Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971) User Reviews (56)

Make Love, Not War

[krorie · 7/10 · 18 August 2006]

This may very well be the kinkiest mainstream Hollywood movie ever made. Picture Rock Hudson as Coach Tiger McDrew, a playboy teacher sleeping with the female student body, killing the ones who threaten to expose him or cause him problems, hence the title "Pretty Maids All In A Row." The Tiger is at least twenty years older than those he beds. Spotlight substitute teacher Betty Smith (Angie Dickinson) rubbing her boobs against those students who ignite her libido, ultimately deflowering one of Coach Tiger's star players, Ponce de Leon Harper (John David Carson), not unlike the name "Fonzie" from TV's "Happy Days," causing him to be metamorphosed from a shy, timid teen, into the playboy of the western world.

Guess who's in charge of the investigation into all the murders on and around campus? None other than Kojak (Telly Savalas), portraying Captain Sam Surcher, with a thing for his cigarette (in training for his later lollipop placebo). He is assisted in his search for the killer by Keenan Wynn as Chief John Poldaski, more a hindrance than a help. The straitlaced, prudish Mr. Proffer (Roddy McDowall) is in charge of the high school where mass slaughter is littering the campus with dead bodies. He naturally would like for it to stop. To emphasize the theme, Joy Bang has a bit part as Rita.

Those behind the camera are just as surprising. Self-proclaimed libertine director Roger Vadim, fresh from "Barberella," starring his brother-in-law's sister, Jane Fonda, makes sure the camera shots include as much cleavage and exposed skin as permitted in those halcyon days of 1971. Though based on a novel, Trekky Gene Roddenberry wrote the salacious script, even beaming up Scotty (James Doohan) for the role of Follo. Roddenberry served as producer as well. Trivia question: Name the one movie scored by the darlings of the establishment, The Osmonds? Right, "Pretty Maids All In A Row." Actually, their version of "Chilly Winds" is not bad.

My wife and I saw this flick when it was first released in 1971 and found nothing outrageous about it. We watched it a second time recently and were surprised at how shocking it has become. Either the times have changed drastically or we have changed drastically (pobably both) since the days of the Flower Children. What is politically incorrect today was accepted by the viewers in that bygone era. The viewer will note that though the theme and philosophy seem deviant by today's standards, there is almost no vulgar language used in the film. That cultural barrier had not yet been breached by Hollywood.

Obviously intended as black comedy at the time, "Pretty Maids All In A Row," is certainly no "Dr. Strangelove," nor was it meant to be. However the viewer labels this film, it is guaranteed to entertain and arouse the basic instincts. Enjoy it, even if you must call it a guilty pleasure.

No Hollywood Film Has Broken So Many Taboos

[t1480 · 7/10 · 20 March 2008]

One of the most politically incorrect films of all time, Pretty Maids All In a Row is easily Roger Vadim's most audacious film. Scripted by Gene Roddenberry it focuses on the strange happenings taking place at a California high school. To better understand this film, you need to know more about Roger Vadim. He was by all accounts a unrepentant womanizer. He wrote not just one, but two books concerning his love affairs with Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Annette Atroyberg, and Jane Fonda. The filmmaker practically invented the modern day sex film in 1956 with And God Ceated Woman. In 2005, Jane Fonda went public with allegations claiming that Vadim forced her to have threesomes with other women.

Director Roger Vadim obviously loved women. The way the camera takes in the female form in this film shows that this guy truly enjoyed this cast of beautiful high school girls who are dropping out of school in the most unfortunate manner: they are being murdered. The first body is found by student Ponce. He discovers the nude body in the boy's washroom. After discovering the body we are introduced to the detective assigned to the case as well as an amoral guidance counselor named Tiger (played by Rock Hudson) who also happens to be sleeping with his students in his office.  The investigation goes and we discover that the murdered girls happened to be sleeping with Tiger. Despite of all the heat pressure placed on him, Tiger doesn't seem worried that he'll get caught. He continues coaching the football team, eventually setting Ponce up with a sexy new teacher (Angie Dickinson), and of course carrying on affairs with the students. 

In his autobiography, Vadim recalled the casting of the students in Pretty Maids All in a Row: "...I had auditioned over two hundred boys and about the same number of girls. Most of the girls who applied in the roles of high school alumni were aspiring actresses, though some were local students who merely found the whole thing amusing." For a man recovering from love sickness (Jane Fonda had just divorced Vadim), this succession of young teenage and college age beauties was intoxicating. Vadim specifically ordered the wardrobe department to dress the girls in micro skirts and tight fitting shirts. Notably, a good portion of them aren't wearing bras. Vadim films these young ladies, many of which appear to be underage, in a method that is so unapologetically sexual that you'll soon understand why this film will likely never appear on DVD. With pedophilia being such a hot topic in today's society, no film company wants to risk being accused of exploiting minors by releasing this on DVD.

