Cinematical

No doubt BCI/Navarre planned their Welcome to the Grindhouse line of DVD's assuming that Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse was going to be at least marginally successful. Sadly, that wasn't the case, but this series of disks still gives modern audiences a look at some schlocky exploitation fun from the 70s and 80s. BCI/Navarre has gotten hold of several films from Crown International, one of the bigger distributors from the hey day of the grindhouse/drive-in phenomenon, and is releasing them as double features peppered with vintage trailers. Viewers have the option of playing the features separately or choosing "Start The Grindhouse Experience" to play the entire double feature with trailers at the beginning and intermission.

The first feature is 1974's The Teacher, a trashy but entertaining look at a young man's coming of age. Grindhouse flicks were of course known for placing sensationalism above artistic merit, and The Teacher achieves that by featuring former child star Jay North (Dennis the Menace) in several R-rated sex scenes. Sean Roberts (North) and his friend Lou discover a cache of items belonging to Lou's brother Ralph (veteran character actor Anthony James) and stored in an abandoned warehouse.

The odd collection of guns, knives and diving gear doesn't interest our young heroes nearly as much as Ralph's binoculars which they use to spy on their teacher Diane Marshall (Angel Tompkins) who is sunbathing nearby. Ralph interrupts the two budding peeping toms, startling Lou so badly that he falls to his death from a high catwalk. Ralph is an unhinged Vietnam vet ("they should have kept him in that V.A. hospital," says Sean's mother) and in his eyes Sean has murdered his brother.

At this point the film takes a page from the Three's Company school of scriptwriting in that the plot would break down immediately if everyone would just stop acting like idiots. Sean doesn't tell the police he was present at Lou's death, and no one reports Ralph to the police despite the multiple instances of stalking, trespassing, attempted murder, etc. Instead, the film focuses on Sean's developing relationship with his beautiful teacher. Diane is ten years Sean's senior, but that doesn't stop his mother from practically throwing the two at each other.

Sean has just graduated and like any good 70's stud is spending the summer working on his van. Diane has recently decided to divorce her absentee husband. The two embark on a torrid affair that not only scandalizes the town but enrages Ralph who has been lusting for Diane from afar. It's easy to see why North's acting career stalled, but the relationship between the two characters has some touching moments, and Ms. Tompkins' gratuitous showers certainly don't hurt the film. Despite some dopey story elements, an ending that seems out of place and a theme song that will leave your mouth agape, The Teacher is a prime slice of cheese from the period and should sit well with fans of schlocky exploitation.

Pick-up from 1975 is a fitting co-feature, being just as willing to show some skin as The Teacher, but it also has an endearingly trippy nature. Two gorgeous hippie chicks hitch a ride from a young Adonis named Chuck (Alan Long) driving a fancy tour bus to a Florida destination for his employer. Maureen (Gini Eastwood), the moody dark-haired one, resists accepting the ride because Chuck is an Aries and Aries is in a time of turmoil. The impetuous and almost child-like Carol (Jill Senter) -- who is rarely seen without her raggedy looking stuffed animal -- convinces her friend to come along because she has eyes for Chuck. Several miles and a joint or two later, a series of detours force our heroes into a remote section of the Everglades where the bus gets stuck in the mud. Chuck doesn't seem too concerned, and he and Carol are soon treating this remote patch of wilderness like their own personal garden of eden, revelling, cavorting and just plain frolicking in a near constant state of nudity.

Maureen stays on the bus reading tarot cards and having flashbacks of being molested by a priest. The freakiness really starts to kick in when Maureen has a vision of being approached by a woman claiming to be the Priestess of Apollo. There's a mysterious alter in the woods that may or may not really exist, a political campaigner that appears from nowhere, and one freaky looking clown. It's weird and often nonsensical, but there's something about Pick-up that is fascinating. The film seems to have something worth saying, though I'll be damned if I can tell what it is, and the sexuality is so genuinely uninhibited that it keeps the film from crossing over into sleaze. Director Bennie Hirschenson served as his own cinematographer and he gives us a number of striking compositions -- I especially love the shots early in the film where Maureen's face is seen partially obscured by tall grass -- which makes it all the more unfortunate that he never directed another film. Likewise, none of the three leads have any other film or TV credits to speak of, though the movie has an unofficial Myspace page put together by a Pick-up fan who hopes to locate the cast.

The trailers include the likes of Van Nuys Blvd., The Wild Riders, The Pom Pom Girls and Weekend With the Babysitter (she came to sit with baby but ran away with daddy) all of which are Crown International flicks. That vintage 1970s color swirl intro is used to introduce both the trailers and the main feature, and oddly there is a bumper announcing the intermission that carries the watermark from Something Weird Video. I highly suggest you choose the option to view the double feature and trailers in their entirety as it's a pretty cool experience. There are only two disks in the Welcome to the Grindhouse line so far (the other features a delightfully obscure pair of European horror flicks), but I'm certainly hoping there will be more.