“Well, come on in a minute. I’m not gonna rape you.”
— So says Ms. Marshall to her student, Sean, as she washes her car, squiring her legs off with the hose

So, courtesy of the IMDb and Wiki — we’re saving you the digital trip — we know Howard Avedis graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master of Arts, where he also won the coveted George Cukor Award. But instead of being recruited by say, Universal or 20th Century Fox, he was recruited by . . .

Crown International Pictures. And no one escapes their Crown International Pictures fate. Not when your George Cukor award leads to filming suggestive scenes of nymphos with water hoses. The studio hired Avedis to write and direct the pseudo-Giallo murder thriller The Stepmother (1972) starring Latin sex symbol Alejandro Rey (Fun in Acapulco with Elvis Presley; the when-animals-attack classic The Swarm; TerrorVision). Next up in the Avedis-Crown contract was The Teacher, a film shot in 12 days for $65,000.

Okay, so . . . as you can see by the very cute and prim-and-proper Angel Tompkins (we kid you not: in another when-animal-attack flick, The Bees and, we kid you not, closing her career with a bit part in Micheal Fischa’s Crack House; which we review this week, so look for it), we’re in a grindhouse variant of the award-winning box office bonanza that was the Dustin Hoffman-starring The Graduate. Yep. Angel is our “Ms. Robinson” this time.

Now, I remember my parents getting dressed up to see the “dirty” The Graduate (read our review of Rage that gets into those bygone days of yesteryear when going to the movies was an “event”). Seriously, that 1967 romantic-comedy was a HUGE DEAL with its college student played by Dustin Hoffman seduced by — and having a sexual relationship — with Anne Bancroft. The Graduate was right up there with Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls, and Warren Beatty in Shampoo — in terms of being “dirty” because of its shedding the ’50s aesthetic and having “adult themes” that were, like The Teacher, branded “vulgar” and “lurid.”

Yeah, right. I watched all of those films years after the fact on VHS and was, well, bored by the films. I mean, they’re good films, but not the “shock” I was expecting. The same goes for all of those Golden Age of Porn films: yawn. This is it? So, if you take away the Mike Nichols restraint — and give his cougar Anne Bancroft a hose, and eliminate the iconic, artful “through the legs” shot and the memorable church scene of that film — you’d get The Teacher. Only, Tompkins, while enjoyable, ain’t no Bancroft and Jay North — while good here in his first adult film role — still ain’t no Hoffman. And Avedis, god love ’em, ain’t no Nichols.

And neither is our other, love struck (crazy) pup here: Anthony James. We are talking the go-to screen baddie of the ’70s from Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter and the forgotten ’70s apoc’er Ravagers. He was Malcolm McDowell’s right-hand heavy in the Roy Scheider helicopter flick, Blue Thunder. James is pure awesome. You need a sweaty psycho: call Anthony James. (We just lost James in May of last year.) And Uncle Howie knows this because he brought James back for the 1978 hicksploitation romp, Texas Detour (which we also reviewed this week, so look for it).

So, anyway . . . it’s the summer. And love is in bloom — and stalking, natch, has blossomed because, well, it’s Anthony James and he must stalk — the 28-year-old Diane Marshall (at the time of filming, James was thirty-two; he’s not a “teen” but the older brother to one). And one of his buds in on the leering is his brother’s fellow high school friend: Jay “Dennis the Menace” North. Bikini bathing on boats and strip-naked exercising, ensues — all watched from the comfort of an old warehouse down by the docks where James lives with his brother.

Now, before we go onward: a school teacher who can afford to live on a boat on the riverfront? How, on a teacher’s salary . . . well, because, if not, this film review would stop right here. And her drifter-dreaming husband doesn’t have the required two pennies to rub . . . but I digress. Well, wait. I also need to point out she lives in a nice Cali-style split-level with a shiny Corvette in the drive way (for a sexy-boner car wash). Now, I dated a couple of school teachers . . . and between the salary and the student debt, they either lived in a dump or a crackerbox or had a bitchy-bossy roommate that dissed me at every opportunity. So what’s the dealo, here? Is our fair-haired teacher a prostitute on the sly? Dealing drugs? Her hubby’s a drifting, ne’er-do-well bum. so he’s no help. . . .

I know, quit over thinking and just trip n’ fall into the plot holes and get on with the review.