With its nonstop leering shots of teenage body parts and seemingly giddy portrayal of sexual relationships between adults and children, does Pretty Maids All in A Row seem like a celebration of pedophilia? Uh, the correct term is 'ebephophilia' which means 'love of adolescents'. I guess it's a matter of opinion. When I first viewed this film as a teen, the director's constant zooming in on the breasts and buttocks of female high school students was a bit shocking, but had a point to it. I mean, high school is a particularly sexualized place being that many students are entering in relationships for the first times in their lives. Then I read a movie review about how Pretty Maids All in A Row may have been the most widespread female-kiddie-porn film ever seen. The slow, misty shots of the braless pubescent girls in their micro skirts were far too prevalent to be incidental. When I saw this movie again, this time in my late 20s, I had no problem understanding the reviewer's point of view. For example, the opening scene of this movie consists of a closeup of a pair of butts belonging to two female classmates of Ponce. These two, who look barely 18, show up randomly during this movie, and every scene they are in, the camera is fixated so closely on their mini skirts that it's laughable. I can find no reason for so pointlessly including these two girls in the movie other than for the director to showcase their gorgeous bodies with series of gratuitous shots of their crotches and rears. It seems all quite juvenille. Still, I don't think anyone should not see this film just because director Vadim can't go two minutes without fetishizing a sea of young female bodies.

To better understand all the blatant voyeurism directed towards these girls, remember that this is an American movie made with a European mentality. The European school of film-making seems to approach the entire feminine image in a different sense than the Americans do; the female body is perceived to be a work of art in itself, that it is graceful, elegant, beautiful and sensual, an aesthetic object with erotic power. Presenting it in the proper manner makes one marvel instead of blushing and turning away--that seems to be the attitude this director takes, and it causes the frequent nudity in the film to be not so much dirty, obscene, and debaucherous, as being instead a presentation of a thing of beauty.

The acting in Pretty Maids is first-rate. The cast is by far the film's strongest asset. These are all truly courageous performers, and the acting is so good, it's scary. The standouts are probably Rock Hudson and John David Carson. Not surprisingly, Telly Savalas as a Kojak-style detective steals every scene he is in. Angie Dickinson is great, but I was distracted by her aesthetic qualities.

Pretty Maids is a good movie that has quite a few shocking moments. It's quite implausible and uneven, but I recommend seeing it. It's one of those movies where you just HAVE to see it, you know? Not because it's some great masterpiece of cinema, but because there's a lot there to talk about. Check it out.

High school girls get a piece of the Rock

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 26 November 2014]

Rock Hudson's extraordinary good looks and charm are cast against type as he plays a school guidance counselor and football coach who picks a few choice plums among the student body on a regular basis. Seeing all those nubile young girls with skirts up to their hynies was temptation enough for anyone. The problem is that these girls want to take a permanent lease out on him and he's already married to Barbara Leigh and has a little daughter. What choice is there before the scandal costs him his job, but kill these Pretty Maids All In A Row.

The unusual combination of Gene Roddenberry who wrote script and French director Roger Vadim, best known here on this side of the pond for Barbarella created Pretty Maids All In A Row, a black comedy that garnered a nice cult following. Hudson worked well playing his one and only villain on the big screen.

A secondary plot involves substitute teacher Angie Dickinson who Hudson gives a warm up to in preparation for his protégé young John David Carson nailing Dickinson. A little Tea And Sympathy sideline as Carson slowly discovers what his mentor is up to..

Roddy McDowall plays the clueless high school principal and Keenan Wynn the equally clueless sheriff. One who is not clueless is Telly Savalas who plays a Kojak like detective who suspicions that Hudson is the murderer but can't quite prove it. At the end of the film Savalas is totally convinced.

Hudson as serial killer might be jarring to his fans, but Rock does pull it off. An interesting alternative part for an actor who was far better than he was credited.

Sexy Black Comedy/Worthy Cult Item

[lazarillo · 13 September 2004]

I don't know why this isn't a cult film. Rock Hudson plays a psychopathic sex killer (a heterosexual one). Angie Dickenson is a substitute teacher who deflowers a teen virgin. Telly Savalas and Keenan Wynn play cops. Roddy McDowell is the the principal. Heck, even Barbara "Vampirella" Leigh and James "Scotty" Doohan have a small roles. Not only that but take a look behind the camera--this movie teams up the French New Wave director who discovered Brigit Bardot with the creator of "Star Trek"! I always suspected that the strange appeal of the latter program for it's very sexually repressed fans was due to the fact that all the girls, human or alien, all wore miniskirts up to their tailbones--well, the Trekkies ought to take a gander at this big screen Rodenberry effort. ("Damnit Captain, that skirt just can't ride up anymore! They can't take it! They're going to blow!")

