ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bill Frugge has been a lifelong fan of the drive-in. He always remembers to return his speaker to the holder before he drives away.

Throughout the ’70s there existed a type of film that defied simple classification. They weren’t exactly sex romps or comedies, but they could be sexy and funny. They weren’t really thrillers, but they could generate a good deal of suspense. They weren’t outright horror films, but they could be shocking and scary. They were never full-fledged action pictures, but they could deliver quite an adrenaline rush. They were made predominately for an audience looking to be titillated by bare skin and cheap thrills.

For benefit of some sort of identifier, I’ve always referred to these wacky, go-for-broke pictures as “Drive-in Dramas.” They were always dramatic in tone, punctuated with sex, drugs, action, laughs and usually startling, out-of-left-field violence. (Later, when these films had a second life on video cassette, it was anyone’s guess where you would find them in a video rental shop. They were always scattered among the different categories, placed wherever based solely on their box cover artwork.)

A loosening of restraints on film content afforded by the then newly established MPAA rating system allowed filmmakers to push the boundaries of what was once considered acceptable on screen. Many times it was obvious that distributors had no idea how to market these films, as the ad campaign may have played up the fact there were four sexy young career women spending the summer together in a beach house, but totally neglect the subplot about the psychotic killer who stalks them throughout the film until finally attacking them in the final reel.

It was Roger Corman, with his New World Pictures, that discovered a successful blueprint for these films, and he returned to that structure time and time again.

Stephanie Rothman’s The Student Nurses (1970) introduced a quartet of lovely, young, independent women who have recently finished nursing school. Each has their own story, experiencing personal growth and drama while enjoying love with various lovers. Their adventures intertwined and resolutions to all the conflicting storylines were tied up in a tidy eighty-nine minutes.

The film was a huge success and spawned a whole series of interchangeable young nurses experiencing interchangeable adventures. Titles include Private Duty Nurses (1971), Night Call Nurses (1971), The Young Nurses (1973) and Candy Stripe Nurses (1973).

To spice the old formula up a bit, Corman mixed his nurses with the old exploitative women-in-prison flicks for Joe Viola’s The Hot Box (1971), in which our young nurses are abducted and transformed into freedom fighters. Hot, sweaty Filipino locales help provide further “exotic” flavor to the proceedings.

The Stewardesses 3-D (1969) pretty much delivered on its promise of scantily clad sky hostesses having sexy adventures. Vignettes featuring fun-loving stewardesses over a weekend stop-over make up the action, but I’m willing to bet the storyline involving a masochistic misogynist subjecting his lover to brutality and ending in murder, caught more than one audience member off guard. It evidently didn’t disturb anyone too badly; as the picture went on to make millions.

Independent-International Pictures jumped on the stewardess bandwagon with Al Adamson’s Naughty Stewardesses (1974). Connie Hoffman and Marilyn Joi headline as the type of young stewardesses who bed down old crusty lizards like Bob Livingston. The plot gets twisted pretty quickly into a life or death kidnapping situation that doesn’t end so happily for everyone involved. It’s quite a tonal shift from a movie that promises only “pretty, young girls.”

Blazing Stewardesses (1975) followed, offering more screwball-type comedy antics and less exposed flesh with some hijackers thrown in. It was followed by Bedroom Stewardesses (1976), which was a reworking of an earlier German crime drama Der Arzt Von St. Pauli (1968), which I-IP released prior in another reworked version as Females for Hire and possibly Sidewalk Doctor and The Doctor of St. Pauli. Under the Bedroom Stewardesses title it included some stewardess inserts (directed by Al Adamson) and eventually played on I-IP’s successful “3 TIMES AS SEXY” stewardess show with their previous two pictures.

Corman got into the stewardess game with Cirio Santiago’s drama-action hodgepodge Fly Me (1973). The various storylines play out as our gals hop in and out of bed with various suitors until a kidnapping, assault and human and drug trafficking subplot gives way to a full-blown Kung Fu climax!

The poster for The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) suggests a fun sex romp but this being a Jack Hill picture it has more on its mind than mere titillation. A young college news sleuth infiltrates the rah-rah squad and blows the doors wide open on the demeaning world of the pep squad girls, as well as exposing rampant cheating and illegal gambling.

Just the title Cheerleaders Wild Weekend (1979) conjures scenes of mindless fun and frolic. It’s understandable, then, if this tale of abduction and assault catches you off guard and grinds those thoughts of cheap thrills to dust.

The tagline “Million Dollar Fold-Outs Who Never Hold Out!” for Cover Girl Models (1975) promises frolicking, salacious kicks. The Curio Santiago flick actually concerns American models in the Philippines mixing with spies in a plot filled with copious conspiracies and international espionage.

