Given the A-list pedigree of the cast, this is one baffling relic of a brief and long-gone period of our cultural history. Soft-core fanatic Roger "Barbarella" Vadim teams up with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (of all people!) to produce this shameless exploitation flick. Granted, it was based on a novel, so I suppose writer/producer Roddenberry can't receive all the blame for this mess. But the fact that he chose this particular material for his one and only non-Star Trek feature film sheds new light on the ultra mini skirt, coconut shell bra, and Captain-Kirk-seducing-every-buxom-alien-in-the-galaxy fixation of his series. All the girls in this high school are centerfold wannabes, disrobing and literally throwing themselves into the arms of married football stud Rock Hudson. Teachers having sex with students on campus grounds is treated with an off-hand "lock the door." (And believe me, I am by no means a prude when it comes to the complex issue of teenage sexuality.) Hudson essentially pimps out substitute teacher Angie Dickenson to his young virginal protégé, while she makes her own fierce attempts at getting into Hudson's drawers. Whew! I realize this was the 70s when free love reigned, but maybe the original novel gave better psychological background for all this casual bed-hopping. I won't even get into the whole murder mystery angle of the story, but the appearance of a serial killer in school is treated with the same shrug of indifference by the characters as their fixation on sex. This film is not outrageous enough to be camp, and not dark enough to be creepy, but just another sorry addition to Roger Vadim's irrelevant cannon of work.
Review of Pretty Maids All in a Row
