Embracing the Melodrama Part II #35: Cindy and Donna (dir by Robert Anderson)

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mom, Donna, and Cindy

The 1970 film Cindy and Donna is yet another Crown International film about suburban malaise, out-of-control youth, hypocritical adults, and the difficulty of wearing a miniskirt without flashing the entire world. In the grand Crown International tradition, it’s 65 minutes of nonstop sex and drugs, followed by 10 minutes of moralistic posturing and wrathful punishment.

Cindy and Donna tells the story of two half-sisters living in the suburbs. Donna (Nancy Ison) is 17 and has several boyfriends. Cindy (Debbie Osborne) is 15 and wishes that she had several boyfriends. She both admires and resents her older sister. Their mother (Sue Allen) spends most of her time drinking, which keeps her from noticing that her husband and Cindy’s father, Ted (Max Manning), is having an affair with a local stripper.

When the stripper leaves town, Ted gets drunk and ends up having sex with his stepdaughter, Donna. Cindy happens to see this happen and, as a result, she decides that she’s going to stop worrying about being a good girl and instead, she’s just going to have a good time. Soon, under the influence of her friend Karen (Cheryl Powell), Cindy is smoking weed and flirting with boys on the beach. And, since this is a sexploitation film from 1970, marijuana leads to nymphomania.

Meanwhile, Ted is still trying to convince his stripper to come back home and Donna is posing for sleazy photographers and hey, it’s all a lot of fun, right? No harm done, just a little experimenting, right?

THINK AGAIN!

This film is from 1970, after all. And, as we all know from watching other films made around this time, there can be no pleasure without subsequent punishment. Everyone’s fun is ruined when one of the sisters walks in on the other having sex with her boyfriend.

Needless to say, this all leads to someone getting tossed out into the street where they are promptly run over by a truck….

Plotwise, Cindy and Donna is your typical softcore exploitation film. It’s better acted than most but otherwise, it’s fairly predictable. And yet, I couldn’t help but enjoy it. As I’ve stated many times in the past, I’m an unrepentant history nerd and everything about Cindy and Donna — from the clothes to the music to a few random comments about a protest on a college campus — screams 1970. And, as a lover of melodramatic films, there was no way I couldn’t help but enjoy how every dramatic thing that possibly could happen in Cindy and Donna eventually did happen.

But, honestly (and perhaps surprisingly), the main reason that I enjoyed Cindy and Donna is because I’m the youngest of four sisters. And, oddly enough, the sisterly dynamic between Cindy and Donna felt very honest and insightful. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Erin and I ever did anything close to what Cindy and Donna do in this film. But still, once you removed the film’s more dramatic and sordid moments, there was so much about their relationship that felt real and true.

Like many films from Crown International Pictures, Cindy and Donna is available in a few dozen different Mill Creek compilations. The next time that you’re feeling that you missed out on having a good time when you were in high school, watch Cindy and Donna and see what could have happened.

(Though, in all honestly, it probably wouldn’t have…)

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #32: The Sidehackers (dir by Gus Trikonis)

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Why the Hell am I reviewing The Sidehackers, a rather terrible film from 1969?

A lot of it is because The Sidehackers is famous for being featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and my boyfriend absolutely loves that show. And, after I watched The Sidehackers, I viewed the Mystery Science 3000 version of the film. Seriously, if any film deserves to be mocked by two robots and a possibly stoned space traveler, it’s The Sidehackers.

Another reason that I agreed to watch The Sidehackers is that it’s included in one of my many Mill Creek box sets and, as I’ve stated in the past, I always enjoy seeing what I can find hiding in those compilations. Sometimes, you find a surprisingly good film. And sometimes, you find The Sidehackers.

Finally, The Sidehackers is a Crown International production and, as of late, I’ve become a bit obsessed with seeing as many Crown International films as possible.

Anyway, The Sidehackers is one of those films that’s built around a sport that was probably never popular with anyone other than the guy who produced the film. No, I’m not talking soccer. I’m talking about sidehacking!

