|
Serenaded by The Osmonds, the title is stamped on a coed's rump—Roger Vadim lines up the lasses to warble "America the Beautiful" sweetly, a love letter from "an observer's point-of-view." The pimply putz with constant erections (John David Carson) is not helped by the fact that his substitute teacher is Angie Dickinson in full bloom, he dashes off to the restroom and finds a dead cheerleader in the next stall. The student body as derived from Free Love and Lord Love a Duck (Roddy McDowall is at hand as the principal), l'amour et la mort in Oceanfront High School. ("I don't understand. We've always kept our academic records so high!") Telly Savalas sets up investigation on campus while Carson tries his best to get seduced by Dickinson, the devirginization is prepared by the rather remarkable gag of a chocolate duck that hemorrhages liquor once crushed. Milton's Paradise Lost posed against a Bosch canvas, Molière's Don Juan imbued with a peace sign, panty shot after panty shot captured by the son of Murnau's cinematographer. The glue holding it all together is Rock Hudson's glance of fatigued amusement as the libertine coach, a jock Bluebeard who announces his "passion for living" before infernal flames yet can no longer tell humping from murdering. Football matches and strangulated nymphets, the whole megillah according to Gene Roddenberry, pure corrosion wrapped in sunshine. "Lookin' all around, feelin' lost and found..." Vadim's Shadow of a Doubt, his Zabriskie Point and a launch pad for a thousand porn flicks. De Palma breezes through for Carrie, and along the way helps himself to Dickinson. With Keenan Wynn, Barbara Leigh, James Doohan, William Campbell, June Fairchild, Brenda Sykes, Susan Tolsky, and Joy Bang.
--- Fernando F. Croce |