OK, maybe I shouldn't enjoy a film that spends so much time looking up the skirts of teenage girls, or showing them in nude clinches with Rock Hudson (who plays a VERY progressive guidance counselor and popular football coach), or lying face down dead with a note pinned to the back of their underwear. But only in the early 1970's could a film this completely irresponsible be made, let alone attract such an all-star cast. Not only that, but this film is historically significant in that it is the "missing link" between all the later teen sex comedies where an awkward male virgin (here given the perfect name, "Ponce de Leon")loses his virginity to an older woman, and the teen slasher films where slutty teenage girls pay for their promiscuity with their lives. Of course, this is horribly sexist and hypocritical, but it has clearly been a pattern in teen-oriented comedies and horror movies over the last thirty years. This movie at least seems to be aware of it's own absurd contradictions.

This is not only one of the rare sex comedies that is actually both funny and sexy, but it also adds a strong dose of black comedy into the mix. And the whole thing works wonderfully. Highly recommended.

Black Comedic Farce A Winner

[mrcaw12 · 7/10 · 14 August 2006]

This is a funny movie folks.

Don't be put off by some of the other reviews written here as they completely missed the point.

This is a black comedy/farce folks. Though seemingly played 'straight' as it were, it in fact, has its tongue firmly in cheek.

The plot revolves around a string of murders, mostly young comely lasses at a California high school.

It appears all too hip Rock Hudson, playing a groovy guidance counselor and football coach has been having romantic dalliances with a lot of the student body(s)...

Meanwhile he's helping his protégé, John David Carson, an awkward, high school senior lose his virginity with sexy substitute teacher Angie Dickinson.

When the bodies start piling up, perennial police detective Telly Savalas comes into the picture.

Roddy McDowall gets thrown in for comic relief as a nervous high school principal along with Susan Tolksy as his even more nervous assistant. You'll remember Miss Tolksy as the comic relief in the late 60s TV Series, Here Come The Brides as Biddie Cloom.

Finally Keenan Wynn gets thrown into the mix as a bumbling local Chief of Police who gets more than he bargained for when he tries to solve the identity of the murderer himself.

Legendary ladies man, five time married, Roger Vadim directs this sexually charged flick. You'll recall that Vadim was married to both Brigitte Bardot & Jane Fonda and had a love child with none other than Catherine Deneuve.

You'll never see a high school again filled with as many thin, beautiful coeds as Mr. Vadim presents in this movie all sporting the shortest of mini skirts that is, while they're still IN their clothes. Lots of 'Playboy-esque' nudity runs throughout the film without it becoming graphic or embarrassing. Angie Dickinson looking in top form even shows a little skin!

This flick has cult classic written all over it and would be a great movie to remake.

Just remember NOT to take it seriously folks. Of course, the idea of students and teachers so casually engaging in sexual escapades is something you would not want in real life. That goes without saying.

But again, this is an adult farce with lots of black comedy. When the first victim is found dead, principal Roddy McDowall can only comment on what a great cheerleader she was so it's obvious pretty much from the get-go that we're in an altered state of reality here.

Though not a comedy classic, it's a fun, sexy movie that doesn't take itself seriously and moves right along at a brisk 91 minutes.

Even more fun to watch with a group of friends.

Too Bad About the Dead Cheerleader in the Second Floor John

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 18 July 2014]

Black comedy about sex and murder at a high school. Guidance counselor Tiger McDrew (Rock Hudson) is banging many of the female students while also trying to help horny virgin Ponce de Leon Harper (John David Carson) get lucky with a hot new teacher (Angie Dickinson). Meanwhile Police Captain Sam Surcher (Telly Savalas) investigates a series of killings at the school.

Fun, sexy, and cheesy in the best way. The cast is great. Lots of pretty girls, with of course sexy MILF Dickinson the standout. The script, by Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek fame, is smart and Roger Vadim's direction is good (in his first American film). Perhaps not for all tastes and definitely not for those who take everything seriously. If you enjoy some political incorrectness in your movies, you should have no problem enjoying this.

Pretty Maids All in a Row is worth a look for any curiosity seekers out there...