Let’s see if I can explain this. You’re going to have to forgive my limited knowledge of just what the Hell this sport was all about. Basically, sidehacking is a former of motocross where all the motorcycles have a sidecar attached to them. So, when racing, one person steers the motorcycle and then his teammate stands in the sidecar and spends the entire race adjusting his body and providing balance whenever the motorcycle has to make a sharp turn.

Or something.

All I know is that it looks extremely silly and kinda stupid but everyone in The Sidehackers is just fascinated by it. The Sidehackers features two full races and I have to admit that, as hard as I tried, I could not keep up with who was on which motorcycle or how much help the guy in the sidecar really was. I found myself wondering why someone would decide they wanted to race as a part of a team instead of as an individual. At one point, the film’s main character says that sidehacking is all about “teamwork” but seriously, who needs that crap? Individual glory all the way!

Anyway, surly Rommel (Ross Hagen) is the greatest sidehacker in the world. However, he makes a mistake when he agree to show cult leader J.C. (Michael Pataki) how to sidehack. J.C. loves the sport but he can’t handle the fact that he’s not very good at it. He gets jealous of Rommel and his amazing sidehacking skills. J.C.’s girlfriend, Paisley (Claire Polan) is also impressed with Rommel’s sidehacking. It looks like this sidehack might end in tragedy!

(To be honest, I just like using the word “sidehack” and I will probably use it a few more times before this review ends.)

When he’s not busy sidehacking, Rommel likes to go on picnics with his wife Rita (Diane McBain) and think about how happy they are and how much they both love sidehacking. It’s a life so perfect that an American Idol style ballad is heard whenever Rommel and Rita are together. However, then Paisley claims that Rommel assaulted her so J.C. briefly abandons his sidehacking obsession so that he and his gang can beat up Rommel and murder Rita.

Rommel handles the tragedy not by sidehacking but by walking along the highway. Rommel no longer cares about sidehacking. Sidehacking is J.C.’s thing now. Rommel, instead, is out for revenge. He recruits a few random people from around town and they go off to kill sidehacking J.C. and his gang.

And it should be easy enough to accomplish all of this because it’s not like J.C. is a particularly intelligent murderous cult leader but since this film was made in 1969, it has to end on a down note. Let’s just say that the film ends with a close-up of a dead body while the Sidehackers love theme plays on the soundtrack.

The Sidehackers is incredibly bad and pretty boring. Michael Pataki deserves some credit for giving a good performance as J.C. but Ross Hagen is amazingly surly. Even before Rita dies, Hagen seems to be in a generally pissed off mood. If anything, I doubt Ross Hagen’s performance did much to increase the popularity of sidehacking.

I searched YouTube and most of the clips of The Sidehackers was taken from the Mystery Science Theater episode. Unfortunately, those clips tends to make The Sidehackers look more interesting than it actually is. I really wanted to find some sidehacking footage so you could see how stupid it really does look but unfortunately, I couldn’t find any. However, I did find this clip of one of Rommel’s men telling a stupid joke that has nothing to do with sidehacking.

Enjoy!

Life is a Beach #3: The Beach Girls (dir by Pat Townsend)

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“You louse! You hussy!”

“What’s a hussy?”

“Who’s loud?”

— Typical dialogue from The Beach Girls (1982)

As you may have guessed from the combination of the film’s title, the film’s poster, and the film’s dialogue, the 1982 comedy The Beach Girls is yet another production from Crown International Pictures.

And if you had any doubts, The Beach Girls quickly erases them by not only featuring the exact same songs that were heard in both The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach but by also reusing a good deal of beach footage that originally appeared in Malibu Beach. Remember that dog in Malibu Beach that kept stealing everyone’s bikini top? Apparently, the folks at Crown International really liked that dog because all of his scenes are awkwardly inserted into The Beach Girls.

