Ladybugs (1992)

Chester, played by the perfectly-cast Rodney Dangerfield, is a struggling salesman. Under pressure from his martinet boss Mr Mullen, he volunteers to coach a girls' football (soccer) team that keeps on losing its games. Chester doesn't know anything about soccer, but his girlfriend's son Matthew does.

Chester persuades Matthew (played by Jonathan Brandis) to join the team as a girl, "Martha", and of course no-one notices. Here in the picture, they have just been shopping for a dress for "Martha" to complete the pretence.

Matthew's football skills encourage the girls and they start to win games for the first time.

After a game, the boss's wife takes all the girls, including Martha, home; there is a plan to go skinnydipping, so Martha has to phone Chester and get rescued. As Mrs Mullen knows Chester, he has to go in disguise ... inevitably as a woman.

There are other emergencies, particularly when the boss's daughter Kimberley calls on Martha at home unexpectedly, but as you will have guessed, it all comes right in the end. The finale is that Chester is being congratulated (and promoted) by the boss, and we see him going with a group of boys in a bus to play a baseball game. When they get out, they all put on wigs and we realise it is supposedly a girls' softball league.

It's all lightweight and predictable stuff, but I found it pleasantly entertaining with a lot of good humour in it.

Jonathan Brandis committed suicide in 2003 at the age of 27.

HF 1998 and July 2005

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