After graduating high school, Carrie needs something to do for the summer. She goes to lifeguard try-outs and gets the job. In this hot Los Angeles summer, she will fall desperately in love with a much older lifeguard.
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***Julianne Phillips plays a high school grad who becomes a lifeguard*** This comes in the tradition of Sam Elliott's "Lifeguard" from eight years prior and was the precursor to the Baywatch tv series five years later. While it’s sometimes listed as a comedy, it’s not. It’s a drama with the milieu of the beaches of Southern California. The original "Gidget" movie from 1959 with Sandra Dee started this subgenre, keeping in mind that it was a beach drama with moving depth and not zany at all, like the plethora of Beach Party flicks that followed featuring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. Ted Shackelford plays the Lifeguard Chief in a role similar to Elliott’s character in the aforementioned movie. The difference is, he’s not dumb enough to get involved with a too-young female. Actually, Shackelford is one of the highlights of the film as he takes his job seriously and strives to apprehend & train the best personnel to save lives on the coast. Likable Michael Gross is on hand as the protagonist’s divorced father and Dorothy Lyman as the mother, a doctor who wants her daughter to share her path. They have an entertaining subplot. Paul Keenan and Danielle von Zerneck have key roles as well. You’ll also spot John Wesley Shipp as a peripheral lifeguard. It runs 1h 40m and was shot in late 1983 (or early 1984) mostly in Venice, Los Angeles, but also Paradise Cove Pier in Malibu (the restaurant scene). GRADE: B-
