"Smile" is a perfect satire of our human penchant for joining clubs and organizations. Set against the "Miss Teen California" Pageant, this film parodies the pettiness, power plays, and self-importance of the contest's organizers.

At the time, I had just joined the Jaycees and I roared with laughter at all the "Jaycee types" I saw. Bruce Dern, the enthusiastic but dense Jaycee President "Big Bob Friedlander" sets the tone of the festivities. Barbara Feldon as chairwoman Brenda DiCarlo runs a taut ship, but is none too bright. In fact her husband, Andy, is literally driven to drink and runs away from the "exhausted rooster" ceremony rather than kiss a dead chicken. Big Bob's son, "Little Bob" and his friends get caught running a business of taking pictures of the girls dressing rooms through the windows.

In one of the less ethical aspects of the pageant, the Jaycees wait until their choreographer has taught the girls a dance number using a runway out into the audience. Suddenly the Jaycees take away the runway to accommodate "the golden circle" of $150 seats. As the choreographer tries the number without the runway, one of the girls falls. Putting the honest choreographer in a moral bind of money vs. safety, the Jaycees only put the runway back in by forcing him to deduct the cost of the "golden circle" tickets from his fee.

This film is a lot of laughs, starting at the very beginning, when one of the local pageant winners presents as her "talent" a demonstration of how to pack your suitcase. During the credits, as she runs to the plane to the pageant, her suitcase flies open, spilling everything all overt he place. The contestants steal the show. Some of the "talent" is singing, and, well, none of them have ever won a Grammy. Shortly after Maria ingratiates her way into Barbara Feldon's favor, her "talent" of flinging lighted batons ends in disaster as a few of the other contestants chuckle conspiratorially.

I didn't quit the Jaycees, but I certainly had many laughs at the meetings! In short, a great comedy! I recommend it highly and give it an "8."

Extremely smart little satire that uses a state beauty pageant as a microcosm for a stinging look at American values, with hypocrisy rampant and greed triumphant. Writer Jerry Belson delineates his characters very carefully, so that we know whom to side with and whom to despise, and the nearly no-name cast portrays them brilliantly. Talented Joan Prather is the contestant we most identify with, decent, but slowly being corrupted as the urge to win overtakes her, and Michael Kidd is the semi-big-time choreographer who at first seems callous and unlikable but turns out to be merely seeing, and telling, it like it is. There's some too-easy comedy as we view the contestants' terrible talent competition entries, but at the end we've seen a remarkably thorough put-down of American values circa 1975. (Maybe it didn't get more attention because its utter honesty and accuracy about the American way of winning, a pet theme of the director's, made people uncomfortable.) The final scene, in the police car, is just a perfect wrap-up.