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Released by: Cheezy Flicks
Released on: October 25, 2011.
Director: Howard Avedis
Cast: Angel Tompkins, Jay North, Anthony James
Year: 1974
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The Movie:
Beautiful Angel Tompkins, probably best remembered for her turn opposite Lee Marvin in Michael Ritchie's Prime Cut (if not her appearances in Walking Tall II and Little Cigars!), plays a high school teacher named Diane Marshal whose husband is ever around and who obviously has a bit too much spare time on her hands. At all of twenty-eight years old, Diane is still plenty hot, something that isn't lost on Ralph Gordon (Anthony James), who has been stalking her for some time by driving around town after her in his big, black hearse! Meanwhile, one of Diane's students and Ralph's younger brother, Lou Gordon (Rudy Herrera, Jr.), has been snooping around a warehouse and peeping in at Diane from just outside the boathouse where she hangs out in her spare time. He and his pal, Sean Roberts (Jay North), find out that Ralph has been using that space to horde weapons and binoculars, which makes his obsession with Diane all of a sudden considerably more dangerous than it was before.
When the boys are interrupted by Ralph, who busts in on them with a bayonet while the pair is peering in on Diane sunbath partially nude, Lou falls over and winds up dead - completely by accident. Ralph flips out on Sean, who is smart enough to get the Hell out of there and it all just gets weirder from there as Diane's duties as a teacher take on a new vibe and Sean's mother, Alice Roberts (Marlene Schmidt), encourages them to hang out together, unaware that Diane is very much attracted to her son. While Sean and Diane get it on all over town, Ralph, who realizes Sean is the only witness to the accidental killing of his brother, becomes increasingly erratic in his behavior to the point where he poses a very real danger to both of them.
A strange mix of sexploitative drive-in thrills and harlequin romance style melodrama, The Teacher is a pretty entertaining cheapie with a good lead performance from the seductive Angel Tompkins in the female lead. She's more than just eye candy here, playing her part with some seriously seductive qualities, though the qualities that make us buy her in the part don't always translate to the rest of the cast. James is good as the nearly psychotic Ralph, he stalks Diane with creepy conviction and pops up in bizarre moments throughout the film, looking weird and acting weird and generally just giving off a weird vibe. Jay North, however, is just plain dopey. When Diane decides to finally make her move on him, there's no way on Earth any teenage boy would misinterpret her motives, yet his Sean just sits there blissfully ignorant of the vixen throwing herself at him right before his eyes. North made a much better Dennis The Menace than he did a horny teenager, but then, you can't really fault him for following the script.
Directed by Howard Avedis (as Hikmet Avedis) for drive-in kings Crown International, The Teacher moves at a good pace and plays off of the whole 'hot for teacher' fantasy so common in high school boys' perpetually horny psyches rather well. It doesn't get deep into the psychological side of things, but you don't really want it to. It does what it does well, playing with a sexually taboo subject and delivering all of the lurid thrills that the one sheet art promised with the salacious tagline 'She corrupted the youthful morality of an entire school!'
Video/Audio/Extras:
Cheezy Flicks offers up The Teacher in pretty rough shape. Sourced from a worn out VHS tape with awfully faded colors and consistent softness, it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to watch the movie in this type of condition when superior transfers from BCI aren't all that hard to track down. The screen caps don't lie, the movie doesn't look very good.
The audio is marginally better than the video, but it's still soft, poorly defined and periodically a little hard to understand. There's not much range here and things are more often than not rather flat sounding.
Extras include a static menu, chapter stops and a few bios for some of those who were involved with the making of the movie.
The Final Word:
The Teacher is a pretty cool little drive-in movie, offering up equal parts sexy thrills and wonky melodrama - it's definitely worth seeing if you dig on old seventies exploitation pictures, especially if you're a fan of the lovely Ms. Tompkins - this DVD isn't the way to do it, however. Track down one of the proper widescreen releases taken from a better source, you'll be glad you did.
