Retail Price: $12.98

Reviewed by:
Ian Miller on September 25, 2007.

The words “Crown International” can conjure many images for the grizzled trash maven, but most would agree that the company’s name is synonymous with “70’s-80’s drive-in swill”, or in the case of BCI/Eclipse’s new series of Crown double features, “Grindhouse”. Whether that is an accurate assessment or not is up to the viewer, but a closer look at the latest release in the series is in order, so let’s crack a cold one and prepare to delve into two of the odder films of the swinging 70’s.

THE TEACHER 

Sean Roberts (played by TV’s DENNIS THE MENACE, Jay North) is your average high school kid, horny but hesitant, and possibly running with a bad crowd. Well, make that a bad crowd of one, his best friend Lou. Lou convinces Sean to jump on his motorbike so he can show him where his crazy-assed ‘Nam vet brother Ralph (ubiquitous TV baddie Anthony James) likes to hang out, an abandoned warehouse near a marina. It soon becomes apparent just why Ralph likes to hang there, because soon this delinquent duo are spying on their hot 28 year-old teacher Diane (Angel Tompkins from PRIME CUT and LITTLE CIGARS) who enjoys sunbathing topless! What they don’t know is that Ralph is right behind them with a bayonet, more than a little perturbed at their intrusion upon his place of silent peeping tommery. Unfortunately for all concerned, his sudden appearance startles lil’ bro Lou and he falls to his death! Sean high-tails it home, but soon the news of Lou’s demise finds it’s way to the authorities (in the form of the local Sheriff), who pays a visit to Sean’s house, as does Ralph who informs Sean that he’ll “cut his tongue out” if he breathes a word to the fuzz. Mum’s the word, and sexy neighbor/teacher Diane soon shows up for a luncheon at the Roberts home. When a couple of the neighborhood busybodies probe a little too deeply about Diane’s rocky marriage (her husband’s a motorcycle-racing bum who vanishes for long periods of time), she lashes out and they split, affording a chance for the neglected lass to share a private moment with her student. One thing leads to another, and soon Sean is at her house, ostensibly to help clean out her Tuff Shed, but this lady has homework assignments on her mind! Sean is understandably timid at first (nothing like an obsessed psycho to put the kibosh on the libido, even that of a teenager!), but soon these two are inseparable, local gossip be damned. Their idyll is short-lived however, and a simple phone call sets the story’s final act into motion………. 

Make no mistake, THE TEACHER is a pretty bland affair where precious little actually happens, and despite the subject matter and  some fleeting glimpses of Ms. Tompkins’ upper bod, it could easily be rated PG-13 today. Directed, produced and written by Hikmet/Howard Avedis (he of THE STEPMOTHER, SCORCHY, and MORTUARY) with seeming indifference toward the very market he was aiming for (you would think that Jack Hill regular Alfred Taylor’s cinematography would liven things up. It doesn’t), the viewer is left holding the bag, wondering just what THE TEACHER is supposed to be. Is it a psycho stalker film? A coming-of-age love story? Or is it just an excuse to get Angel to bare her breasts for the non-discriminating drive-in crowd? Well, it’s all three, and in the right hands this could have added up to be a slam-bang exploitation potboiler, but unless you get a kick out of watching a bunch of tv character actors sleepwalking through a half-baked storyline, set to the dulcet tones of jazzer-turned-loungemeister Shorty Rogers (there I go, making it sound more entertaining than it is again!), there’s very little to recommend from THE TEACHER’s lesson plan. 

PICK-UP 

Carol and Maureen (played by Jill Senter and Gini Eastwood, respectively) are two wild California girls who at the film's start are sitting in a field watching stud-muffin Chuck (Alan Long) urinate against the mobile home he's supposed to deliver from Miami to Tallahassee, FL. "I think we've found a ride" says the spaced-and child-like (to be charitable) Carol. Guessing correctly that Chuck is an Aries, and noting that this particular sign is "in a time of upheaval", the altogether more brooding Maureen is not so sure, in fact making a rather cryptic comment about their immediate future should they board the vehicle. These nay-saying comments are cast aside however, and the three set off on the road, blasting Bach and a J-bomb while ditzy Carol performs a peek-a-boo dance for some rowdy-looking locals who happen to pass by in a truck. As Maureen consults the Tarot deck and seems to slip in and out of time-frames, Chuck's stressed-out foreman calls on the bus's phone to check out Chuck's progress, which soon becomes nil as the trio find themselves lost and stranded in the everglades. While this is seen as a boon to Chuck and Carol, who depart the motorhome for some sight-seeing, it becomes obvious (due to tape manipulated nature sounds and ominous shots of the terrain) that they have found themselves in a netherworld where all of the hang-ups that befall these kids can either be cast off through intimate explorations (the two C's again) or manifest themselves as delusions of granduer (Maureen's hallucinatory offering of herself to Apollo) brought on by childhood trauma (her sexual abuse at the hands of her pastor). As the foreman sweats more and decides to send a search plane, Chuck hunts a wild boar with a bow and arrow and relates how he's gotten to where he is (domineering mother figure, apparently), and Maureen starts to truly unravel and burn her hand with a flaming stick in a show of religious frenzy. Later, she and Chuck have a moment that culminates in his taking her for a nighttime stroll, an action that is to have a shattering impact on the group.........or does it??????? 

PICK-UP is one of those rarest of creatures, the exploitation art film. If the above synopsis seems light on plot, that's because the script seems less concerned with telling a coherent story than dropping the viewer into a dream world where they are left to make sense of the goings-on with the aid of very few clues. We see that Maureen is seriously troubled by her religious up-bringing and as a result immerses herself in metaphysics and astrology as a way to come to grips with her surroundings (a metaphor for the hippie movement?), while Chuck and Carol's reasons for dropping out are a bit harder to pin down (Carol's flashback only tells us that she's hot-to-trot, basically.). Other clues are to be had in a scene where Maureen is approached on the bus by a shifty (and quite gay) Senator who appears to be another hallucination, as well as the foreman only being referred to in the credits as "The Businessman", so we have symbols for three aspects of the establishment: business, politics and religion. So there you go, is writer/producer John Winter trying to make a bold and provocative statement in drive-in movie clothing? If so, the chance of anyone actually noticing were slim (a form of freedom in and of itself), and the addition of a frightening clown with balloons and a frequently shown stuffed animal only muddy the swamp further. It must be said that the cinematography and editing by one-time director Bennie Hirschenson is effectively atmospheric (the hallucinations are diffused and ethereal, the painful flashbacks dark and moody), getting the most out of an iffy situation caused by the severely limited acting chops of the three leads, though Senter is memorably odd in her role (maybe she wasn't acting!). It also must be mentioned that the boar hunting scene seems to be real, and though it's only shown briefly, it could be a nasty shock to some. Finally, the surprise ending ending could really piss off somebody who has invested themselves in the story, but some might see it as a beautiful 1970's middle finger in the face of convention, and besides: can a film that opens with a full-frame close-up of a glistening belt buckle be all bad?

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Jill Senter, Alan Long/Angel Tompkins, Jay North