So, in addition to James and North, their other horny little buddy — and James’s little brother — played by Rudy Herrera, Jr. (who did this and The Stepmother for Howard, then quit acting — at least on film), also has the hots for Ms. Marshall. And the trio fights over her. Well, see yahs later, Rudy: he goes over the warehouse railing to his death. Of course, this puts James’s Ralf Gordon and North’s Sean Roberts at romantic odds and sets up our needed “love triangle.” Of course, Ralf has the upper hand: he’ll tell the cops Sean murdered lil’ brother Louie.

Well, it seems no one is going to Scarborough Fair, for there is no scent of parsley, sage, rosemary, or thyme. And here’s to you Mr. Gordon and Mr. Roberts, for Ms. Marshall lusts after you more than you know. And Ms. Marshall needs a little Jesus more than she knows.

Yeah, that’s right: Ms. Marshall is not officially divorced yet. And when the ol’ drifter-hubby returns from his drifter excursions, she tells him she wants a divorce, because, well, she’s having fun playing these two emotionally immature ne’er-do-wells against each other — the type who, when they get upset, go for an old army bayonet, in short order. That’s this film: hoses and bayonets. And binoculars that our faux Ms. Robinson was aware of all along: for she’s a kitten with a whip, but she’s no Ann-Margret. Or Mamie Van Doren.

Regardless of the scathing press accusing CBS-TV’s Dennis the Menace star Jay North “bottoming out” in a (Golden Age of) porn film, The Teacher is in no way on the level of the works of producer Bill Osco, he the king of the “erotic art film,” aka porn, that launched the “Golden Age of Porn” and unleashed the likes of Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat and Marilyn “Rabid” Chambers in Behind the Green Door. Yeah, the grindhouse Golden Age’er The Devil in Miss Jones may have cleaned up at the box office the year before, but this Avedis entry is not the least bit “erotic” or “art” for that matter. Yeah, the repetitive grindhouse washout plays and VHS replays add that grainy, 8MM feel of the uploads on this — and there’s the cheesy “wah-wah” guitar n’ flute music that adds to the porn vibe — but it’s not a porn. So watch without the worries of having to Ivory out the eyeballs . . . or stuffing a dish towel down your frontside for any “accidents” of the tent-pitchin’ variety. Prop your popcorn box on your lap without concern — and watch with boredom.

Yeah, Hollywood sucks (no pun intended). And its critics and puritanical gossip columnists are worse. Jay North — again, who’s actually very good here; not Hoffman good, but decent — filled with high hopes at this attempt at an adulthood transition into films with The Teacher, wrapped up his career. He reappeared in two more projects: a 1980 TV movie Scout’s Honor and 1985’s Wild Wind (I’ve seen nor never heard of either) in small support roles. Today, after a stint in the U.S. Navy, he came to work as a counselor for the Florida Department of Corrections, a career he still holds today.

Here we go again! The copy of The Teacher we bookmarked to share was gone by the time we went to press. However, we found a copy on a new Tubi-styled free-with-ads stream service called FlixHouse — and it’s an app that can be downloaded though Amazon Prime and runs on your Android, Amazon Fire TV tablet, and Apple TV. However, you can also stream FlixHouse online on your PC or laptop without a download. It looks safe and legit to us. You can watch, HERE, on FlixHouse.

Oh, if you’re keeping track, Uncle Howie loves “affairs” in films, so be sure to check out They’re Playing with Fire and Separate Ways (that review is coming), the former with Sybil Danning, the latter with Karen Black. Just wow.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.

Editor’s Note: Thanks for joining us on our three-day “Drag Racing Week” tribute to the funny cars and rails speeding down the quarter mile during the ’60s and ’70s. Let’s wrap it up with this bioflick on the two biggest stars of the sport. Search for “Drag Racing Week” to find ’em all.

Don “The Snake” Prudhomme and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen were gods to the wee-lads of the ’70s. I was, myself, funny car crazy, with centerfold tear outs of “The Snake and The Mongoose” on my walls, right alongside magazine rips of champion motorcrosser Roger De Coster. I had the draggin’ duo’s matching Hot Wheels cars. I had their respective model kits: both funny and rail. When the ABC Wild World of Sports held one of Prudhomme and McEwen’s drag or funny car races on a Saturday afternoon, the neighborhood streets cleared: everyone sat in front of the TV. In terms of asphalt sports idols, The Snake and Mongoose were matched only by Richard Petty and Evel Knievel. They were the “Muhammad Ali” of racing. Everyone loved them.

