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That Junior Miss Spirit (Part I)

0512 PA8303 That Junior Miss Spirit


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Audio/Visual: sound, color

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: left wing films - - December 4, 2005
Subject: I m addicted to posers
you will go into the life of posers
how sweet is that
getting to see these morons doing all this silly stuff and with they problems... its really funny

Reviewer: Spuzz - - July 6, 2005
Subject: Yes, you too can be like Diane Sawyer!
At the beginning of 'That Junior Miss Spirit", a girl chirps of how there's peer pressure to follow the group, and how that interferes with their originality. Well, if that's your problem, then why are you getting into a beauty pageant? Yes, The Junior Miss Pageant (which is still going, just well, not as prominent) is focused here. From state competitions to the final show itself! We follow the girls as they're paraded on a cart in high school, to the finals, where they step off a plane to the arm of a waiting soldier! While they're getting ready, there's also time for leisure, like going down a mighty scary tram ride, or scary photo ops at Lover's leap. They're also getting advice from Diane Sawyer (Junior Miss Spirit 1963)! Strangely, there's not much of the actual competition shown here, and I am not going to spoil the results for you (as if you were wondering who the Junior Miss Spirit was for 1970). Fun, and highly reccomended!

Reviewer: AppleGirl - - September 2, 2004
Subject: Not so lame
I was in high school at the time this film was made. I was a little hippie girl, protesting the war and rallying against Judge Julius Hoffman, Richard Nixon, and other icons of the evil right-wing establishment. I recall having much disdain for these conservative beauty pageants and the fakey-ness of the participants.

But looking at this film today, I am struck by the thought that maybe the path chosen by these girls wasn't so lame after all. Traveling, being part of a team, learning to do an interview, and performing in front of large audiences are all pretty good skills to hone when you're young.

Plus the girls all looked "That Girl" cute! In 1970, I was wearing dreary jeans and army jackets, while these girls were wearing cute mini-skirted suits and adorable hats and gloves. At the time, I thought these girls were hopelessly stuck in 1962, using hairspray, dippity-do and making little bouffant hairdos. But looking at it today, all their primping and styling sure looks fun.

Reviewer: Marysz - - August 26, 2004
Subject: Becoming the Ideal Girl
High school girls explain why they entered the Junior Miss pageant. Amazingly, this pageant still exists and lives on in small town America (the current winner is from Garland, Texas). ItÃÂs tempting to look down on the obsessively well-groomed and polite girls in this 1970 film who (outside of the one African-American girl) seem oblivious the racial and political turmoil that the rest of America was going through at the time. But itÃÂs easy to see why these girls would enter the Junior Miss pageant. ItÃÂs to get away from their dreary small towns. As one girl says, once you get into the state finals you could even go someplace ÃÂhundreds of milesÃÂ from home. The film touts traveling as one of the primary reasons to become a Junior Miss.

Another girl is featured in a clip alongside a ÃÂFuture Homemakers of AmericaÃÂ banner. ThatÃÂs enough to make any girl want to grab a pageant form and get out of town. In a way, this film is similar to the Home Economics films in the Archive. They show how limited the possibilities were for girls from rural and small town America. These girls are better-looking and more polished than the usual Home Ec girls, but theyÃÂre just as stuck.

Reviewer: trafalgar - - March 16, 2004
Subject: Not a tampon ad
...but rather the story of the 1970 Junior Miss Pageant, presented by Chevrolet and Kodak, written and produced by GM photographic. One girl's talent was pizza-making.