Gas Pump Girls

Gas Pump Girls (1979)

Dir: Joel Bender

IMDB: 3.8 out of 10

This one may be the film that started it all when it comes to the standard Sex romp comedies, Setting the standard for the business in peril saved by young ladies in sexy outfits story arch that seems to be the go to premise for so many films of the 80's and early 90's which mostly had either the words Hot or Bikini in the title.I could start by stating you have seen one you have seen them all but, this one pre-dates all the ones I have seen and so it gets a pass and as I stated i believe this may have been the first to use the now tired topic.

               Uncle Joe runs a dying small gas station due to some big time competition moving in across the street. On the night of Joe's favorite niece June's graduation he tells her the bad news that business is so bad he will be closing down the old family business. While June attends her grad ceremony and celebrations Joe falls ill and has a mild heart attack. When June finds that he will have to now sell the business in order to cover his medical bills putting him in horrible debt. After a odd and out of nowhere musical number by June, she decides to spring into action and along with some of her sexy friends keeps the business open and uses her and her friends "assets" to stir up business. Low and behold these ladies are on the right track as their short shirt's and even shorter tops does quickly start bringing in the big bucks.

After the girls fix up Joe's station and establish some serious competition for Mr.Friendly across the street, They realize they could make more money if they actually knew about repairing cars, So June enlists the help of her boyfriend Hank and his buddies to run the service station. Now with everything covered Mr.Friendly is starting to get concerned as his business is falling dramatically. Things appear to get sticky however when local roughnecks "The Vultures" pay the gang a visit and raise some hell in the station. While having a pissing contest with Hank , The Vulture leader Butch accidentally fixes a car and this brings all together for a god laugh. June thinking on her feet offers the Vultures a job running the shop Tow truck, The Vultures of course fix the truck up and decorate it with flames and such before hitting the road and joining the team.

Mr. Friendly begins to get concerned as his business continues to plummet and once he see's the girls now have a fully functional station with mechanics and towing service he decides to start playing dirty. Friendly hires a couple of mobster goons to rough the girls up and scare them out of town. When the goons show up and threaten June , She manages to alert her co workers as she hits the loud speaker and all can hear what is going on in the office. At this time the Vultures return from towing a car and they map out a fool proof plan to take out the goons. As one of the ladies exposes her breasts to one of the goons he is lured into the repair shop and knocked out and quickly is followed by his partner. When Friendly see's his initial plan did not work he hits real low by managing to get their shop cut off from the Pyramid Petroleum distributor, and shortly after they run out of fuel and are forced out of business. When June notices they are not getting any deliveries she sets a smuggling plan into action as the gang pretends to buy gas and in the process hook the pump to a line going directly to their station, The ladies distract Friendly's workers and they don't notice the pumps roll over and empty out. Sadly for June and gang this is only a temporary fix as they once again run out of fuel shortly after.

As the gang sits at the shop out of fuel and again things appear grim as they have no chance now of keeping the place running without fuel, June see's her old delivery driver across the street at friendly's. She wants to know why she is not receiving any fuel and after some coaxing the driver tells her to follow him to the Pyramid plant to talk with the head honcho. As predicted they are turned away at the gate until June and the girls dress as harem girls while Hank is disguised as a oil sheikh and the vultures pose as police escort to get past the front gate. The plan surprisingly works and they manage to get into the boss's office, Upon realizing it is just the gang from the station he threatens to have them arrested but June begins in with her sob story and this seems to work as the fuel company owner is in tears after her story and he states he will see what he can do. Then the film has a strange bit of a rushed ending as we just see the gang returning to the station and Joe is back working there and apparently Friendly has been put out of business because he is now working for Joe. This really puts a damper on the film as the viewer feels like they missed a large chunk of what happened and they film is just forced into a unresolved ending just to finish in the run time.

So as I stated in the opening of this review this film is just the typical failing business saved by pretty girls in skimpy outfits premise that has been done so many times in films like "Bikini Carwash Company,Hot Resort, etc.) But being that this film was made years prior to those films this may have been an original story back then. I do believe this is the first of it's kind and it does have one thing that sets this one apart from the rest of the pack as this film jumps into a few musical numbers seemingly out of nowhere. this film much like the others similar to this story is a harmless fun watch but there was one thing I didn't like in this one and that is the feeling of certain characters and sub plots being pushed to the side and forgotten. There is the story of June and Hanks relationship which is never even touched upon so you can't really tell if they are just friends , if she is using him or if they are an actual couple , then there is the shy girl the others were coaching on boys in the beginning , we do see her start to take a liking to one of the vultures but we never see her develop at all much like all the other girls in this film other than June and the biggest flaw is the rushed and completely non filled out ending that shows Joe back at work and hints at Friendly being out of business but there is no explanation of what happened other than Joe is able to obtain fuel once again.If these little details where fixed , this film would have been one of the better "Business in peril" films out but as is it just feels rushed and not complete. If you like the sexy / cheesy comedies of the "Skinemax" era than this one is worth a watch but you may have more fun just watching Bikini Carwash which is basically the same film as this only cranked  up to the tenth power.
I will say however Sandy Johnson was very nice to look at in her small but memorable (Mostly due to her awesome very natural Bare breasts) on screen presence.
Gore: N/A
Nudity:5
Story:3
Characters:3
Fun Factor:4
Overall:3.5 out of 10