In between all of the Malibu Beach footage, The Beach Girls tells the story of three girls who have a nice beach house for the summer and who proceed to throw a party. That is literally the plot of the entire film. Two of the girls — Ginger (Val Kline) and Ducky (Jeana Tomasina) — are up for anything while their best friend, the shy and intellectual Sarah (Debra Blee), desperately needs to relax and have a good time. Fortunately, there’s a sensitive musician at the party. His name is Scott and he’s played by James Daughton, who was also in Malibu Beach. With Scott’s help, Sarah starts to come out of her shell, which largely means that she starts to progressively wear less and less clothes.

Just when it looks like the party might be on the verge of concluding, six garbage bags of weed wash up on the beach. That comes in handy once all of the uptight authority figures start to show up and demand that the party end. Fortunately, the super weed inspires everyone to just relax and have fun. Not even the eventual arrival of the Coast Guard can stop this party…

The Beach Girls is pretty much your typical Crown International teen sex comedy. The main thing that distinguishes it from The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach is that the main characters in The Beach Girls are all female. And while the three main characters all still required to spend a good deal of the film undressed, this is a rare teen comedy where the guys are just as likely to get naked as the girls and where the girls have as much fun as the guys. As a result, there’s little of the misogyny that lay underneath the surface of The Pom Pom Girls and, to a lesser extent, Malibu Beach.

Don’t get me wrong. The Beach Girls, which is currently available Hulu and has also been included in a few Mill Creek box sets, is hardly a great or even a good film. It’s pretty much a standard sex comedy where both the characters and the jokes are predictably dumb. But, when taken on its own modest terms, it’s an inoffensive little time capsule.

Plus, the film’s beach house is really nice! Seriously, that’s one thing that I love about films from the 80s. Even the low-budget comedies always take place in the nicest houses!

Life is a Beach #2: Malibu Beach (dir Robert J. Rosenthal)

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I started my 2-week miniseries of reviews on beach movies by taking a look at 1963’s Beach Party. For my next review, I will be jumping forward 15 years and taking a look at 1978’s Malibu Beach.

Just by comparing the two films, you can tell that a lot changed during those 15 years. As opposed to the euphemism-spouting surfers of Beach Party, the teenagers that hang out on Malibu Beach know exactly what they want and they’re not ashamed to say it. What Beach Party could only hint at, Malibu Beach has the freedom to make explicit. The film’s poster claims that “everything can happen on Malibu Beach” and, in theory, that’s certainly true.

And yet, at the same time, Malibu Beach has more in common with Beach Party than you might think. Ultimately, they’re both about the same thing: celebrating the idea of being young and having freedom. Both films are a bit of a chore to try to watch today but are interesting as cultural time capsules. Beach Party had no plot. Malibu Beach has no plot. Beach Party featured some oddly generic music. Malibu Beach features the same three generic songs being played over and over and over again. Beach Party features Erich Von Zipper and his motorcycle gang. Malibu Beach features a muscle-bound bully named Dugan (Steve Oliver). Beach Party featured a cameo appearance from Vincent Price. Malibu Beach features a dog that steals bikini tops. Beach Party was produced by American International Pictures. Malibu Beach was produced by Crown International Pictures.

That’s right! Malibu Beach is a Crown International Picture and anyone who loves 70s exploitation knows what that means. Malibu Beach is a cheaply produced film that was made to exploit then-current trends and bring in a lot of money. Like a lot of Crown International Films, it’s technically a pretty bad film but it’s so sincere and honest about what it is that it almost feels petty to be too critical of it.

Oddly enough, Malibu Beach pretty much feels like a remake of a previous Crown International Picture, The Pom Pom Girls, the main difference being that, while the visual style of The Pom Pom Girls was almost oppressively ugly, Malibu Beach at least features some pretty beach scenery.

Much like in the Pom Pom Girls, the heroes of Malibu Beach are two high school jocks, one of whom, Bobby (played by James Daughton, who, that same year, also played the evil Greg in National Lampoon’s Animal House), is dark and brooding while the other, Paul (Michael Luther), is skinny and dorky.