But why did Hollywood never produce a film about the famed racers? Well, they did, finally, or you wouldn’t be reading this review. But it’s not the film an ol’ racing fan, such as myself, wanted. I expect this from a dramatic B-Movie dragger of the Crown International variety, like Burnout. But not this.

Now, you think those battling asphalt warriors would be ripe — like daredevil cyclist Evel Knievel, who had not one, but two movies about his life: the first, Evel Knievel (1971), starred George Hamilton; the second (and worse) dramatization, Viva Knievel (1977), starred Evel as himself — for a ’70s era theatrical film. Drag racing was so hot, so hip, and so trendy, the industry pumped out the early ’70s documentaries Funny Car Summer, Wheels of Fire, Wheels on Fire, and Seven Second Love Affair, and dramatic pieces, such as Drag Racer. Even exploitation coming-of-age drive-in flicks, such as the The Young Graduates, which wasn’t even about drag racing, tossed in a drag racing subplot to get us rubber-burning fans into the speaker and mosquito coil farm. Even George Lucas tossed in a drag racing subplot in the box office flounder that is More American Graffiti. If Elvis hadn’t gotten out of film, we probably would have gotten a hip swingin’ drag racing film — complete with Prudhomme, McEwen, Muldowney, and Garlits cameos — to go with his stock car racing flick trio of Viva Las Vegas, Spinout, and Speedway.

You’d also think that after producing a hit film about Shirley Muldowney (Bonnie Bedelia), the First Lady of Drag Racing and the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) — and even having “Big Daddy” Don Garlits (Billy McKinney) portrayed — in the film Heart Like a Wheel (1983), Hollywood would have responded with an ’80s theatrical film. Not even after David Cronenberg gave us the 1979 drag drama, Fast Company.

Nope. Denied again.

Instead: We got this years-too-late-TV movie (with a limited, 20-city theatrical release that failed to catch a box office upwind) starring Jesse Williams (star of TV’s Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19) as Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, and Richard Blake (guest roles on TV’s NCIS: Los Angeles and CSI: Crime Scene Investigations) as Tom “Mongoose” McEwen. Rounding out the cast are the always serviceable TV faces of Noah Wyle (who, I always felt should have been on the A-List with his fellow ER castmate, George Clooney) and the always game for-anything-the-SyFy Channel-throws-at-him, Ian Ziering. Also on deck are the always on point Tim Blake Nelson, Fred Dryer, and John Heard.

As you can see from the trailer, it’s all put together well enough. But this is a TV movie, after all, and it’s not Days of Thunder starring Tom Cruise. So, there’s lots . . . and lots . . . of stock footage spliced into the film — which was the same production weakness that plagued those Evel bio-flicks all those years ago. Honestly, if I wanted to watch old, classic clips of the races, I can pull those up on You Tube, ad nauseam. If I am pulling up a pop corn bucket, you have to give me more than old ABC Wild World of Sports clips in what ends up as a companion piece to the lightweight Disney Channel drag racing bio, On the Right Track (which, again, is serviceable enough, but it is an against-the-budget cable flick with TV actors). Even updated CGI cars would have been better serving than grainy ’70s clips. At least the CGI draggin’ would have matched to the rest of the dramatic footage.

But if you need a quick way to get down and dirty into the tale of the mutual friendship (and fake rivalry) and marketing brilliance of two guys — who put this kid on a hook and took him for several hundred laps on the bright orange track — then this is worth your time. It’s a serviceable B-Movie that, while too late to the track, it — finally — gets is all on record. (All the Hot Wheels images of the Snake and Mongoose you can handle are a Goggle click away.)

If Hollywood only made this bio-racer during the prime of Tom Cruise and George Clooney as the Snake and Mongoose, we’d have something special.

Oh, well. Que rubber, oil.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Credits: Poster Banner Top: All courtesy of Garage Art Signs. Center: Left (Lions): Binnza Henzhi Amazon, (Big Daddy) 1-79 Supersport Tumblr. Poster Banner Bottom: From Left, courtesy of American Hertiage USA, Garage Art Signs, Landis Publication Etsy, Repo Racing Posters.

