The Grasshopper is a 1970 film directed by Jerry Paris.
Jacqueline Bisset stars as Christine, a 19-year-old girl who runs away from her parents, leaving British Columbia to be with her boyfriend Eddie in Los Angeles. However, Christine soon realizes that she needs more from life than to be the wife of her boring bank teller boyfriend, so she runs away from him in turn, going to the land of adventure: Las Vegas.
Christine gets a job as a showgirl in a nudie review, and falls in with a scruffy-haired rock band. Later, she falls in love with Tommy Marcott, a former NFL star (played by former NFL star Jim Brown). Tragedy strikes, however, and Christine winds up as the kept woman of rich businessman Richard Morgan (Joseph Cotten). Further and worse degradations ensue.
Garry Marshall co-wrote the screenplay. Marshall's sister Penny appears briefly as a band groupie.
Tropes:
- Allergic to Routine: Christine's fatal flaw: she cannot abide routine and boredom and as a consequence makes bad decisions. She loses a job as a bank teller after she gets the bright idea to slip a stick-up note to a customer. She leaves her perfectly nice, handsome boyfriend Eddie because he's obviously too dull for her. Later, she says she'll be a loving Housewife to Tommy, but a shot of her looking bored as she fries bacon at home cuts to her looking even more bored as she goes grocery shopping, and she winds up abandoning her groceries. She deliberately picks a fight with Tommy to, as she says, "liven things up around here!"
- All Gays are Promiscuous: Christine's campy friend Buck, who says "It seems I can never just be friends with a man!"
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: Obviously suggested by the groupie played by Penny Marshall, who, as the band plays onstage, suggestively toys with—a tape measure.
- Camp Gay: Buck, Christine's friend from the band, is very very camp.Buck: Timmy is mine, so don't get any ideas!
- Conversation Cut: After her car conks out on the road, Christine winds up hitchhiking the rest of the way to Los Angeles. Her excited chatter about how she's going to live with her boyfriend is presented as a single conversation that she keeps having with multiple fellow drivers—a single man, a truck driver, a squabbling married couple.
- Dramatic Drop: Christine exposes her breasts to Jack Benton to prove that she's busty enough to be in his nudie review. As it happens, Benton is getting a haircut during this conversation. Benton asks Arnold the barber if he'd pay to see Christine's rack. After Arnold dramatically drops the comb in his hand, Christine gets the job.
- Fanservice Extra: All the other half-naked and mostly naked ladies in Christine's Las Vegas show.
- Female Gaze: Very obvious in a scene where Christine, sitting on the grass at a driving range, watches Tommy hitting golf balls. There's a POV shot focusing directly on Tommy's crotch.
- Flyaway Shot: After finding out that Dekker raped Christine, Tommy catches him on the golf course and beats the hell out of him. This scene ends with a flyaway shot as Tommy stalks off, with the camera rising until it shows the whole golf course.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Roosevelt Dekker's creepy assistant, who wears 1960s-style horn-rimmed glasses. The way he doesn't even react when Christine spits at him is itself creepy. Later, he calmly shoots Tommy to death on a basketball court.
- Friend to All Living Things: As Christine leaves her parents' house, she stops and pets the cat on the front porch. This demonstrates the innocence of her youth, which will soon be lost.
- Intro Dump: Comedian Danny Raymond picks Christine up on the side of the road and takes her to Las Vegas and a party. This party introduces almost all the characters from the rest of the movie, who rejoin the film after Christine abandons her L.A. boyfriend and goes back to Vegas.
- Jabba Table Manners: Roosevelt Dekker is a villainous character, a gross, sleazy businessman who has married a 17-year-old girl. As Christine grudgingly eats dinner with him, the film cuts to a Gross-Up Close-Up of Dekker's face as he eats waffles, bits of waffle and whipped cream dribbling from his lips.
- The Mistress: For a little while, Christine is the kept woman of wealthy older man Richard Morgan.
- Rape as Drama: Christine decides to accept an invitation to Roosevelt Dekker's room, hoping that Dekker can get Tommy a better job with the night club. When she isn't willing to sleep with Dekker, however, he rapes her.
- Record Needle Scratch: In-Universe when the bored, chain-smoking lady at the Vegas wedding chapel cuts off the record playing "Here Comes the Bride" as Tommy and Christine walk down the aisle.
- Shower of Love: Christine is hesitant when Jay starts feeling her up, so he goes to take a shower instead. After making an obvious decision to be more uninhibited, Christine joins him in the shower.
- Spiteful Spit: Mr. Dekker's creepy mook catches Christine at the pool, and delivers a very obvious invitation for Christine to meet Dekker in Dekker's suite. She spits at him.
- Toplessness from the Back: Christine, when she takes off her top to try out for Jack Benton the nudie show producer.
- Unusual Euphemism: Sleazy promoter Jack Benton initially refuses Christine's request to be a showgirl, saying "Showgirls got to have gigantic tickets!". And by "tickets", he means breasts. After Christine says "There's nothing wrong with my tickets!" and takes her top off to prove it, Benton hires her.
- You Can Leave Your Hat On: Jacqueline Bisset in pasties and a thong, everyone! Christine gets a job in Las Vegas as a chorus girl in a nudie show.
