Benson's next landmark effort was "One on One" (1977), which he co-wrote with his father, screenwriter Jerry Segal.

The film is a dumb and clumsily formulaic "Rocky" retread for the Clearasil demographic. Robby stars as a naïve, squeaky-clean high school basketball star who goes to college in the Big City and encounters all kinds of moral ambivalence.

The screen is filled with lingerings on Robby's delicate face and cheesecakey body shots of him in super short-shorts and long tube socks pulled up to the knee. Despite his abject geekery, hot, mature women come on to Robby incessantly through the film in a way that could only be imagined by the actor's dad: "You got great legs. Really sexy legs. I'm not kidding."

There is an Evil Coach who wants Robby to give up his scholarship, blah blah blah, and a sexy older girl (Annette O'Toole) who tutors Robby and naturally has to fall for him, even though he represents the odious Jock World and she is an Intellecktual.

There are various obligatory scenes: Hick boy Benson is taken clothes shopping by a teammate and gets all pimped up in a bell-bottomed denim ensemble with wide-collar silky shirt. There is an actually hilarious spazz-out scene wherein one of Robby's teammates gives him some uppers and he yodels and squirts around the court like Jerry Lewis. There is the L.A. party scene, wherein Robby watches in shock as creepy party people writhe and vomit and levitate. "They got straws in their noses!" Benson shrieks. Jeepers!

His ultra-naïveté is lamely unbelievable, but it informs the viewer that Robby Benson is the anti-James Dean: Robby is always articulate and goofily happy, unless being dogged by a clear and present evil. He's a kindhearted, sensitive dorkwad who's never embarrassed or ashamed. While James Dean was a mumbling, depressed, Aryan teen philosopher-king sophisticate who seemed to know all the answers, underdog Robby never knows anything -- he's totally wet behind the ears. His film roles seem always contingent upon his undergoing a continual process of childlike discovery and then triumphing with his goody-two-shoes-ism intact despite onslaughts of worldliness and corruption.

At the ending, Robby's superior ballplaying obviously saves the day. The fans flood the court and put him on their shoulders.

Robby Benson gets the satisfaction of telling off the bully (oh, the joys of father-son dialogue writing): "You hung in there like grim death and I admire you for it," oozes Mean Coach, who wants Robby to remain on the team.

"Sir? All the way up with a red-hot poker. I can play anywhere I want now," Robby whispers with his bunny-boy face.

Roll credits, with Robby playin' a little one-on-one hoops with his girlfriend and ... hey, where did all these little kids of all colors come from? Well, come on! Everybody gets to play basketball with Robby Benson! The camera is trained on the hoop with the sun going down behind it as fast-cut edits show balls being sunk again and again. The sun glares into the lens in two white glowing rings, then ... stop action! A ball is stopped mid-hoop, eclipsing the sun perfectly! Light shines behind Robby's basketball in a perfect aureole! "Love conquers a-a-a-all," wail Seals and Crofts, with lyrics by Paul Williams. Now that's some delicious American cheese.

Critics didn't think so. Many stooped to flat-out character assassination.

David Ansen, reviewing "One on One" for Newsweek under the headline "Doe-Eyed Dribbler," had this to say:

"The less-than-convincing love story, unfortunately, brings out Benson's delusions of grandeur as a scriptwriter ... A similar protest could be lodged against Benson's overly ingratiating performance, which makes innocence look like a form of retardation. Cute as Bambi and twice as smarmy ... Benson seems destined for one of the most protracted adolescences on the screen (by 40 he should be ready to play psychopaths)."

Gary Arnold of the Washington Post flamed Robby with "'One on One': An Unhip Hoopster":

"[In] this poorly rationalized, wish-fulfilling starring vehicle ... Benson seems to perceive himself as a romantic heartthrob and sentimental darling ... The process of disintegration is built into Benson's self-righteously sentimental conception of Henry, the kid underdog ... Benson tries to have his cake and eat it, precisely the indiscretion avoided by Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, whose modesty made his fairy tale success more appealing. Benson also seems prone to vastly overrate his sex appeal. Here again he might have taken a useful cue from Stallone, who really has a potent sexual presence but probably enhanced it among both men and women by matching Rocky with a modest, ordinary girl like Talia Shire's Adrian. Some people have the common touch. Other people merely flatter themselves that they have it while groping around for it. At this juncture Benson is still an amateurish groper ... Really, Benson is going to have to learn how to moderate his fantasies if he expects us to keep a straight face."

(Ouch. To think there was ever a time when Stallone was a Paragon of Humility.)

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