[tavm · 6/10 · 22 January 2016]

After years of only knowing about this movie, I finally saw it on the Dailymotion site. Since it's directed by Roger Vadim, I wasn't too surprised it showed many teen girls in sexually provocative poses. It's slightly a bit more surprising Gene Roddenberry-the creator of "Star Trek"-was the writer and producer, though the fact his series had plenty of pretty women might have been a sign. Rock Hudson is the school guidance counselor and coach who manages to get many of the female students in his office for recreation. Angie Dickinson is a substitute teacher who gets one unlucky boy-played by John David Carson-in a lucky mode, if you know what I mean. Their scenes are perhaps the funniest in the movie while much of the rest of it is only slightly amusing like principal Roddy McDowell describing one of the dead girls as a "terrific little cheerleader"! Keenan Wynn plays the not-very-bright sheriff and Telly Savalas is the detective who seems to get closer to nabbing the killer. Also of interest is one former "Star Trek" player-James Doohan-is also in this but not in his Scottish accent! I watched with bemusement throughout so on that note, I say Pretty Maids All in a Row is worth a look.

Murder, Mayhem and Madness-Pretty Maids *

[edwagreen · 3/10 · 28 June 2014]

This picture takes the theme of perverted school personnel long before the media began focusing their attention on such people in their never ending attacks on school employees.

Correction: Rock Hudson is not a teacher in this film. He is an assistant principal, coach, and guidance counselor all in one. He starts to have relations with some of the female students and murder and mayhem result.

Roddy McDowell is the typical figure-head like principal in this mess. His secretary sounds and looks like Betty Boop.

Yes, this is 1971 and Angie Dickinson looks more beautiful than ever. Telly Savalas is the chronic smoking detective and Keenan Wynn is a dumb officer who meets a bad fate when he accidentally stumbles on to what Hudson has been doing.

The ending is ludicrous but so is the entire film.

Absolutely Bizarre but Fabulous

[LadyJaneGrey · 8/10 · 2 September 2006]

A juicy bit of 70s kitsch right here for your viewing pleasure. Rock Hudson as a horny high school coach/guidance counselor who is nailing every girl in sight. This man is so hip, he has arranged the thumb tacks on his cork board into a peace sign. No wonder all the kids love him. Right on, man.

The luscious Angie Dickinson plays a substitute teacher who wears very short skirts and form-fitting sweaters. Not only does she get felt up by Hudson, she also enthusiastically deflowers the gawky teenage male virgin after extolling the virtues of John Milton's "Paradise Lost." Telly Savalas is the state police detective called upon to solve a series of murders of young girls at the high school, the first of which is charmingly named "Jill Fairbutt." No lollipop here. He is sucking on a cigarette, a cancer stick, a coffin nail! Who loves ya, baby? Nice job by Keenan Wynn is the wheezy geezer local sheriff assigned by Savalas to direct traffic after incompetently touching every bit of evidence at the first murder scene. Also by James Doohan ("Scotty" of Star Trek fame) as Savalas' underling. Too bad they couldn't have gotten Shatner to give Hudson a run for his money...

Also heard from is Roddy McDowell, twittery here as the high school principal, whose concern over the murders is limited to characterizing one of them as a "great little cheerleader." He comes complete with prim, nerdy, bespectacled secretary, de rigeur for the 70s.

In what other decade could something be listed as a comedy/crime/ thriller? Only the 70s, my friend. You can also groove to the opening song by the Osmonds, "Chilly Wind," which happens to be sung over Rock Hudson getting it on with a topless honey. Osmonds and boobies - my head just exploded.

If I'm not mistaken, I think I saw a very young Alfre Woodard as one of the students questioned by Savalas. Rock that afro, girl!

What can you expect by combining the directing talents of Roger Vadim and the writing of Gene Roddenberry? If you can ignore the misogyny of every female in this movie being a ditz/victim/sex object/cuckold, then you will enjoy this very of-its-time pre-sex-comedy-era sex comedy. With some murder thrown in. And a bit of mystery. And don't forget the Osmonds.

Sex education

[MikeMagi · 7/10 · 15 January 2015]

At Oceanfront High School, all of the female students are lithe, lovely,luscious and lusty, the substitute English teacher is delighted to introduce the assistant manager of the football team to the wonders of sex (if only to help shrink his perpetual erection) and someone is killing off co-eds.The identity of the murderer isn't hard to figure out. The short list of suspects is a very short list. More puzzling is how MGM got away with schoolmarm Angie Dickinson's seduction of the underage lad played by John David Carson. Or why even the homeliest co-ed at Oceanfront turns out to be a knockout when she takes off her glasses and lets her hair hang loose. Rock Hudson in an uncharacteristic role is the phys ed teacher who spends most of his time bedding students. Telly Savalas is a curious cop and Keenan Wynn gets what he deserves for being the movie's dumbest security guard.

This movie stars... who???

