Amusing and harmless misadventures at summer camp with Bill Murray

Bill Murray (who was 28 during shooting) stars as an eccentrically droll camp counselor at Camp North Star who “trains” CITs, counselors-in-training, as they oversee the hordes of kids and face challenges with teams from preppy Camp Mohawk.

“Meatballs” (1979) is a fun and innocuous summer camp flick. It’s not great but it’s entertaining enough, although if I’m going to view a summer camp film I prefer the Friday the 13th movies (practically any of them), mainly because they feature superior women. Here, Cindy Girling as curvy blonde Wendy is by far the most alluring, although Sarah Torgov as Candace is decent.

In light of the license plates, the camp is presumably located in upstate New York, but was shot in Camp White Pine, Haliburton, Ontario, which is only about 125 miles from the New York border.

The movie runs 1 hour, 34 minutes.

GRADE: B/B-