Following the success of her husband’s Nurse series, Julie Corman produced The Student Teachers (1973), which introduces a quartet of young teaching assistants and stirs into the plot one clown masked lunatic rapist, and Summer School Teachers (1974), which balances between stark dramatics (Dick Miller as a lecherous creep) and some honestly funny bits thanks to the always wonderful Candice Rialson.

The poster for Trip with the Teacher (1975) asks, “How far should a teacher go to protect her students?” When their bus breaks down in the desert, a fun field trip turns foul when two crazed bikers make the scene. Brutality ensues.

Angel Tompkins stars as The Teacher (1974), a story about a 28-year-old teacher and her affair with a neighbor boy. It seems like nothing but laughs and smiles until a psychotic creeper derails the tone of the picture.

I admit, nothing about an exploitative title like Kidnapped Coed (1976) sounds “fun,” but some viewers may have be put off some when they realized they were watching a tale of love! It also played under the more appropriate and more disturbing title Date with a Kidnapper.

In Cindy & Donna (1970), teen half-sisters Cindy, 15, and Donna, 17, share the same mom and experience their sexual awakenings in slightly disturbing fashion, culminating in an ending that hits you like an icy cold slap across the face.

Hitchhiking seems like a premise for fun-loving adventures, unless you’re a character in either Pick-up (1975) or Hitch Hike to Hell (1977). In the case of either, you’ll be trading in your smiles and laughter for torture, screams and hell on earth.

Best Friends (1975) starts off with friends taking a cross-country trek in a motor-home, only for tragedy to eventually catch up with these young lovers of fun. The cast includes Richard Hatch.

Blue Money (1972) concerns a married couple whose seemingly perfect relationship crumbles under the pressures of husband Jim’s job as a director of pornography. Persistent vice officers help Jim realize that loads of anything-goes sex and mountainous piles of money are poor substitutes for real happiness.

Crown International delivered plenty of family drama with naughty, title/poster-suggest-all pictures like The Stepmother (1972- with Claudia Jennings) and The Sister-in-Law (1974). As if the titles didn’t suggest enough taboo smashing entertainment, these films go dark fast and some characters end up on cold slab down at the Drive-in City Morgue.

Harry Novak and Box Office International Pictures knew their audience but on occasion, too much plot crept into their soft-core offerings. When this happened, magic was made. Case in point is the totally wacko Teenage Bride (1975). A young brother starts an affair with his older brother’s lonely wife. Insanity ensues. Not as grim as it could have been but trust me, there are plenty of hysterics and dramatics, in all their sweaty, hairy, pimply ’70’s grandeur.

Keenan Wynn’s hot, new, young trophy wife causes hell for his adult children that turns quickly to deceit and murder in the ridiculously entertaining A Woman for All Men (1975). Director Arthur Marks proves again he is a reliable exploitation scenarist in the same league as Jack Hill.

Gameshow Models (1976) seems like it should be a non-stop sexcapade, and this I-IP doctored version of the art film The Seventh Dwarf (1975) comes close, but it’s still about a hippie’s journey into the world of big business who becomes self-aware after losing it all. Dick Miller and Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith are featured in some of the new footage.

When the ’70s ended, this type of “drive-in drama” flick more or less mutated into teen sex comedies, late night cable soft-core or straight-up slasher movies. The stories were reshaped with some of the more outrageous story aspects now directed more toward cheap, gross-out laughs, mindless titillation and gory shocks.

One film, however, did manage to revive the spirit of these crazy flicks from the ’70s, with all the sleazy charm of a kidnapped student nurse abducted by an insane rodeo clown.

In 1987, writer-director-producer-star-editor-casting director and composer Richard Horian delivered the absolutely amazing Student Confidential. In the film Horian is a former business tycoon millionaire who now volunteers his time as an occasionally suicidal guidance counselor for troubled high school students. He weirdly pops into the lives of his young charges and “fixes” them, regardless of their personal tragedies. (“You say you have an ugly scar on your face and nobody likes you? Let’s get your hair done and completely cover your face so you can be confident and pretty again!”)

This film is so odd and strange and wonderfully wild that even Troma didn’t know how to best market it. During its initial theatrical release, Student Confidential received a half-hearted Class of 1984 style ad campaign, which really falls short in capturing the film’s true essence. (You wonder what audiences thought of it who bought a ticket based on that poster art.) The artwork for the DVD tease is a wonky National Enquirer-esque cover playing up some of the film’s virtues. Honestly, neither piece of art comes close to capturing the absolute gonzo delights this crazy “drive-in drama” offers.