[FriscoKidd · 3/10 · 13 August 2006]

Given the A-list pedigree of the cast, this is one baffling relic of a brief and long-gone period of our cultural history. Soft-core fanatic Roger "Barbarella" Vadim teams up with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (of all people!) to produce this shameless exploitation flick. Granted, it was based on a novel, so I suppose writer/producer Roddenberry can't receive all the blame for this mess. But the fact that he chose this particular material for his one and only non-Star Trek feature film sheds new light on the ultra mini skirt, coconut shell bra, and Captain-Kirk-seducing-every-buxom-alien-in-the-galaxy fixation of his series. All the girls in this high school are centerfold wannabes, disrobing and literally throwing themselves into the arms of married football stud Rock Hudson. Teachers having sex with students on campus grounds is treated with an off-hand "lock the door." (And believe me, I am by no means a prude when it comes to the complex issue of teenage sexuality.) Hudson essentially pimps out substitute teacher Angie Dickenson to his young virginal protégé, while she makes her own fierce attempts at getting into Hudson's drawers. Whew! I realize this was the 70s when free love reigned, but maybe the original novel gave better psychological background for all this casual bed-hopping. I won't even get into the whole murder mystery angle of the story, but the appearance of a serial killer in school is treated with the same shrug of indifference by the characters as their fixation on sex. This film is not outrageous enough to be camp, and not dark enough to be creepy, but just another sorry addition to Roger Vadim's irrelevant cannon of work.

Where IS this high school, anyway?

[Hup234! · 9/10 · 13 June 2000]

Because I'm re-enrolling for post-graduate summer school!

This picture proves that on occasion a less-than-deep storyline doesn't prevent a film from being terrifically-entertaining. You'll be dragged along willingly and unprotestingly in the offbeat proceedings onscreen.

And Angie Dickinson (who seems to be thoroughly enjoying her part) is stunning, gentlemen ... stunning!

Recall that gorgeous teacher we all remember oh-so-well from high school? Well, here ... she ... is. And John David Carson plays, uh ... every guy who was ever in her class, okay?

Things move along smoothly in parallel plots, a strange mix of sex comedy and murder-most-foul. But it all works, and you won't forget "Pretty Maids" any easier than you ever forgot ... that long-ago teacher.

Highly recommended, for adults.

Pretty Wild for 1971

[whpratt1 · 7/10 · 13 August 2006]

Viewed this film early in the AM and never knew that Rock Hudson,(Michael 'Tiger' McDrew),"Embroyo",'76 starred in a picture as a coach and practically seduced every young girl in the high school. There is plenty of nudity, frontal and back along with wild scenes and Angie Dickinson,(Miss Betty Smith),"Dressed to Kill",'80, seducing a teenage boy. Telly Savalas,(Capt. Sam Surcher),"Backfire",'95 plays a police office who investigates a mysterious murder in a men's room at the high school. Roddy McDowall,(Mr. Proffer),"Lassie Come Home",'43, plays the school principal and looks too young to play this role. Even Keenan Wynn,"The Lucifer Complex",78 plays the role of a dumb police officer who manages to foul up the crime scene. This film has everything, Drama, Comedy, and plenty of Romance. Poor Rock Hudson must have been worn out trying to play this role, his performance sure surprised me and so did this film.

Starts off OK but quickly gets tiresome

[preppy-3 · 4/10 · 15 August 2006]

Black comedy (I think) of a high school where girls are being murdered. While this is happening football coach Michael 'Tiger' McDrew (Rock Hudson) is giving lessons to student Ponce (John David Carson) on how to pick up girls(!!!). Throw in Roddy McDowall as the dean, Angie Dickinson as a teacher, Telly Savalas as a police detective, James Doohan as his helper and Keenan Wynn as a bumbling police officer and you got one strange movie.

I can't quite figure out what they were aiming for here. Some of it is funny and I thought it was a comedy, but it was often pretty sick (the dead girls) and ended up showing as much female nudity as an R rating would allow. Director Roger Vadim seems more interested in female bodies and nudity than a coherent story and characters. At first the weirdness kept me watching--the characters act strange and things are shown at different angles. But that wore quick pretty fast and I started to get bored. By the end I was actually getting annoyed with the constant female nudity and all women being portrayed as young and beautiful with great bodies and not a brain in their heads. Guys don't come off much better--Hudson is sleeping around with all the teenage girls (kind of amusing now that we know he was gay) and Carson is constantly horny.

Acting varies. Carson is just terrible and that's a problem cause he's the lead! His one-note performance drags the movie down. Dickinson is as good as she can be (not very) and Hudson tries but seems uncomfortable. McDowell, Savalas and Wynn however were good. And it was fun to hear James Doohan speaking in his regular voice and not the Scottish one he uses in "Star Trek".

All in all a virtually forgotten movie--for good reason. This is more a skin flick than anything else. Also mixing dead teenage girls and sex as if it's funny is in very questionable taste. I give it a 4.

