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I see a lot, but the current one I'm watching is "Pretty Maids All in a Row". It's a sex comedy written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and directed by Roger Vadim, who wrote the screenplay to Barbarella. It stars Rock Hudson, Telly Savalas, Angie Dickinson, Roddy Mcdowell and James Doohan (yep..Scotty).
The film centers around a High School Student named Ponce de Leon Harper trying to get over his sexual frustrations during the height of the sexual revolution. The head coach (Rock Hudson), who has seduced every single girl in the school, befriends Ponce to teach him the art of seduction by trying to set him up with the lonely substitute teacher. Meanwhile there's a serial killer on the loose killing teenage girls left and right. Kojak and Scotty play detectives trying to solve the murder. Their scenes don't really add anything to the story, but they do perform interviews with every attractive, hot and bothered girl who attends the school.
The film is disjointed, but strangely compelling and kind of creepy. In many ways it reminds me of Harold and Maude, or a film done by Wes Anderson. Most of the scene transitions include Rock Hudson hovering over a naked girl in his office, or in his car (which have reclining seats). It teaches us that even a middle aged Football Coach can get all the young girls he wants as long as he can pull off the 70s style porno mustache.
You can find this gem through the Warner Archive Collection. A sensible Trekkie will seek this out to see that Gene Roddenberry was beyond morality tales that took place in space. The man struggled with hormones like any other growing teenager. The stiff Trekkie will probably pass it up as something he was force to do to earn money between the Original Star Trek and the first Motion Picture. Those Trekkies need to go back to church and sing their little rock songs about Jesus. |