The Student Body

I've only actually seen this film because it was part of the 'Dupe Troop Summer' (long story). However, for a low budget, no audience kind of film it has a few bright spots. The scene where one of the girls starts to turn into a penguin and flaps around in a swimming pool is most amusing.

This here is a perfect example of seventies drive-in sleaze. up to my review it isn't available on DVD. You can find it on a double feature VHS but it doesn't go cheap on the web. Still, the copy I have is still in excellent condition. No extra hiss or scratches or damaged tape. Lucky to have such copy. But was I lucky to see it, well, it's a good story and I was surprised about the excellent filming and even editing. But of course the director Gus Trikonis became a famous director of television series the best known, Baywatch. So you can see that he had it to make it. Even the cast in this flick went further into the business and it shows also because they all act pretty well. But naturally, it's drive-in style so nothing really happens, you got 3 girls which are really bad ones in jail so they are send to some kind of farm were they get involved in experiments. They have to take drugs so from nasty girls they become really nasty girls. There is a bit of nudity in it, a catfight in a penitentiary, and some fights. But it's funny to see it all just for the hairstyles and the clothes. So 70's. If you collect grindhouse or exploitation than you must have it, because some actors and the director made it in the scene. But for me it lacked a bit of sleaze, yes, the fountain was sleazy but still, I have seen better drive-in's. My version clocked in at 86 minutes and not as stated on IMDb as 76 minutes...

As part of an experiment, 3 beautiful female prison inmates named "Carrie" (Jillian Kesner), "Chicago" (Janice Heiden) and "Mitzi" (June Fairchild) are transferred from prison to a college with the stipulation that they undergo an intensive rehabilitation program there. Part of the program involves taking a new experimental drug to inhibit their aggressive natures. What they don't know is that the person in charge of the program, "Dr. Blalock" (Warren Stevens) has accepted a $150,000 bribe to administer the new drug without authorization of any kind. At any rate, rather than reveal the rest of the plot I will just say that this film represents standard drive-in movie fare during a time when the drive-in theaters in America were rapidly losing business. Unable to compete with indoor movie theaters to acquire first-run movies, the drive-ins had to settle for whatever they could get their hands on. This typically involved B-movies and low-budget exploitation films. For what it's worth though, this particular film wasn't too bad all things considered. Even so, I rate it as slightly below average overall.

This starts out as a WIP film with three female convicts getting in a brawl in a prison laundry room. Afterwards, the fed-up warden decides to send them to a special experimental program at the local college, after which they'll be completely released. If this sounds like a bad idea, it gets worse--the real intention of the program is to experiment on them with a dangerous psychotropic drug. Of course, as is typical for these movies, the three girls are much more meant to be scrumptious pieces of tail than they are to be remotely believable as hardened criminals. The trio quickly make all the other girls on campus jealous, and the lead (Jillian Kessner) becomes involved with the son of the corrupt professor heading the experiment (much to the dismay of the latter since he kind of has a thing for her himself). After a (kind of) wild pool party where everyone gets naked, the effects of the drugs kick in, and the movie starts to get enjoyably ridiculous.

Under the effects of the drug, the Kessner character ends up becoming a VERY serious student, who punctuates her points by hurling an ashtray at the wall. The character "Chicago" (Maria Heiden), who was a nymphomaniac to begin with, actually tries to rape a guy and beats his girlfriend when she tries to intervene. Most hilarious though is the third girl "Mitzi" (June Fairchild) who is VERY obsessed with penguins as the result of having been molested by a priest. Obviously, this is highly implausible (since when do Catholic priests molest GIRLS?). Still, there's a great scene where the girls are spending a night on the town (taking in a showing of "Deep Throat"!) and "Mitzi" spots a VERY large stuffed penguin in a shop window. (Obviously, things don't end well for the window).

The movie is presented in a pretty straight manner and the end seems completely earnest, but director Gus Trikonis HAD to have been in on the joke here. (It's a definitely an improvement over his previous film "Swinging Barmaids" in any event). There's not as much nudity as you might expect. Kessner, who will look vaguely familiar to anyone who watched American TV in the 70's or 80's, has a brief topless scene. Strangely, the nymphomaniac has no nude scenes though. Perhaps he best thing about this, however, is June Fairchild, who had played "Sonny Swingle", one of the many pretty maids in the wonderful 70's trashfest "Pretty Maids All in a Row". She doesn't go full-frontal here like she did in that one, but you do get to see her cute little butt during the skinny-dipping scene. Moreover though, she's just generally great (she DEFINITELY wasn't in enough movies). Recommended, especially for fans of 70's sexploitation.