Much as in The Pom Pom Girls, one of the heroes has a nemesis for no particular reason. Seriously, I never could figure out why Bobby and Dugan hated each other but they certainly did. What’s odd is that, whenever there’s a confrontation between the two of them, Malibu Beach suddenly gets extremely serious. Bobby and Dugan glare at each other and speak through clenched teeth. Suddenly, there’s no music on the soundtrack and all we can hear are seagulls above and the tide rolling in and it all feels very ominous. I sat through Malibu Beach expecting either Dugan and Bobby to be dead at the end of the film, that’s how seriously their conflict is portrayed.

Also, much like The Pom Pom Girls, Bobby and Paul each have girlfriends. Paul is dating the spacey Sally (Susan Player). Bobby, meanwhile, is romancing the new lifeguard, Dina (Kim Lankford). Dina has a big scene where she tells Bobby that she can’t handle being caught in the middle of his increasingly intense rivalry with Dugan. Again, it’s a deadly serious scene and it’s just so strange to see it there, awkwardly dropped in between scenes of a bumbling cop smoking weed and a dog stealing bikini tops.

Finally, the main similarity between The Pom Pom Girls and Malibu Beach is that the exact same three songs appear in both films! Obviously, somebody at Crown International, really loved those three songs.

Malibu Beach is one of those films that was obviously made to appeal to hormonal teens at a drive-in but, by today’s standards, it’s rather tame. It’s currently playing on Hulu and it’s also available in several of those Mill Creek box sets that we all know and love. Is the film any good? No. Do I recommend it? Not really. But, much like Beach Party, it is a portal into the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp9NtaOzd1k

Back to School #38: Cavegirl (dir by David Oliver)

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Believe it or not, Back to the Future was not the only film released in 1985 that dealt with a high school senior taking a trip through time and ending up in the distant past. There was also Cavegirl, which tells the story of Rex (Daniel Roebuck), a nerdy science student who, during a field trip, finds himself transported back to prehistoric times. It’s there that he meets the title character, the cheerful and friendly Eba (Cindy Ann Thompson). Eba likes Rex and Rex like Eba. The only problem is that Eba can’t speak a word of English and Rex can’t get a moment along with her without being interrupted by various cavemen.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this film was distributed by Crown International Pictures.

One thing that I always find interesting about the various high school films that were released by Crown International is that the schools always look so ugly. That’s certainly the case in Cavegirl. It’s not just that the school’s lay-out is boring. (Apparently, nobody put much effort into designing high schools in the 70s and 80s.) It’s just that the school itself looks dirty, as if all of the custodians are on strike. When, at the beginning of the film, you see Rex walking through the school, you just know that the entire building probably reeks of stale air, rotting food, and decaying rodents. (In fact, it looks like it might be the same school from The Pom Pom Girls.) No wonder Rex doesn’t seem to mind being sent into the past!

And speaking of Rex, he’s played by Daniel Roebuck. Roebuck actually gives a pretty good performance in this film, bringing a lot of conviction to some incredibly silly lines. But the best thing about seeing Daniel Roebuck in this film is know that, decades later, he would play the ill-fated Leslie Arzt on Lost. Arzt only appeared in a handful of episodes but every time he did appear, he was whining about something and petulantly demanding to be included in whatever the main characters were doing. When they finally did allow Arzt to tag along with them, he mishandled some dynamite and blew up. (Leading to the classic line: “You’ve got some Arzt on you…”) Arzt may have only been created so that the creators could blow him up but Roebuck gave such a memorably fussy performance in the role that, even after exploding, he retained a following among the show’s many fans. In Cavegirl, Roebuck gives a similarly fussy performance and, as a result, the entire film feels like it could be called “Leslie Arzt: The Early Years.”

As for Cavegirl itself, it’s definitely a crude film, in both execution and much of the content. There’s about as much humor based on bodily fuctions as you expect to see in a film like this and there were a few such scenes that I choose to look away from until they were over with. But, at the same time, it’s ultimately a surprisingly likable film. That’s largely due to Daniel Roebuck and Cindy Thompson. They both have a very likable chemistry and Thompson gives such an enthusiastic performance that you can forgive a lot of the film’s weaker moments.

