Pretty Smart (1987)

"This transient low-life will soon blossom into an elegant rose." - Crawley

Rebellious girls at a boarding school get into all sorts of trouble.
Starring: Tricia Leigh Fisher, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Cole, Kim Waltrip

Link to IMDB

The movie opens with a premise of two sisters, the formal Jennifer and the rebellious Daphne, that have gotten into some sort of trouble recently and are being sent off to a European boarding school for the summer. This is all awkwardly revealed in about 10 seconds during the opening credits, but you might as well forgot about Jennifer because she's barely in the movie.
At the school the girls are socially segregated into two rival groups, the posh Preens and the alternative Subs. Daphne (usually going by her nickname, Ziggs) fits in with the Subs and soon makes friends with a cool girl named Zero.
The administrator is the sleazy Mr. Crawley, and we learn he's having money problems with the school and also that he uses hidden cameras to spy on the girls. It gets creepy! A lot of boring school stuff goes on for awhile, but Daphne is breaking all the rules in hopes of getting sent back home. After Crawley publicly embarrasses Daphne, she decides maybe she better straighten-up and follow the rules.


Daphne gets tasked with organizing a tennis tournament and dinner with the boys from a nearby school. Predictably, she was playing nice just so she could sabotage the event with a crazy rock n' roll band! This might sound fun, but every joke is falling flat on its face and some scenes exist for no reason, or just an excuse to get the girls naked.

Zero

Mr. Crawley

We get to see more of what Crawley is up to, and it's rather twisted for a light-hearted movie. He's selling his spy tapes of the girls on the black market, and also using the girls to unknowingly smuggle drugs when they travel around Europe! It really seems like pieces of the movie are missing, so the only plot we have to hold onto is what Crawley is up to, and yet it's treated like a damn sub-plot compared to the many scenes of the girls hanging-out. We don't care about any character at all, and even the Preen versus Subs rivalry becomes meaningless background noise. It's a mess, but eventually all the girls might have to work together to stop Crawley.
The movie had potential, but no idea what to do with it. I did enjoy parts of the confusing jumble because sometimes that can be fun itself, but Pretty Smart just ended up being pretty stupid.

Be sure not to miss:
- The prophylactic getting stuck to the ceiling was actually quite funny.
- The porno they watch was titled Rumple Foreskin
- It seems like they just forgot about the narrator, because he barely says anything after the first 10 minutes.

Internet review:
"Remember when zebra print was considered cool?" - peacharino

Should I watch it?
It's just not worth it.

Where can I find it?
Here on YouTube

Pretty Smart gets...