Roddenberry's Absolute Worst

[mercuryix · 20 May 2001]

Spoilers Ahead:

I saw Pretty Maids when it first came out, and I must say that as much as I enjoy Roddenberry's work, from Police Story to Star Trek, I despised this movie on many levels. The movie basically revolves around a 17 year-old male virgin who can't seem to get laid while every other kid around him is screwing constantly, while grisly murders are occurring at his high school. Who could possibly be doing them?

Roddenberry's view of high school girls is that they are ready at any moment to take off their clothes and seduce the 40-something (or older) football coach. All the students at high school are portrayed as mating like rabbits (with no-one ever getting pregnant), with no regard for feelings, and the girls at school are found raped and murdered, one by one, without many eyebrows raised. This is presented as * funny * by Roddenberry. `Hey Joe - this is hysterical! You're daughter's just been found - chuckle - strangled and naked in the bathroom in high school. Oh yeah, she was raped too!' Expecting the audience to find this funny was in fact sickening to me when I watched it, and was just as sick when I saw it years later. At one girl's funeral service, a student is seen blowing bubbles indifferently, apparently Roddenberry's view of the attitude of high school students toward their peers. Frankly, he should have been sued for liable by anyone under 21. Expecting the audience to find this amusing is scary, and makes one wonder how agitated Roddenberry's mind was at the end of the Star Trek series. (He in fact left Star Trek to write/produce this movie; not a good career choice.) There are several scenes where raped/murdered children are found, nude or nearly nude, and they are all treated chevelierly by the characters and as visual punchlines to jokes. I hate to say it, but this is a sick movie, with a sick story. That it comes from a man like Gene Roddenberry is a sad fact I will never quite be able to reconcile. That it was produced and released in 1971 is truly bizarre. Roger Ebert once described a movie called "The Hitcher" as "Diseased and Corrupt." I think that is a pretty fair description of this movie as well.

One out ten stars

Interesting period work, still has strength

[beauzee · 7/10 · 22 January 2008]

Comments are based upon TV viewing.

Always a fan of Angie Dickenson and interested in Gene Roddenbery projects.

In 1970, singer Little Richard , on The Mike Douglas Show, mentioned that he was to be in a movie with Rock Hudson, as "The Insane Minister". Did he mean MGM? Historians, please help! :)

This presumptive unrealized Richard project sure is different....a true cult movie with a lot of interest for fans of Hudson, as well. Gene Roddenberry did the script, which can't be considered at the level of his famous sci-fi TV icon, but there is zero impetus to raid the frig' during the viewing.

Has much of the feel and atmosphere of the period. Hudson's acting is especially nuanced; Dickenson's sensuousness actually moves the plot line.

Boobs And Buns.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 19 August 2016]

Before dismissing this as a piece of FILTHY, FROGGY, PORNOGRAPHY, we ought to watch it because it's pretty clever. We don't need to call Roger Vadim's direction a reflection of the French New Wave because that was underway a decade earlier. Vadim has his own style. It consists mainly of slapdash plots and lots and lots of female nudity or semi-nudity. It has the usual 1960s social commentary too. A dozen students are milling around the hall just after a murder. "Hold it, Mister. Where do you think YOU'RE going?", says the cop, grabbing the sole black kid by the arm.

This has a prominent place, then, in Vadim's ouvre. If it was Brigitte Bardot in 1956, it's Angie Dickinson who is uncovered here. Not all the way, but enough to get the job done. There is also a good deal of teasing from the other female cast members. You have never seen so many upskirt shots.

I think I'll mostly skip the plot because it's not worth much effort. Rock Hudson, looking fine, loves his wife and kiddie but can't help banging the high school chicks, all of whom have crushes on him. He strangles them so they don't squeal on him. And -- well, it's not just the students that are overwhelmed by Rock and his pheromones. While discussing someone's problem with Angie Dickinson, he says something like, "I wonder if you could handle what I'm about to throw at you." "Oh, YES," she replies breathlessly.

Not that all the jokes are about sex. The first verbal gag is this. Roddy MacDowell, the principal of Oceanfront High School, is having an argument with one of the teachers. A student rushes in and announces that a girl has just been found in the men's room. "See?," says the teacher, "It's just what I was saying about morals." The student says, "No, it's okay. She's dead." I admire Lalo Schifrin's musical score too. We get to hear a little Bach, a Mozart sonata, a coy imitation of Duke Ellington's "Prelude to a Kiss," and the school song of Cornell University. His taste is pretty eclectic.

An important point is that this movie really IS influenced by European film making. It's about sex, not violence. Nobody is murdered on screen and there isn't a single drop of blood. Little emphasis is on the mystery, nor need there be. It's more of a slice of time, one of those snapshots in which everybody is standing on his head, a home movie in which the subject makes gargoyle faces at the camera.

