Warner Archive // Released October 12, 2010 // Rated R
The Pitch
Oceanfront High School student Ponce de Leon Harper (John David Carson) is obsessed with sex. Fortunately, he meets lots of girls. Unfortunately, they all end up dead.
Written and produced by post-Star Trek Gene Roddenberry, and directed by Roger Vadim (Barbarella), Pretty Maids All in a Row is an outrageous, head spinning, flower-powered dark comedy/sex comedy/ murder mystery that could only be produced in a decade like the 70s.
Playing a randy football coach, Rock Hudson headlines a top cast that includes Angie Dickinson as a sexy substitute teacher and Telly Savalas as a savvy homicide cop -sans lollipop. Sci-fi fans should look for appearances by Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes) as the High School Principal, and James Doohan (“Scotty” from Star Trek) as a State Trooper. If that’s not enough, imagine the film’s opening soundtrack featuring Chilly Winds, a song by the Osmonds. With everybody doin’ it in this whodunit, Pretty Maids all in a Row needs to be seen to be believed.
The Review
A film where beautiful women are not only insatiable, but also fully clothed, Pretty Maids All in a Row is a murder mystery/sex romp that is a departure for writer/producer Roddenberry’s television work. Teachers sleep with students, teachers kill students, maintain unusual mentorships with underclassmen and is nothing more than an obvious whodunnit comedy without laughs and certainly with enough T & A to definitively date it as a Seventies timecapsule.
Pretty Maids All in a Row has it’s faults, but it’s one of the quirkier, more unusual films that I’ve seen released from a major studio.
And thankfully, they were savvy enough to release it once again.
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