Is Cavegirl as good as Back to the Future?

Well, no.

But, as far as low-budget 80s teen comedies are concerned, it works.

Back to School #30: My Tutor (dir by George Bowers)

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s the house.

I was recently trying to figure out what it was exactly that I enjoyed about the 1983 teen comedy My Tutor and I finally realized that it all came down to the house. Like almost every other teen film released in the 1980s, My Tutor is about rich people. The main character, recent high school graduate and frustrated virgin Bobby Chrystal (Matt Lattanzi), lives in an absolutely gorgeous house. There’s a huge pool in back and even the guest house appears to be bigger than any place that I’ve ever lived. Bobby lives in the type of mansion that I’ve always wanted to live in. For me, the best parts of My Tutor are the scenes that simply follow Bobby as he walks around the grounds of his home.

I just like seeing where people live.

I first came across My Tutor about two years ago when I got the Too Cool For School DVD box set from Mill Creek Entertainment. My Tutor was one of the 12 movies included in the box set and it was one of the first that I watched, just because the title seemed to promise all sorts of sordid fun. Looking back on the first time that I ever watched the film, my main impressions were that the film’s central plot — the affair between Bobby and his French tutor, Terry (Caren Kaye) — was actually handled with a surprising amount of sensitivity, that the great Kevin McCarthy was ideally cast as Bobby’s wealthy but sleazy father, and that the house was really nice.

Is that really proper teacher attire?

When I rewatched the film for this review, I quickly discovered that I had either forgotten or managed to block from my mind about 5o% of the movie. Because, before Bobby and Terry take the fateful midnight swim that leads to their affair, the movie largely focuses on the efforts of Bobby and his friend Jack (the reliably weird and nerdy Crispin Glover) to each lose his virginity. The first half of the film is pretty much dominated by cartoonish scenes of Bobby passing out drunk at a brothel and Jack and his brother Billy (Clark Brandon) trying to pick up two female mud wrestlers. (If you have bondage fantasies about Crispin Glover, I guess this is the film to see.) At one point, all of the film’s action stops so that Bobby can have an elaborate fantasy about having sex with a girl that we’ve barely seen before and will never see again.

Bobby has problems beyond just his virginity. A recent high school graduate, he still has to retake and pass a French exam if he’s going to have any hope of getting into Yale. (Yale was where his father went to college. Bobby says he wants to go to UCLA and study the skies, even though he doesn’t ever say anything about astronomy beyond that he wants to major in it.) Bobby’s father hires him a tutor. Terry is only ten years older than Bobby and has just recently broken up with her boyfriend. She enjoys nude midnight swims, riding on motor scooters, and aerobic exercise. Before you know it, Terry and Bobby are having an affair, Bobby’s father is hitting on Terry, and Terry’s ex-boyfriend keeps coming up to the house searching for her.

The perfect couple

And what’s surprising is that, once Bobby and Terry become lovers, the film changes. Well, it changes a little. Don’t get me wrong — it doesn’t suddenly turn into a great (or even a good) movie or anything like that. But the film really does make an attempt to realistically deal with the relationship between Bobby and Terry. Terry doesn’t suddenly abandon her dreams or her plans just because she’s now secretly sleeping with Bobby. Instead, Terry remains just as independent as before and, unlike a lot of films of the period, the film doesn’t condemn her for wanting a life of her own. If anything, the film chastises Bobby whenever he gets overly possessive of her. In the end, the movie suggests that the most important lessons Bobby learned weren’t about sex but instead, were about Terry’s right to live her own life.

Oddly enough, hiding within this typical teen comedy, there’s a surprisingly bittersweet film. Perhaps less surprisingly, this film — like The Young Graduates, The Teacher, Trip With The Teacher, Coach, and Malibu High — was yet another teacher-student-sex film produced by Crown International Pictures. Nobody handled potentially icky exploitation with quite the wit and grace of Crown International.