It occurs to me that if you enjoyed "Lord Love a Duck," you'll probably get a slight charge out of this movie too.

'Are you shopping?'

[punishmentpark · 7/10 · 3 September 2013]

This takes place in a school for models...? All the pretty maids in rows, that's for sure! Then there's some big names added to the bill for good measure, and off we go...

I didn't exactly know what to expect from 'Pretty Maids...', but in retrospect this just hád to be intended as a sexy, black comedy wherein certain things come full circle. I was waiting for suspenseful scenes and brutal killings, but hardly any of that occurs - not one kill do we see, just bums with notes on them (not bad, I'm not denying). Instead there is Rock Hudson as the school guidance counselor who seduces knockout beautiful girls and has the philosophical bull to back himself up. He even gets the beautiful Angie Dickinson as a teacher to seduce a troubled student who he sees as his successor, in time. Observing and investigating is Telly Savalas as a detective, who seems to knów all, but just doesn't have the proof yet... Will he get it?

Okay, so I expected more thriller and drama to go with this, but the fun stuff isn't really that funny and the free spirited statements that might have worked well in those early seventies, are somewhat stale to today's standards. Still, the film is beautifully shot and possesses undeniable charm, not in the least because of pretty maids all in a row.

Barely(...) 7 out of 10, but who knows, when I'll have watched this again with fairly adjusted expectations...

Mr. Spock would be amazed at the lack of logic here...

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 23 May 2001]

I'm not at all sure what tone director Roger Vadim and producer-writer Gene Roddenberry were aiming for here, and I'll bet the actors didn't even know. It's probably your only chance to see John David Carson in action--he was the second choice for 'Keith' on TV's "The Partridge Family"--and the reason why he failed to make the cut is abundantly clear: he's a colorless young actor with one dull expression for every emotion. Carson plays an awkward virgin in high school who gets tips on picking up girls from coach Rock Hudson, all while a serial killer is on the loose. I'll admit the identity of the killer wasn't obvious to me, but the revelation--and the build-up to it--show no sense of intrigue or imagination. This is quite a curiosity: full of talent, but a big fizzle. James Doohan has a small role (nice of Roddenberry to remember his friends), but Angie Dickinson, Telly Savalas, Roddy McDowall and Keenan Wynn are wasted. ** from ****

Weird, Wild & Freaky

[shark-43 · 9/10 · 25 November 2004]

This movie is lots of fun - a time capsule of the swinging Seventies - tight pants, mini-mini skirts, people sayingt "Right on" and Rock Hudson as a girl hound - seducing any girl who comes into his classroom - yes, Rock plays "Tiger" a football coach and guidance counselor. Angie Dickinson plays a lusty teacher who helps seduce a young virgin boy. Telly Savalas is a hoot as the hard-nosed cop trying to solve the series of murders that start happening at the high school - Salvalas does some truly strange things as an actor - he holds his smoking cigarette in various odd ways and is constantly putting his big sunglasses on his head, on his nose, on a lamp -- the whole movie is this strange little sex-murder mystery (light on the mystery). Written by Star Trek creator, Gene Rodenberry!!!! If you like cheesy fun flicks from the early 1970s, this one is for you. A hoot!

About Average At Best

[garyldibert · 6/10 · 5 January 2014]

TITLE: PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW opened in theaters on April 28 1971 and it will take you 91 minutes to watch this movie. Pretty Maids All in a Row is an American mystery film starring Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson that is part dark comedy, part murder mystery. It was released on April 28, 1971, directed by Roger Vadim, and written and produced by Gene Roddenberry based on a novel by Francis Pollini. Pretty Maids was Vadim's first American film. The April 1971 issue of Playboy magazine published an article about the movie written by Vadim. This includes a nine-page pictorial of actresses Angie Dickinson, Gretchen Burrell, Aimee Eccles, Margaret Markov, Playboy bunny Joyce Williams, and others.

SUMMARY: The story is set in "Oceanfront High School," a fictitious American high school in the height of the sexual revolution. Young female students are being targeted by an unknown serial killer. Meanwhile, a male student called Ponce is experiencing sexual frustration, surrounded by a seemingly unending stream of beautiful and sexually provocative classmates. Ponce doesn't know how to deal with this So he goes to see Tiger the Head Coach of the Football team. Michael "Tiger" McDrew is the high school's football coach and guidance counselor. There is another aspect of Tiger's character. He is quite fond of sexual encounters with female students. Tiger tries to befriend Ponce and help him deal with his sexual needs by encouraging him to seek the affections of a sexy substitute teacher, Miss Smith. Meanwhile, one young girl after another turns up dead. A police detective captain, Sam Surcher, investigates but never makes an arrest.

