Sunday, July 05, 2009

Movie review – “The Teacher” (1974) * (warning: spoilers)

It takes a special film to combine the two most basic exploitation plots – a teacher having an affair with a younger student, and a stalker – to produce a dud film. The title character is admittedly hot – she’s perved upon by some young men, one of whom falls to his death doing so. He was surprised by a psycho pervert, who blames the survivor and threatens to kill him if he tells the police what happens. The survivor is then seduced by the teacher.

The music is that combination of guitar and flute that you hear in 70s movies and TV shows. Marquee value is provided by Jay North, TV’s Denis the Menace. The psycho is a familiar actor from rapists. Quinn O’Hara has a small role as do the mothers of John Cassavetes and Gina Rowlands

Remarkably bad shot composition – in one scene by the pool water gets on the lens. The acting is poor and the running time is padded with shots of cars driving, bicycles riding, and walking from A to B. There’s not even decent sex scene – the kid never seems like he penetrates. Utterly illogical – there is no good reason not to call the police.

The most hilarious scene is when the teacher and the student are on a boat and the stalker get changed into his frogman outfit to stalk them. One shock is the death of the kid – I genuinely didn’t see that coming. But generally this is poor.

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