Wheels On Fire is a classic motor sports documentary — and also one of the most obscure and hard-to-find (as you can see, it’s even impossible to find a decent image of the theatrical one-sheet). But not in the land of Oz, since this was filmed in Liverpool, Sydney. This one kicks ass because of — before there were web-cam and fiber optics — has the first ever “race cam” strapped onto the drag car, which takes you behind the wheel at speeds above 300 kilometers (miles in the States) per hour.

Again, this one is near impossible to track down on VHS and DVD — and the DVDs are grey market VHS-rips. And there’s no trailer or clips. But if you have a family or friend connection in Australia, or you’ll willing to search that country’s online marketplace, you may get lucky finding hard and digital copies to purchase or stream.

And caveat emptor: Do not confuse Wheels On Fire from Australia with the U.S. drag racing documentary Wheels of Fire (1972).

We previous featured this film as part of our weekly “Drive-In Friday” feature.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Editor’s Note: We first encountered this lost ’70s teensploitation romp on February 7, 2021, when we reviewed it as part of Mill Creek’s B-Movie Blast 50-Film Pack. Since it has rails, we’re bringing it back for our “Drag Racing Week” tribute to those rails of the ’60s and ’70s running the quarter mile.

Sam, the Chief Cook and Bottle Washer and Mix Master of Movie Themed Drink for B&S About Movies, is scary-psychic when it comes to my writing assignments. I don’t recall Dennis Christopher and Bruno Kirby ever popping up in conversation . . . Sam, how do you do it? It’s like my head is a Magic 8-Ball and you give it a shake. . . . It’s like Christmas!

Anyway . . . this why I love Mill Creek box sets — in this case, their B-Movie Blast 50-Film Pack — as it gives me a chance to see a movie that I never heard of, or seen. Yes . . . even with the Den and the Kirb in the house, so I don’t know how this one slipped by me. Sure, I’ve seen my fair share of ’70s soft-sexploitation flicks and T&A coming-of-age romps (but beware of advertising department scams) but this one . . . I don’t recall ever seeing The Young Graduates on a home video self. And, based on the college chick (What, high school?) showing off some strappy-sandals leg, along with the dune buggies, cycles, and rails . . . and that Crown International logo, well, what’s not to likey, here?

Now, you know how we are about particular actors ’round the B&S About Movie cubicles, right? In this case, for moi, I was into this lost drive-in ditty from the get, as it features early starring roles for two of my favorite actors: Dennis Christopher (Fade to Black and the really cool 10-Speed romp Breaking Away) and Bruno Kirby (How is Almost Summer not on a Mill Creek set? But, you know Bruno best from City Slickers and Good Morning, Vietnam). See? All actors have to start somewhere — and sometimes it has to be a Crown International flick.

Will you just look at Dennis! He’s just a kid, for gosh sakes! Yep, 16!, and he went on to appear nearly 40 movies and made-for-TV flicks since this debut (he was also in the proto-slasher Blood and Lace that same year). And Quentin? Well, he obviously knows both of Dennis’s 1971 debuts from his video clerkin’ days, so the Q recruited Dennis as Leonide Moguy in Django Unchained. Oh, and Dennis is such a stoner dude that his name is “Pan,” and not a more stoner name there be.

Anyway, while Bruno was a bit older, at 22, he was still able to play “young,” as a high schooler seven years later — at 29 — in, again, one of my favorite of his films, Almost Summer. But I’ll always also remember Bruno for The Harrad Experiment (which, in spite of the title, is not a horror film, but a coming-of-age drama led by James Whitmore and Tippi Hedren . . . with a babe-in-the-woods Don Johnson). Then there’s Bruno’s oft-aired HBO favorite, Baby Blue Marine with Jan-Michael Vincent (that also needs a Mill Creek bow).

Oops. I digress with the Charmin squeezin’ over the actors I dig.

This is loaded with mini-dressed dancing chicks, hippes in flower-power vans, wah-wah psychedelic guitars, and drag-racing rails, hippie chicks, doobies and roach clips, squares in suits and ties who want to be engineers, and those teens who just want to dropout and ride their motor scooters. Truth: When it comes to errant draggin’ rails in a film, I choose The Young Graduates over More American Graffiti — even though the later is clearly the better made film, because the former is the more entertaining film.

