NEW WORLD PICTURES MONTH: Summer School Teachers (1974)

Barbara Peeters directed and wrote one of the better of the Corman “occupation” films with this movie, which was produced by Julie Corman. It’s a simple story: three girls leave Iowa for a California summer and we watch the way their lives are changed.

Like Sally (Pat Anderson, Bonnie’s KidsFly Me). She came out here to teach photography and misses her fiancee back home, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t date a whole bunch of men like a former rock star who now works in a grocery store because of his food fetish and another teacher who takes her to the Pussycat Theater and then shoots nudes of her. Sally also hooks up with a movie star named John John Lacey who is Michael Greer from Messiah of Evil.

Or Denise (Rhonda Leigh Hopkins). She gets involved in the life of one of her students when he steals a car. Well, she sleeps with him too, so maybe she’s not the best teacher.

The star, however, is Conklin (Candice Rialson, Moonshine County Express). She decides to coach a girl’s football team despite the men’s coach (Dick Miller) standing in her way.

There’s always a trade-off in the Corman occupation films. The best of them — like this one — present a world where women can compete and defeat entrenched male power structures. However, they all are filled with mostly female nudity. That said, in this film, Rialson’s character chooses the man she loves, a geeky teacher many would pass by, and she’s in complete ownership of her body.

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