Reviews

One of the most politically incorrect films of all time, Pretty Maids All In a Row is easily Roger Vadim's most audacious film. Scripted by Gene Roddenberry it focuses on the strange happenings taking place at a California high school. To better understand this film, you need to know more about Roger Vadim. He was by all accounts a unrepentant womanizer. He wrote not just one, but two books concerning his love affairs with Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Annette Atroyberg, and Jane Fonda. The filmmaker practically invented the modern day sex film in 1956 with And God Ceated Woman. In 2005, Jane Fonda went public with allegations claiming that Vadim forced her to have threesomes with other women.

Director Roger Vadim obviously loved women. The way the camera takes in the female form in this film shows that this guy truly enjoyed this cast of beautiful high school girls who are dropping out of school in the most unfortunate manner: they are being murdered. The first body is found by student Ponce. He discovers the nude body in the boy's washroom. After discovering the body we are introduced to the detective assigned to the case as well as an amoral guidance counselor named Tiger (played by Rock Hudson) who also happens to be sleeping with his students in his office.  The investigation goes and we discover that the murdered girls happened to be sleeping with Tiger. Despite of all the heat pressure placed on him, Tiger doesn't seem worried that he'll get caught. He continues coaching the football team, eventually setting Ponce up with a sexy new teacher (Angie Dickinson), and of course carrying on affairs with the students. 

In his autobiography, Vadim recalled the casting of the students in Pretty Maids All in a Row: "...I had auditioned over two hundred boys and about the same number of girls. Most of the girls who applied in the roles of high school alumni were aspiring actresses, though some were local students who merely found the whole thing amusing." For a man recovering from love sickness (Jane Fonda had just divorced Vadim), this succession of young teenage and college age beauties was intoxicating. Vadim specifically ordered the wardrobe department to dress the girls in micro skirts and tight fitting shirts. Notably, a good portion of them aren't wearing bras. Vadim films these young ladies, many of which appear to be underage, in a method that is so unapologetically sexual that you'll soon understand why this film will likely never appear on DVD. With pedophilia being such a hot topic in today's society, no film company wants to risk being accused of exploiting minors by releasing this on DVD.

With its nonstop leering shots of teenage body parts and seemingly giddy portrayal of sexual relationships between adults and children, does Pretty Maids All in A Row seem like a celebration of pedophilia? Uh, the correct term is 'ebephophilia' which means 'love of adolescents'. I guess it's a matter of opinion. When I first viewed this film as a teen, the director's constant zooming in on the breasts and buttocks of female high school students was a bit shocking, but had a point to it. I mean, high school is a particularly sexualized place being that many students are entering in relationships for the first times in their lives. Then I read a movie review about how Pretty Maids All in A Row may have been the most widespread female-kiddie-porn film ever seen. The slow, misty shots of the braless pubescent girls in their micro skirts were far too prevalent to be incidental. When I saw this movie again, this time in my late 20s, I had no problem understanding the reviewer's point of view. For example, the opening scene of this movie consists of a closeup of a pair of butts belonging to two female classmates of Ponce. These two, who look barely 18, show up randomly during this movie, and every scene they are in, the camera is fixated so closely on their mini skirts that it's laughable. I can find no reason for so pointlessly including these two girls in the movie other than for the director to showcase their gorgeous bodies with series of gratuitous shots of their crotches and rears. It seems all quite juvenille. Still, I don't think anyone should not see this film just because director Vadim can't go two minutes without fetishizing a sea of young female bodies.

To better understand all the blatant voyeurism directed towards these girls, remember that this is an American movie made with a European mentality. The European school of film-making seems to approach the entire feminine image in a different sense than the Americans do; the female body is perceived to be a work of art in itself, that it is graceful, elegant, beautiful and sensual, an aesthetic object with erotic power. Presenting it in the proper manner makes one marvel instead of blushing and turning away--that seems to be the attitude this director takes, and it causes the frequent nudity in the film to be not so much dirty, obscene, and debaucherous, as being instead a presentation of a thing of beauty.

The acting in Pretty Maids is first-rate. The cast is by far the film's strongest asset. These are all truly courageous performers, and the acting is so good, it's scary. The standouts are probably Rock Hudson and John David Carson. Not surprisingly, Telly Savalas as a Kojak-style detective steals every scene he is in. Angie Dickinson is great, but I was distracted by her aesthetic qualities.

