The Centerfold Girls

The Centerfold Girls is a low budget thriller about a serial killer who hunts down women. Not exactly an original idea but the lead performance of Andrew Prine gives the film a bit more merit. In fact, the cast is full of B and Z rated actors (like Aldo Ray who plays an incredibly nasty character) which make things a bit more interesting. What's unusual about the filmn is it's harsh tone. Some of the things that take place on screen are pretty brutal even by today's standards. One wonders what audiences thought of the movie back in 1974. This is one film that women's groups have a right to protest about.

A moralistic serial killer with a straight razor is carving up girls who have posed nude for a men's magazine. If this seems like pretty weak motivation for a killing spree, it also makes for a pretty weak plot for a movie. This one is all over the place. The first part focuses on a nurse staying at an isolated motel in the mountains (shades of "Psycho")who is abused both by the sleazy hotel owner and a Mansonesque group of hippies, and this is before she runs into the killer. In the second, and most preposterous, part the killer somehow follows a whole group of nude models and photographers to a deserted island where he kills the whole lot of them. In the third part the killer stalks a stewardess from her swinging singles apartment to northern California where her car breaks down and (after she gets picked up and raped by two sailors)the final showdown takes place.

This movie is VERY sleazy. All the girls are brainless sluts who don't even seem to get too upset about being drugged and gang-raped. Every single guy meanwhile is only interesting in assaulting, molesting, or otherwise taking sexual advantage of said women. Incredibly, the deranged killer is the most well-developed and likable character in the whole film. There are only two reasons to recommend this movie. One is Andrew Prine playing one his memorable psychos (he doesn't so much chew the scenery as just gulp it down whole). The other is the truly jaw-dropping collection of early 70's drive-in actresses on display including Tiffany "The Candy Snatchers" Bolling, Jennifer "Tinotera" Ashley, Connie "Black Sampson" Strickland, Janet "Slumber Party '57" Wood, perennial 70's TV actress Jamie Lynn Bauer, and Penthouse Pet of the Year/mafia moll Aneka De Lorenzo. (The only ones missing here are Candice Rialson and Claudia Jennings). Of course, all of these actresses appear au naturel at some point, and in these pre-silicone days they were, of course, all au naturel. So I guess if you REALLY like Andrew Prine or you REALLY want to see a lot of naturally impressive breasts, this movie might be worth watching--otherwise avoid.

This is a special exploitation film. There are no possible doubt around the intention of the creators (you have as much sleaze and nudity as you could ask for), but still the film manages to stand out from other similar works thanks to: fist, being a kind of anthology movie, with the common threat of a serial killer that prays on beautiful and successful women, but showing the story of each woman kind of independently. The other thing that makes the movie quite attractive in this subgenre, is its low budget and naturalistic attitude, that the natural grittiness of 70s cinema enhanced even more. From the first sequence of the burial of a body without any music or dialogues, the mood sets in immediately.

This film boasts a large cast of beautiful women in various states of undress. For some that may be plenty of inducement to watch. For others it might help to add that it is also the odessey of a serial killer in their midst, slitting throats where he can and extemporizing on other occasions. His motive, he says, is to help these women who have posed nude, or at least topless, in a Playboy-like men's magazine as centerfold models. At a guess, he believes he is helping them abandon their evil ways, the visions of which must haunt his darkest dreams. Though his motive is never explained, his speech patterns, mannerisms, and expressions plainly bespeak a psychopath. Andrew Prine as Clement Dunne shows us quiet madness and menace in a perfect composite. Everything about him, including his wardrobe (black) and living quarters (white) whispers "absolutely unhinged." The film consists of three separate stories, each featuring a different centerfold girl, but all three are bound together by the presence of Dunne and his scalpel. The third and final story may be the most intense as it concludes with a confrontation in a horrible landscape of burnt hillsides and charred trees, a nightmare background against which the violence unfolds. Dunne's third victim, Vera, (Tiffany Bolling) fights back and nobody skates. A truly fine thriller

I really enjoyed Arthur Marks' drive-in movie "Bonnie's Kids", so I decided to take a look at the movie he did right after it, "The Centerfold Girls". While I would not label the movie a drive-in classic like "Bonnie's Kids", I have to admit that the movie does deliver a lot of nice sleaze. The women in the movie are always taking off their clothes, and there are a number of sexual situations. The movie does have some additional interest. Andrew Prine does well as the serial killer, coming across as believably deranged and awkward like I think many crazy people are in real life. Also interesting is that the movie isn't one story, but three stories connected by Prine's character. This was a wise choice I think, because I think if any of the stories been feature length there would have been some dull spots. As they are, they all feel at an appropriate length. Well worth a look if you are interested in 1970s sleazy drive-in cinema.