Movie review – “Summer School Teachers” (1974) ***

Fun, bright, "three girls" film, produced by Julie Corman, who carved out a niche making these in the early 70s. (You can imagine Roger going "you're a woman Julie - you can do the TNA feminism epics".) It’s a variation of Student Nurses, with the three girls here teaching over summer, and is one of the best in the genre, if not the best.

This has the advantage of perhaps the prettiest, most likeable 70s exploitation star: girl next door Candice Rialson stars as a PE teacher who wants the girls to play football and comes up against a sexist male coach (Dick Miller, lending some wattage to the support cast). There are two other girls: Rhonda Leigh Fleming who has an affair with a student, a juvenile delinquent; and an art teacher (Pat Anderson, my other favourite 70s exploitation lead) who gets involved with another teacher and has a debate on pornography.

It’s high spirited and fun, a bit wonky in places (make that very wonky - you can see the boom in shot in one scene) but it flies along, with a lot of social comment (corruption, women sport, opportunity for women, etc) and a fun, climactic near-anarchic football game. The three leads are all very good looking and engaging, especially Rialson and Anderson.

I think it helps that the writer-director was a woman, Barbara Peeters, so the film feels like a screwball comedy rather than something sleazy. There is nudity – Rialson seduces a nerd teacher by a lake (and falls in), there is a more stylised sex scene involving Fleming which involves strobe lighting and ice cubes on the nipples (there's always a stylised sex scene in these films - there was an LSD one in The Student Nurses and a triply one in Candy Strip Nurses), and Anderson is nude a few times being photographed or lying in bed. But the women are in control, they do most of the seducing, stick up for each other, etc. - Anderson and Rialson seduce their guys, all three are confident and in control.

The messages are mostly positive – girls should be able to do whatever boys can do, physical fitness is good, corruption is bad. This is the best character Rialson ever played – she’s spunky, full of energy, fights for girl sports, encourages her fat neighbour to exercise, seduces the nerdy teacher because she likes him (Peeters isn’t afraid to show Rialson’s gut in this love scene), she loves her boisterous dumb brothers. Good fun - much better than The Student Teachers.