Pretty Maids all in a Row

After 1968, when the movie ratings system replaced the old Production Code, going to the movies could be a liberating experience. We had been shocked when Steve McQueen said the word ‘bullshit’ in Bullitt — would the police turn the house lights up and ask everyone to leave the theater?  Most of us first heard the F- word in Robert Altman’s  M*A*S*H . And it was funny.

I remember being surprised when pictures with integrity crossed lines that hadn’t been crossed before …  Midnight Cowboy,  Medium Cool.  It seemed like anything was possible. Were the serious movies really more adult, proving how sheltered we had been?  Just how much of a prude was I?

A lot of embarrassing junk came out as well. Hollywood really wanted to be hip and sexy, and since nobody knew what would hit big, all bets were off. Russ Meyer was invited to Fox to see if his nude escapades could go mainstream, along with a couple of other X-rated adult satires. They failed to revolutionize the screen with daring new content.

In November 1968, former Stanley Kubrick producer James B. Harris was announced to direct an adaptation of Francis Pollini’s book, but MGM’s incoming production chief James T. Aubrey changed everything around. Pretty Maids All in a Row would be the first theatrical screenplay for Gene Roddenberry, the creator of TV’s Star Trek. The director would be the French filmmaker Roger Vadim, whose reputation at the time was for starring his wives in sexy movies — Brigitte Bardot, Annette Stroyberg, and most recently Jane Fonda. The bold New Hollywood film celebrating the new freedom of the screen would be made by three very active ladies’ men.

As adapted by Roddenberry, Pretty Maids is tawdry sexploitation but with name stars, produced by a prestigious studio. According to biographer Mark Farinas, Francis Pollini’s novel is the similar, except with much more smut. Even before the Code was abandoned, big stars and directors had been making films that pushed the limits; the unpleasant angle with Pretty Maids is that all of the sex is between adult authority figures and under-aged teens. The celebrated playwright George Axelrod had made an oversexed high school comedy called  Lord Love a Duck, but it was a genuine satire on California’s lifestyle weirdness. Thirty years later, Alexander Payne would write and direct the excellent  Election, a frank but reasonable look at a number of high school issues, including sex. By contrast, Pretty Maids plays as a crude farce, a sex fantasy for dirty old men.

When new, the immediate word of mouth for the show was that it was very stupid but it had an Angie Dickinson nude scene. As a marketing hook, that made sense … by 1971 plenty of failed neighborhood theaters were now showing unrated porn.

Oceanfront High School is attended by clueless boys who play football and nubile girls with sex on the brain. Sexy new teacher Betty Smith (Angie Dickinson) ‘can’t help’ but excite student Ponce de Leon Harper (John David Carson), who is so hung up with sex cravings that he can’t function. Fleeing the classroom, Ponce discovers a dead female classmate in the next toilet stall. Flustered Principal Proffer (Roddy McDowall) summons police chief Poldaski (Keenan Wynn), who brings in Captain Sam Surcher (Telly Savalas). The investigation begins.

The murder mystery is no mystery to the audience. We quickly learn that the killer is counselor and football coach ‘Tiger’ McDrew. The popular McDrew has a loving home with a wife (Barbara Leigh) and child, but he also uses his closed-door psych test sessions to have sex with female students. All seem delighted & fulfilled … but those that threaten to talk end up dead. Tiger takes Ponce under his wing, to help him become more self-confident. Betty Smith comes on to Tiger right away, but he apparently prefers underaged partners, and suggests that she instead seduce Ponce, to relieve his ‘sex blockage.’ Meanwhile, Captain Sucher observes the loose sexual attitudes on campus. He finds no direct evidence that Tiger is the murderer … but young Ponce does.

Roger Vadim’s main directorial choice is to repeatedly zoom to female butts and breasts. Young Ponce is a cheap sex joke, and the film’s ‘maids’ are objectified bonbons seemingly ready to get it on with anyone who asks. Tiger gives morale speeches to his football players but also directs a theater group, and preaches that sexual liberation is the answer to all society’s hang-ups. As was noted by more than one critic, Vadim punctuates one of McDrew’s sex encounters by cutting to the school’s lawn sprinklers, squirting promiscuously in all directions.

Roddenberry’s comedy writing is witless, dismal. Keenan Wynn’s idiot police chief arrests a black student as if by reflex, a joke about racist cops that doesn’t come off. Telly Savalas’ Captain keeps busting Wynn down to traffic cop duty, ha ha. When confronted by dead female teens, Savalas, Wynn and McDowall consistently change the subject to the status of Tiger’s football team, yuk yuk. Wynn catches Tiger with a half-naked girl in his car in the school parking lot, and still wants to talk sports. There’s nothing going on here but a leering emphasis on teen flesh.

The direction is determined to objectify the girls. When they are alive, Vadim is forever looking up their skirts, and when dead their bodies are left in humiliating positions, with sarcastic notes pinned to their underwear. Vadim really goes for shots of happy Maids getting it on with Rock Hudson. It’s all soft-core stuff, given an unsavory edge with the jail-bait angle. The Maids’ dialogue is limited to come-on lines and other responses focusing on men and sex. That the actresses are obviously not themselves underage doesn’t excuse anything. The movie makes lame jokes about the sexual exploitation of minors.

We can see that Pretty Maids was filmed at a real Los Angeles high school, University High on the West side. Was the school blindsided as to the nature of the show?  Things were very different back in 1971.

The seduction encounters between student Ponce and Dickinson’s teacher Miss Betty are truly slimy. As if enacting scenes from Playboy cartoons, Betty reacts to his erection as if some miracle had occurred, and gives him a bath. It doesn’t come off as boundary-pushing liberation, or a statement of some hidden truth. It’s just an asinine spectacle, that we wouldn’t look twice at if actors like Ms. Dickinson weren’t involved.

Angie Dickinson had been around Hollywood for twenty years and was perfectly capable of managing her roles and career choices without being exploited. Her first push for leading lady stardom had stalled out eight years before. Jane Fonda had filmed nude for Vadim in  Barbarella, and her fortunes were rising. A sexy image didn’t hurt Dickinson, either. Three years later she would begin the Police Woman TV series that would keep her on top.

Lalo Schifrin and Mike Curb’s opening song is sung by Donny and Marie Osmond. I have no opinion about it or the Osmonds, but found an articulate blogger named  Kim Simpson who does. And Mark Farinas’ worthy article also catalogs many Roddenberry / Star Trek connections felt in this picture.