Rompin’ through this Partridge Family-cum-Easy Rider-lite world is the requisite sort-of-bad girl, Mindy, who’s like an early version of a romantically confused, can’t-make-her-mind Rachel Green with her endless I-hate-Ross-I-love-Ross insanity. Here, Mindy’s dilemma is between her decent, educated boyfriend Bill or her hunky married-but-he’s-so-hot teacher.

Oops. She’s hot for teacher and the rabbit just hopped in: Mindy’s pregnant. And how does she deal? Well, she runs away with her bestie, Sandy, on motorbike ride to Big Sur, California.

Only in the B&S Movie-verse.

You can get this from Mill Creek on their B-Movie Blast 50-Film Pack, but we found a copy on You Tube and an extended teaser on You Tube. Mill Creek also carries the film on their “The Swingin’ Seventies” 50 Film Pack.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

George Lucas, who directed the original American Graffiti, wanted to make a sequel. However, Gary Kurtz and Francis Ford Coppola, who produced that film, talked Lucas out of it because, in their opinion, “sequels weren’t well received.” So Lucas vested his time on Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Lucas should have listened: for he ended up with another Howard the Duck.

For his writer and director, Lucas picked Bill L. Norton, who gave us one of the best, if not the best, of the CB trucker romps of the ’70s — as well as one of the best films based on a song*, Convoy. And the Smokey and the Bandit knock off**, Outlaw Blues, with Peter Fonda was pretty good.

Besides, this will work because Ron Howard, Cindy Williams and Harrison Ford — who were nobodies when the first movie was released and now big stars as result of their respective TV and film successes — were returning to do the sequel.

Lucas should have heeded the words of Kurtz and Coppola.

Also on board from the original are Candy Clark, Paul Le Mat, Mackenzie Phillips, (our beloved) Bo Hopkins, and Charles Martin Smith (of the “No False Metal Classic” Trick or Treat). Richard Dreyfuss, who had Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind under his belt, knew enough to stay away from this critical bomb that, while it make $15 million against its $3 million budget, is still considered a box office flop.

Set over the course of four consecutive New Year’s Eves from 1964 to 1967, the viewer is tossed to and fro from Woodstock to Vietnam to Haight-Asbury, and protests and draft card burning — and Steve and Laurie’s perpetual bickering as their marriage fails (proving why Cindy Williams vanished after TV’s Laverne and Shirley and Howard, wisely, went into directing. Their scenes are just painful to watch). Rewatching this — well, skimming — to review was not enjoyable and the last time I’ll ever look at it. The old Woodstock-era split-screen narrative technique (if you’re familiar with that 1970 concert document) is annoyingly dated in 1979.

Ah, but why we are here — if you haven’t guess by the theatrical one-sheets and our theme week — is the drag racing. In this case, Paul Le Mat’s John Milner — who, it turns out, didn’t die in an insinuated car crash during the word-on-screen epilogue of American Graffiti: he became a struggling drag racer. The scenes (we care about) were shot at the since long gone (it’s a car dealership, of all things) Fremont Raceway, later known as Baylands Raceway Park, (before it being torn down) in Fremont, California.

Luckily, for us, it’s all original shot footage and not cheap-jacked film clips from other sources. But the shot-for-the-film dragging doesn’t help, here. This is a boring film. Drag Racer and Burnout from Crown International Pictures — with their mutual stock footage drag inserts — are more entertaining, since they’re about drag racing and not treating the racing as subplot fodder. Where’s my copy of David Cronenberg’s drag romp, Fast Company?!

More American Graffiti is easy to find in the online marketplace on vintage VHS and LaserDiscs. It finally came out on DVD in 2003 as a single release and as a double feature disc with American Graffiti in 2004. It hit streaming platforms in 2011, Blu-ray (Europe only) in 2012, and eventually in the U.S. on Blu-ray in 2018. Here’s scene-clips to enjoy on You Tube and You Tube.

The four-sided double album is easily found on CD and worthy, unlike the film it promotes, of your purchase.

Oh, and Sam the Bossman offers his take on the film because, anyone who is connected to the majesty that is Messiah of Evil — in this case, Bill L. Norton, who acted in that Lucas-Star Wars sidebar – – always needs another take. Always, as guys Bill L. Norton is what B&S About Movies is all about!

* Join us for our “Movies Based on Songs” featurette.

** Join us for our blow out on the good ol’ boy craze of the ’70s with our “The Top 70 Good Ol’ Boys Film List 1972 1986” featurette.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.