Back to School #21: Malibu High (dir by Irving Berwick)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past four days, we’ve been taking a chronological look at some of the best and worst films about high school and teenagers. We started with two films from 1946 and now, 19 reviews later, we are approaching what may very well be the golden age of high school films, the 1980s. However, before we officially start in on the 80s, I would like to take a look at two films from 1979.

The first of these films is Malibu High and, despite the generic title, it’s perhaps one of the strangest movies ever made. Whether that strangeness is intentional (as I believed the first time I watched the film) or simply the result of inept filmmaking (as I started to suspect after I watched it a second time) is the question.

Malibu High tells the story of Kim Bentley (Jill Lansing), who is literally the most jaded high school senior ever. When the film begins, we watch as she wakes up in the morning, sits naked in her bedroom, takes a long drag off of a cigarette, and stares into a mirror with a look that suggests she’s on the verge of attacking her own reflection. Kim’s mother (Phyllis Benson) yells at her that she’s going to be late for school. Kim shouts back that maybe if her mother had made an effort to actually dress up and look good then maybe Kim’s father wouldn’t have committed suicide.

Kim Bentley prepares to face another day at Malibu High.

Once she does arrive at school, things don’t get any better for Kim. She’s dumped by her boyfriend, Kevin (Stuart Taylor). Kevin, it seems, would rather date a girl with more money and less mental issues so he starts going out with the spoiled Annette (Tammy Taylor). Soon, Kim is failing all of her classes, having flashbacks to the day that she found her father’s body hanging in his study, and working for the local pimp/drug dealer Tony (Alex Mann).

Kim, however, is determined to turn her life around. She seduces (and subsequently blackmails) all of her male teachers and is soon getting straight A’s in every class except for English, which happens to be the only class she takes that is taught by a woman. When the high school’s principal figures out what Kim is doing, Kim responds by undressing in front of him and causing him to have a fatal heart attack.

Meanwhile, Kim meets Lance (Garth Howard), another pimp who is a little more refined than Tony. Kim is soon working for Lance but, after she stabs a client to death with an ice pick, Lance realizes that Kim has actually missed her calling and he puts her to work seducing and assassinating rival gangsters. As the movie reaches its conclusion, Kim in not only a rich honor student but she’s now a professional assassin as well.

What more could Kim want out of life, right?

However, Kim is still obsessed with her ex and, one day, she happens to see Kevin and Annette on the beach….

Ellen Burstyn did it better.

The first time I saw Malibu High, I assumed that it had to be a satire. That was the only way I could think to justify the film’s over-the-top performances, melodramatic plot, and heavy-handed dialogue. I mean, what else could I think when the film actually goes so far as to feature Kim saying, “I’m serious …. DEAD SERIOUS!” before assassinating a gangster. Or how about Annette’s description of Kim: “She’s a piece of shit! She’s proving she’s a piece of shit!” Add that to the fact that the plot is basically a version of one of those old educational films where making the slightest mistake leads to the most extreme consequences possible and how could I not think that Malibu High was actually a brilliant satire?

However, on subsequent viewings, it’s become more apparent that Malibu High‘s satire is of the unintentional kind. In fact, it’s amazing just how seriously Malibu High actually does take itself. The end result is a film that’s not meant to be funny but still manages to be hilarious.

You may not be surprised to discover that Malibu High was a product of Crown International Pictures. And, like most CIP films, it can be found in a few dozen different box sets. And it’s worth watching just so you can say that you’ve had the experience.

Back to School #20: Coach (dir by Bud Townsend)

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Just from watching the trailer above, you probably think that the 1978 film Coach is just your standard high school sports film. And, in many ways, it is. But, since it was made in the 70s, things still get a little bit weird. Before proceeding, I should probably point out that Coach (like the similar The Teacher) was produced by Crown International Pictures. But you probably already guessed that.

