financing attached, although he was only given a title and had to develop the script from scratch (with help from David Kidd, who ironically also re-wrote "Rape Squad").According to co-writer / director Hill, the film had a 12-day shoot, which meant every inch of film shot ended up in the final product. They started work on the script at the end of January 1974 and the movie was in theaters by May (at other times he says February and June, but the idea remains the same). The original title of the script was "Stand Up and Holler" so actresses would not think the film was about cheerleaders.I do love Jack Hill, and the fact he is called an "exploitation auteur" really sums him up. But this has to be one of his few misfires. The primary plot of the undercover cheerleader is not very interesting, though the booking subplot makes up for it to a point. You might expect this to be nothing more than an excuse for cheerleaders to get naked, but even in that department it is arguably tame compared to many 80s comedies. This more or less amounts to a cheesy made-for-TV movie that probably was never shown on TV.Arrow Video offers up a deluxe 2k restored blu-ray of the film. While the movie itself is not great (sorry), the Arrow Video version is worth picking up simply for all the extras, because it's always good when we have Jack Hill doing new interviews and providing new commentary. If he hasn't already, he really ought to write a memoir, because he is full of stories about Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola and many others. (The disc also has a 2006 archive interview with DP Alfred Taylor, archive interview with Johnny Legend, and a Q&A with Hill, Colleen Camp and Rosanne Katon recorded at the New Beverly Cinema in 2012.)

A feminist type writer goes undercover to expose what goes on in the cheerleading squad, but ends up siding with the group.I didn't really like this movie. I didn't like the characters or the story. I think the one subplot that interested me was the student having an affair with a professor, but it got the least time.I did like the fact that the newspaper editor who was supposed to be progressive was actually slimy, while the football player who was supposed to be dumb was actually a nice guy. I don't really remember how it ended, but it probably had to do with the administrator and coach getting busted for trying to rig the big game for their own benefit.Uninteresting and forgettable. And the people in the movie were really ugly, too.

The commercial success of this lead to Jack Hill getting to make the much more fun,though maybe even more poorly made and much worse acted, Switchblade Sisters right after this. So something good, or well, better came out of this film getting made.The budget for this films is just too low to even have the cheerleaders do any full routine. The credit sequence of them is all you get to see, though you get to see those same shots and same stock footage football footage over and over again. Very little T and A for a plot that is a set up for a porn movie that never takes place. Smith was pregnant when she made the film and one fan of hers told me the appeal is that her breasts are huge. Well they are and her armpits are unshaved. Can humor still be found in her being excited about being gang banged as a way to lose her virginity? That's up to you. Why bring this up? Well that's about all that's worth noting. This is an exploitation film without much exploitation and by the time this was made the stakes were pretty high on exploitation. This is almost like a 1950's B and W nudie movie only it's in color and made almost 20 years after that was the style for these things.The girls give decent performances, considering the crap material, most of the male cast members are awful and it just goes no where for a long time. Only real highlight is a confrontation scene with the wife of a teacher who confronts one of the cheerleaders and threaten's to "carve her name into one of the cheerleaders tits so when she flops them out for him he'll know she knows." Or words to that effect. What the movie needs is more outrageousness like this, the plot is too thin to be taken seriously but sort of is and really it just seems like the story is on life support until it can finally quietly die.Flatly made by the usually flat director Hill. He can't be blamed for the lack of money that is heavily in evidence, but shows no real imagination in getting around those problems the way other better directors of the era did.The film is dated but not enough so for it to be fun on that level either,though perhaps the way it depicts men is actually more dated than the way it depicts women. Look elsewhere for something entertainingly trashy not here.