Pretty Maids is a good movie that has quite a few shocking moments. It's quite implausible and uneven, but I recommend seeing it. It's one of those movies where you just HAVE to see it, you know? Not because it's some great masterpiece of cinema, but because there's a lot there to talk about. Check it out.

I threw this on one night when I still wasn't tired, thinking it would be total schlock and I would just get a quick sense of it before falling asleep. What a surprise, then, when it turned out to be creepy and artistic and deeply disturbing; just the way I like it; and I knew that I would have to devote a second viewing just to examine it in greater detail. Savage Weekend is one of the most innovative horror films ever made as far as I'm concerned. It might come across as a bit uneven to some viewers, but really it's better than average in many ways. Although filmed in America with an American cast and crew, one might assume this was a European film if you watched it without the sound. This was deliberate on the directors part. He gives his movie a European style, and it only makes the film seem more artistic and potent.

The story of Savage Weekend is inspired and suspenseful. Rich New York City businessman Robert decides to take his fiancée Marie and three of their friends upstate to his vacation home to relax. Everyone seems to be enjoying their time resting, drinking and enjoying each other's company. This good time is spoiled by the appearance of a masked killer who begins stalking and then bothering the vacationers one by one.

First-time writer-director David Paulsen spends nearly a full hour on set-up, a risky proposition that might have grown tedious if it weren't for the unhurried care and mounting intrigue he brings to this elongated opening act. By concentrating on the charms and realism of his characters and their naturalistic, laid-back relationships with each other, the crucial turn toward mortal danger means a great deal more to the viewer. And, when one of them meets an abrupt, premature end, you feel their loss after wards. Once Savage Weekend makes a sudden turn toward sheer panic and terror, director David Paulsen aims squarely for the jugular. As deliberately paced as the first hour is—essential to making the visceral impact Paulsen wants to in the last third—the last thirty minutes are tightly edited, graphically violent in rattlingly unexpected ways, and breathlessly intense. In a change of events for the genre, the four protagonists do the smart thing at all times, their minds always working in logical ways that fit their horrific situation. In turn, their deaths do not arise out of their own stupidity, but because their dire circumstances prove impossible to overcome.

The direction in this movie is never anything but innovative and exciting. Take the scenes with the local psycho Otis, played by none other than William Sanderson. I was shocked at how vividly Paulsen captures Otis' insanity in the scenes where he is seen talking to himself. They might seem annoying to some, but those scenes were the most memorable for me, as they actually brought back memories. I spent 3 fun-filled years back in college working in a State Mental Hospital while going to school full-time. A lot of the folks I was dealing with, and I normally dealt with the "cream of the crop", often mumbled - a lot. It was like they were really not having a conversation with anyone that "we" could see, so they did not care if "we" could hear them. Paulsen also shows some amazing skill dispaying sexual tension in the scene in which Marie is sunbathing on a boat with two male companions. The two men are engaging in a coversation when we are suddenly shown a closeup of Marie's inner thighs. The camera then zooms slowly over her body to great effect.

I have never read a review of Savage Weekend that didn't mention the film's graphic sexuality. Here we have Marie having sex with Jay twice, Shirley having sex with Robert, Marie having sex with Greg, Shirley sunbathing nude, Marie making out with Mac, Marie rubbing herself in front of Mac and Jay, and Robert tearing Shirley's bikini off. Many reviews have stated that Savage Weekend's frequent sexual distractions were unnecessary and childish. I see it differently. We actually have significant character development taking place during the numerous sex scenes. For example, Marie can't have sex with Jay without fantasizing about being with her estranged husband, Greg. This obsession with Greg causes her to later turn down a sexual encounter with Mac. Shirley is shown to be a particularly reckless woman through her sexual behavior in this film. She thinks nothing of having sex with Robert in the middle of a field during broad daylight.

I was completely gripped by this movie while watching it. The combination of total weirdness, striking photography, constant scary tension based around what the killer is going to do next, and the vague off-kilter nature of it due to its subject matter made this one unforgettable film. It's a shame that the director never went on to direct anymore films following this. He spent the rest of his career in television, where his considerable talents were put to somewhat lesser use. Now that it has finally been released on DVD, I see the audience for this film to grow exponentially. See it and be prepared to carry images from this movie around for a long time.