Not in the middle of our street

Another of the movies that I recently watched which is available on DVR is Our Time, one that was new to me when I saw it on the schedule.

The movie was made in the 1970s but set in 1955. Penfield is a private girls' school in Springfield MA. Abby (Pamela Sue Martin) and Muffy (Betsy Slade) are among the girls in the senior class, and like a lot of teenagers, among the things they talk about is sex, not that they're necessarily particularly knowledgeable on the subject. St. Anthony's is a nearby boys' school, where some of the girls' would-be boyfriends attend.

Early in the term, Penfield has a mixer with St. Anthony's where the students are supposed to be randomly paired, but of course everybody wants to be with one particular person. Abby wants to be with her boyfriend Michael (Parker Stevenson), who claims to have had sex already; Muffy wants to be with Buzzy (Michael Gray). But Buzzy wants to be with Ann, while it's Malcolm (Elroy Jetson; er, George O'Hanlon Jr.) who is really in love with the plain-looking Muffy and is right for her.

Abby and Michael decide they're going to violate rules and lie about where they're going for a weekend to go to Boston and finally have that sweet sweet sex they've been talking about, although it turns out to be awkward both for them and the viewer. Muffy, on the other hand, has to wait until Christmas. Buzzy shows up for a Christmas party where Muffy is in attendance and immediately makes a beeline for Ann. So Muffy goes outside with Malcolm and manipulates him into having sex with her in the back seat of a car.

This being a movie with a message, you can guess what happens next. Muffy only had sex that one time, but sure enough it's enough to get her pregnant. And this is the 1950s (not spoken in the tone of voice Bette Davis uses in Jezebel about getting with the times because it's the 1850s). So Muffy, Abby, and their boyfriends all go to Boston to get Muffy an abortion, which not only violates school rules but is still highly illegal, the movie being set 17 years before Roe v. Wade. Needless to say the abortion doesn't exactly go well for Muffy.

If you've been reading me putting snarky humor into this post, I think it's because that's a lot the way I was feeling as I watched the movie. It's not so much that the movie is bad (although it's not exactly good, either), although to be honest it does feel a bit off, which I think is because something gave me the vibe of 1970s production values for a movie set in the 1950s. Not only that, but 1970s teen movie. Instead, a lot of the snark is because I found myself laughing at thoroughly inappropriate times throughout the movie, which is not a comedy in any sense of the word. The ending is also emotionally flat, which is extrememly inappropriate for what's come before, as though there was a fair amount edited out.

So if you want to have some fun watching an interesting mess, you could do worse than to watch Our Time.