Spring Break

College youths “letting their hair down” in Fort Lauderdale

Two nerdy guys make it to Spring Break for the first time and are surprised to find out that two cool guys from Brooklyn have been booked in the same hotel room. They ironically become friends and enjoy the vacation while Nelson’s campaigning stepdad shows up with his goons to ruin the party.

"Spring Break” (1983) contains the expected party antics of the occasion but, thankfully, isn’t as raunchy as the future “American Pie” flicks. It works as a display of what Spring Break was like in the early 80s (specifically 1982, when it was shot). The subplot involving the politician stepfather & his heavies was thrown in to fill the runtime, but it’s kinda fun and brings the people in Fort Lauderdale together to band against a common enemy.

Blonde Jayne Modean (Susie) and brunette Corinne Wahl (the singer of the band) head the female cast, which includes myriad voluptuous ladies. Yet it’s blonde Tammy Lynn Leppert who’s most memorable in an uncredited bit part as a participant in a boxing match (fighting a guy, I think). She went missing a few months after the movie debuted and has never been seen again.

Foul play is suspected, as observed in her story, detailed in the premiere episode of the 5th season of Unsolved Mysteries. At least one website pegged the actor who plays Stu (a David Hasselhoff lookalike) as a possible suspect. I’m not saying it’s true, of course, but it’s a theory to consider. Since he died from cancer in late 2007 at the age of 51 the idea can no longer be investigated, unless credible witnesses come forth. Thankfully, the truth will come out in God’s High Court one day.

It runs 1 hour, 42 minutes, and was shot in Fort Lauderdale, which is 30 miles north of Miami.

GRADE: B-/C+