An exclusive California high school has a problem. The boy’s basketball team is having a terrible season. The most powerful man in town, F.R. Granger (Keenan Wynn), demands a change! (You can tell that Granger is powerful because he goes by his initials.) After ordering the hapless basketball coach to resign, Granger and the school board hire Randy Rawlings to replace him. Oddly enough, they don’t actually interview Randy for the job or attempt to meet Randy ahead of time. They just know that Randy is a former Olympian and are overjoyed when Randy accepts the job.

On Randy’s first day on the job, everyone is shocked to discover that Randy Rawlings is — GASP — a woman! Now, I’ll admit that this film is a little bit before my time and the world was probably a lot different back in the 70s but, as an Olympic medalist, wouldn’t Randy be a bit of a celebrity? And would anyone as obsessed with winning as F.R. Granger actually hire a coach sight unseen? Anyway, F.R. is none too happy to discover that Randy (Cathy Lee Crosby) is a woman and tries to fire her on the spot. Sorry, F.R. — can’t be done. As Randy points out, F.R. needs cause to fire her.

After forcing them to all take a cold shower and then coaching them to a few victories, Randy wins over the team. She also starts sleeping with one of her players (played by a very young and handsome Michael Biehn) and this is where the movie gets weird. I kept expecting this affair to be discovered and used by F.R. as an excuse to fire Randy. Because, after all, why would any film feature a rather creepy subplot about a teacher sleeping with a student unless it was somehow going to pay off in the end? But instead, the affair just sort of happens and never really ties back into the main plot of whether or not Randy will be able to coach the team to having a winning season.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking to yourself, “What would the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov think about this?” Well, here’s an exact quote from Mr. Chekhov:

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

In other words, Coach was definitely not written by Anton Chekhov.

Anton Chekhov ponders the narrative failings of Coach

Back to School #16: Trip With The Teacher (dir by Earl Barton)

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(MINOR SPOILERS)

First released in 1975 and subsequently included in a few hundred DVD box sets, Trip With The Teacher is yet another strange film from Crown International Pictures.

The film opens with a school bus driving through the California desert. On board the bus is Miss Tenny (Brenda Fogarty) and four teenage girls. One thing that I immediately noticed is that director Earl Barton — perhaps realizing that none of the girls had really been given any sort of individual personality — took the time to make sure each of the girls was color-coded so that the audience could keep them straight. One is dressed in all blue, another in all green, and then another is wearing an unfortunate canary yellow. Meanwhile, Julie (Cathy Worthington) is obviously meant to be the main girl because she’s allowed to wear not one but two colors — yellow and white. When we first meet this group, we’re told that they’re on a field trip to see some Navajo ruins but, later on in the film, Julie says that they’re on a camping trip that has nothing to do with school beyond the presence of their teacher. But the important thing is that they’re on a bus in the middle of the desert. (The bus, by the way, is being driven by Marvin, who is played by an actor named Jack Driscoll and who might as well have “doomed” tattooed on his forehead.)

Also in the desert are two motorcycle-riding brothers — goofy Pete (Robert Porter), who has a big mustache and seems like a nice guy up until he starts trying to kill people, and Al (Zalman King), who is surly, wears weird sunglasses, and suffers from narcolepsy. When Pete gets a flat tire out in the middle of the desert, he’s helped out by a passing motorcyclist named Jay (Robert Gribbin). (Al sleeps through the entire encounter.) Jay, who is oddly friendly and talkative, decides that he’ll ride along with these two strangers.

I’ve seen Trip With The Teacher a few times and I have to say that I have never really been able to figure out what’s supposed to be going on with Jay. He’s the film’s nominal hero but Robert Gribbin plays him as being such a talkative and outwardly friendly character that my natural impulse is to distrust him. Maybe I’ve seen too many films where the good Samaritan always turns out to be a psycho but Jay is simply too good to be true.

