Secret Admirer

The first 20 minutes owe too much - much too much - to Animal House & Co., and the last 20 to The Graduate, but in between there is an uproariously crude and vigorously funny effort to squish the teen genre into the confines of classic French sex farce.[14 June 1985]

It’s relatively good. Of course, “relatively good” in the mid-‘80s teen-movie genre often means “not unwatchable,” and Secret Admirer doesn’t quite qualify as fresh or unpredictable...But it also has a handful of gratifying moments and nuances you don’t expect from the genre, starting with girls who eat and curse like boys.

To Greenwalt's credit as cowriter, there are funny lines and some situations that held promise. But his direction is early "Brady Bunch," with a daub of Ridley Scott's Chanel commercials for further inspiration...Despite the director, the cast is decent, with Fred Ward of the "Right Stuff" in rare comic form as Lt. Lou Fimple, a vice cop who finds both his wife and his daughter undone on lover's lane.

To be fair, Secret Admirer is somewhat more clever and a great deal sweeter than the standard for its damp genre. Those who remember with affection Archie's constant flailings at Veronica with the help of lovesick Betty will feel on familiar ground here. The outcome seems fixed almost from the opening moments, and the fact that lonesome Toni, who is made out to be the wallflower, is considerably more attractive than the horsy Debora Anne ("the most beautiful girl in school") is only the first of many tip-offs. [14 June 1985, p.D2]

Here is the stuff of classic French farce - Marivaux rewritten Neil Simon-style - were it not that this game of love and chance offers no notable insights into the lust, gluttony, and other deadly boring sins of Middle America. Howell, the young star of The Outsiders and Red Dawn, evinces a certain ingenuous comedic flair. For the rest, the characters are rather less memorable than the Pepsi cans, Fruit Loops and other brand name junk foods looming large in the foreground of almost every frame.

The film's sole ray of sunshine is Fred Ward, who reveals an unexpected flair for comedy in the role of Deborah Ann's father, a police detective with a very hot temper and a vein in his forehead that visibly throbs.

This cross between theatrical farce and teen sex comedy is a moronic package that liberally insults the intelligence of both its viewing audience and the hapless adult actors locked into career low points.