Robert J. Maxwell Before dismissing this as a piece of FILTHY, FROGGY, PORNOGRAPHY, we ought to watch it because it's pretty clever. We don't need to call Roger Vadim's direction a reflection of the French New Wave because that was underway a decade earlier. Vadim has his own style. It consists mainly of slapdash plots and lots and lots of female nudity or semi-nudity. It has the usual 1960s social commentary too. A dozen students are milling around the hall just after a murder. "Hold it, Mister. Where do you think YOU'RE going?", says the cop, grabbing the sole black kid by the arm.This has a prominent place, then, in Vadim's ouvre. If it was Brigitte Bardot in 1956, it's Angie Dickinson who is uncovered here. Not all the way, but enough to get the job done. There is also a good deal of teasing from the other female cast members. You have never seen so many upskirt shots.I think I'll mostly skip the plot because it's not worth much effort. Rock Hudson, looking fine, loves his wife and kiddie but can't help banging the high school chicks, all of whom have crushes on him. He strangles them so they don't squeal on him. And -- well, it's not just the students that are overwhelmed by Rock and his pheromones. While discussing someone's problem with Angie Dickinson, he says something like, "I wonder if you could handle what I'm about to throw at you." "Oh, YES," she replies breathlessly.Not that all the jokes are about sex. The first verbal gag is this. Roddy MacDowell, the principal of Oceanfront High School, is having an argument with one of the teachers. A student rushes in and announces that a girl has just been found in the men's room. "See?," says the teacher, "It's just what I was saying about morals." The student says, "No, it's okay. She's dead." I admire Lalo Schifrin's musical score too. We get to hear a little Bach, a Mozart sonata, a coy imitation of Duke Ellington's "Prelude to a Kiss," and the school song of Cornell University. His taste is pretty eclectic.An important point is that this movie really IS influenced by European film making. It's about sex, not violence. Nobody is murdered on screen and there isn't a single drop of blood. Little emphasis is on the mystery, nor need there be. It's more of a slice of time, one of those snapshots in which everybody is standing on his head, a home movie in which the subject makes gargoyle faces at the camera.It occurs to me that if you enjoyed "Lord Love a Duck," you'll probably get a slight charge out of this movie too.

phasetrek Perhaps when this film came out, it was considered "funny" by some people. But it wasn't funny to me then and it's not funny to me now.(What follows should be considered a spoiler.)Pedophilia is nothing to laugh about. And murder to cover up pedophilia is even less funny. But the real tragedy of this film is the teacher's wife ... knowing that her husband had sex with teenage girls, knowing he'd committed murder to cover it up, and then "going along" with him faking his own death so she could rejoin him in his Brazilian hideaway as if nothing had happened.It saddens me that a writer like Gene Roddenberry would pen such a disgusting screenplay and that actors like Rock Hudson, Angie Dickenson, Telly Savalas, and James Doohan would even associate themselves with such a film project.

bkoganbing Rock Hudson's extraordinary good looks and charm are cast against type as he plays a school guidance counselor and football coach who picks a few choice plums among the student body on a regular basis. Seeing all those nubile young girls with skirts up to their hynies was temptation enough for anyone. The problem is that these girls want to take a permanent lease out on him and he's already married to Barbara Leigh and has a little daughter. What choice is there before the scandal costs him his job, but kill these Pretty Maids All In A Row.The unusual combination of Gene Roddenberry who wrote script and French director Roger Vadim, best known here on this side of the pond for Barbarella created Pretty Maids All In A Row, a black comedy that garnered a nice cult following. Hudson worked well playing his one and only villain on the big screen. A secondary plot involves substitute teacher Angie Dickinson who Hudson gives a warm up to in preparation for his protégé young John David Carson nailing Dickinson. A little Tea And Sympathy sideline as Carson slowly discovers what his mentor is up to..Roddy McDowall plays the clueless high school principal and Keenan Wynn the equally clueless sheriff. One who is not clueless is Telly Savalas who plays a Kojak like detective who suspicions that Hudson is the murderer but can't quite prove it. At the end of the film Savalas is totally convinced.Hudson as serial killer might be jarring to his fans, but Rock does pull it off. An interesting alternative part for an actor who was far better than he was credited.

dougdoepke Really oddball slice of movie-making. Writer Roddenberry apparently wants to say something derogatory about high-school and football, while director Vadim can't seem to train his camera on anything but a girl's groin area. The two threads occasionally cross paths, but not long enough to produce a coherent result. Rock Hudson, of all people, is a high-school coach who dabbles in serial killing, that is, when not testing girls out carnally in his office. Meanwhile, frustrated teenager Carson is having a terminal case of sexual arousal at all the wrong times. At the same time, a half-clad Angie Dickinson is trying to figure out just what her role is supposed to be, while bemused cop Telly Savalas stands by, practicing for his Kojak role. The overall result is a sometimes interesting mess that, nevertheless, remains visually compelling for guys, at least. It's like soft-core porn with a Hollywood cast. I'm impressed, however, by how well Hudson performs as a tough talking womanizer and serial killer, not exactly the actor's stock and trade. Too bad Carson has only one frozen expression for every occasion, as another reviewer points out. Anyhow, if there's a point to the narrative buried somewhere inside the rampant lust, I couldn't find it. The movie is really more like an experience than a story told or a moral revealed.