‘

The Way Too Friendly Jay

Briefly, this suspicion seems to be confirmed when Jay, Pete, and Al come riding up on the school bus and Jay sees Julie through a window. Julie smiles and waves at Jay and I don’t blame her because I probably would have done the same thing, because Jay is cute, motorcycles are sexy, and you have to do something to pass the time while you’re being driven through the desert. But then 30-something Jay smiles and starts to wave back at 16 year-old Julie and mouths something like, “Come over here!” before flashing a huge grin and the scene gets undeniably creepy.

(The creep factor is not lessened by Jay later telling Pete, “Gee, that Julie is a really cute girl.”)

Anyway, when the school bus eventually breaks down, the three motorcyclists stop to “help.” In this case, helps means that Pete and Al use their motorcycles to tow the bus to a remote desert cabin. After a fight that leaves Marvin dead, Pete and Al decide to take the teacher, the girls, and Jay hostage until they can figure out what to do….

Now, I said earlier that Trip With The Teacher is weird and, believe it or not, it’s not just because of Jay. In the role of Al, future director Zalman King gives one of the oddest cinematic performances that I have ever seen. King alternates between underplaying and overacting, randomly going from mumbling to such an extent that you can barely understand him to literally yelling out every single line. It’s a performance that is so strange that it transcends such mundane concepts as good or bad. Single-handedly, Zalman King creates a reason for people to actually sit through Trip With The Teacher.

Zalman King in Trip With The Teacher

The other odd thing about Trip With The Teacher is that, despite all of the bad things that happen on screen, the film features some oddly cheerful music. The film’s theme song is played over the end credits, which juxtaposes the music with scenes from the movie. It’s an odd experience, watching all of these tense scenes play out while listening to that cheerful music.

And you can watch those end credits below! (This, needless to say, is where the spoiler warning comes into effect.) In order to get the full effect, be sure to stick with the credits all the way until the music stops playing.

(A quick warning: Though Trip With The Teacher is actually pretty mild as far as 70s grindhouse and drive-in films are concerned, the end credits still feature a few images that some may find disturbing — especially if you haven’t actually seen the film. Once you’ve actually sat through the film and can put everything in context, it’s pretty much impossible to take any of it seriously.)

Back to School #15: Horror High (dir by Larry N. Stouffer)

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, you knew when I started this series of Back to School reviews that I would eventually end up reviewing a horror film or two. Whether it’s because they were written and directed by people still bitter over being teenage outcasts or because they were produced by people who were smart enough to realize that a lot of horror fans are still students, several horror films have been set in the world in high school.

Take, for instance, the 1974 film, Horror High.

Horror High tells the story of Vernon Potts (Pat Cardi), who is the smartest student at his high school. However, it’s debatable how much of an accomplishment that is because, in this low-budget film, it appears that there’s only 6 or 8 students at the school. Regardless, Vernon’s combination of intelligence, acne, and social awkwardness have come together to make him the school outcast. Not only do Vernon’s fellow classmates make fun of him but the janitor threatens to kill him, the football coach orders him to help the team cheat, and his English teacher destroys Vernon’s biology homework. Vernon’s only friend is a guinea pig named Mr. Mumps. Vernon eventually gives Mr. Mumps an experimental serum that turns Mr. Mumps into a murderous monster. Unfortunately, the janitor subsequently kills the guinea pig but, in the process, he also forces Vernon to drink the serum, which leads to Vernon occasionally turning into a monster himself. On the bright side, Vernon does eventually get to date the girl he has a crush on, largely because she’s single now that Monster Vernon has killed her boyfriend…

Horror High is one of those low-budget films that is so extremely odd that it can’t help but have an oddly dreamlike power to it. This is one of those cases where the total lack of narrative logic actually works to the film’s advantage. Pat Cardi makes for a believable outcast and everyone else in the cast is properly despicable. As ludicrous as the plot may be, the film itself is full of a palpable atmosphere of dread and doom. I’ve seen a lot of bad high schools in a lot of low-budget horror films but it’s hard for me to think of one that was quite as nightmarish as the one in Horror High.

Incidentally, Horror High was filmed in my home state of Texas, in the wonderful city of Irving!

And you can watch it below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAjFFtZY3NE