Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971)

California State Police Captain Sam Surcher investigates a string of teenage girl murders at Oceanfront High School.

Director:

Roger Vadim

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (screenplay), Francis Pollini (novel)

Stars:

Rock Hudson, Angie Dickinson, Telly Savalas

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rock Hudson	...	Tiger
Angie Dickinson	...	Miss Smith
Telly Savalas	...	Surcher
John David Carson	...	Ponce
Roddy McDowall	...	Proffer
Keenan Wynn	...	Poldaski
James Doohan	...	Follo
William Campbell	...	Grady
Susan Tolsky	...	Miss Craymire
Barbara Leigh	...	Jean
Gretchen Carpenter	...	Marjorie (as Gretchen Burrell)
Aimee Eccles	...	Hilda
JoAnna Cameron	...	Yvonne
Margaret Markov	...	Polly
June Fairchild	...	Sonny

Storyline

There's murder at a California high school, where female students are being targeted by an unknown serial killer, a married teacher hides his flings with nubile students, and an awkward male is frustrated by the plethora of uninhibited freewheeling young girls.

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Plot Keywords:

psychopath | virgin | sex in a car | taking a bath | sitting on a toilet | 

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Taglines:

A good football coach can get away with murder.

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 July 1971 (Sweden)

Also Known As:

Querido profesor

Filming Locations:

Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The movie had it's U.S. premier in Atlanta, GA due to a deal with hotel rooms at the Regency Hyatt House, the theater, and transportation.

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Goofs

When Sunny Swingle records her message for Tiger, the reel of tape is near the end, but when Ponce plays it back, it is near the beginning.

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Quotes

Michael 'Tiger' McDrew: [Deciding to go ahead with the scheduled football game] We play on Friday. Once you start retreating, life will drag you down.

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Connections

Referenced in Tommy Boy (1995)

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Soundtracks

Chilly Winds
Music by Lalo Schifrin
Lyrics by Mike Curb
Performed by The Osmonds

User Reviews

Give Me a T, Give Me an A!

I am mildly fond of Pretty Maids All In a Row not because it is chock full of T and A, a veritable smörgåsbord of ditsy, horny girls wearing those wonderful mini-skirts from the early seventies, but because it's a visually pleasing movie for non-prurient reasons. The review on the main page is more than adequate to give you a cinematic and historical overview of the movie (kudos to krorie!). I like the movie because it somehow captures what's best about the California southland. The movie's images, its cinematography show the sort of comfortable warmth that I enjoyed when I lived there almost twenty years ago.

Sure, it's a sex movie, and whether or not it's a really stupid one is up to the viewer, but the story of Rock Hudson's counselor coach humping the female student body of a California high school is deeply offensive, unless you concentrate on whatever hackneyed social commentary Gene Roddenberry was trying to put forth.

Wow! Now there's a choice.

Stripped down to its knickers, PMAIAR is the sort of stupid, dirty, and watchable movie that inhabited the drive-in screens of this country three and a half decades ago.

There's enough shock value in this movie to give you a shuddering case of the guffaws; Roddenberry and director Roger Vadim must have figured that adults screwing children (albeit children who look like they're in their mid-twenties) was the height of cinematic daring. I remember seeing this flick with a friend who kept saying, "This has got to be a junior college, not a high school!"

Nope. Sorry.

Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson spend much of the movie doing what would get normal mortals branded "pedophile." Then again, if you just put the obvious sniggering, Penthouse Forum claptrap out of your mind and concentrate on the visual aspects, I guess you might be able to make it through to the ending credits. Rock looks great in mod hair and mustache, Angie is all legs and that little thing she does pushing wisps of hair out of her face (or is that Helen Hunt?), the girls look as if they left the set to immediately run over to the Playboy Mansion for a photo shoot, and the strong secondary cast of Telly Savalas, James Doohan, and Roddy McDowall, although looking somewhat pained for signing their contracts, make Pretty Maids All In a Row just serious enough for you not to do what I did when I rented a mainstream movie and found a Allysa Milano B movie in it by accident.

Run it through to the good parts, then return it for a refund.