QUESTIONS: Who was the first victim? Who did Sam Surcher think is the killer? How did Tiger get involved with this? Did Ponce overcome his problem? Who was Miss Smith? Where did she come from? Why did Tiger send Ponco to see Miss Smith? Was the murdered ever caught?

MY THOUGHTS: This was one of those movie that had a hard time keeping your attention. It was kind of a comedy and drama movie mix that didn't jell to well. It was hard to stay with this movie because it lacks action. Joann Cameron role was waste in this movie. She's far to pretty to waste a body like that. I bought this movie because Of Angie Dickinson and here talents were also waste in this movie. There was the scene of her lying on the bed with no clothes on and outside of that, this movie was not very interesting. Even with Angie Dickinson in this movie, I can only give this picture 6 weasel stars.

Rock Hudson, sleazebag!

[gridoon2024 · 5/10 · 28 June 2015]

There is little of note in this thematically provocative but cinematically dull combination of sex comedy and whodunit....apart from the novelty value of seeing the famously suave and classy leading man of the 1950s and 1960s Rock Hudson in what is possibly the sleaziest character of his entire career; even his mustache is dripping with sleaze! The show-stoppingly sexy Angie Dickinson (to quote a girl in the movie: "Wow! Dig that figure!") has a discreet nude scene and also appears in a skimpy white nightie; her character has no moral inhibitions, either. The influence of the French director Roger Vadim can be seen in the content of the movie, not in the form; it plays like a dirty TV movie. ** out of 4.

A killer time capsule

[estabansmythe · 8/10 · 13 August 2006]

This was one of the most influential movies of my high school years.

And it's all thanks to French director Roger Vadim. Magnifique!

What a life Vadim must have led during the '60s & '70s. Yes, this is envy speaking.

Okay, some of the credit for this most enjoyably sly & funny little gem goes to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who, for this film went where he'd never gone before, bringing along James Doohan, aka, Scotty with him on this marvelous adolescent comedy sex fantasy/murder mystery.

The cast has a lot of fun, including Rock Hudson and the most heterosexual high school counselor in the universe (believe it); and Angie Dickenson as the sexiest teacher this side of my sophomore English teacher, Miss Lynn Segal at San Gabriel High (Angie has a stiffie-inducing seduction scene that'll ring most guy's bells like Quasimodo sure as hell never could).

In a wonderfully clueless comic role is Keenan Wynn. He's great. And a pre-Kojak Telly Savalas is the coolest police homicide detective in the history of cinema. High school chicks dig him.

John David Carson is ideal as Ponce, the shy, quiet, timid, virgin student who doesn't necessarily end up that way. Every girl he sees drives him crazy - and it's easy to see why. These babes are total! Joanna Cameron, Aimee Eccles, June Fairchild, Barbara Leigh as Rock's jaw-dropping wife, and the other "Pretty Maids" will bring eyesight to the blind. Wow!

I could go on, but why? If you like it, you like it. If not, try Von Stroheim or Bergman. I prefer Vadim. Pretty Maids All In A Row entrertained me then, and it entertained me one night in August 2006.

Scotty, We Are In Warped Another Galaxy

[DKosty123 · 6/10 · 22 August 2016]

Roger Vadium, the man who wrote the screen play Barbarella, Queen of The Galaxy which made campy soft porn a shameful delight directs this one for MGM with a bigger budget than the Jane Fonda affair. The surprise is the script from Francis Pollini's novel has a screen play here written by Gene Roddenberry who is much better known for Star Trek than for this film. Vadium is a more of a sort of cult figure in the US and did a few films in his native France. Still he is the right choice to direct this soft porn movie.

Rock Hudson plays Tiger, a high school Football Coach and Guidance Counselor who is really a modern Casanova. Pretty young maids are always winding up naked in his office for after school activities after football practice. John David Carson( who much later has a role in Julia Roberts Pretty Woman),plays Ponce, a young man who sees all these attractive women around him in high school and is having trouble controlling himself. As a football assistant, Ponce gets befriended by Tiger who finds out about this problem.

Ponce's biggest problem begins in class when a substitute teacher, Miss Smith (Angie Dickinson), shows up one day and drives his youthful urges crazy. He tells Tiger about this and Tiger has a few meetings with Miss Smith and sets her up to be Ponce's first conquest.

While all this is going on, there is a problem with young girls showing up dead at the school. Ponce finds the first one with a note attached to her butt in the boys room at school, dead. Surcher (Telly Savalas aka. Kojak) shows up at school to investigate the murder. He suspects something is going on with Tiger, but can not prove anything (this is in the days before modern DNA evidence).

Tiger's motive to kill the pretty young maids is that after seducing them is that they all threaten to tell his beautiful wife they want her man. Roddy McDowall is Proffer, a principal who expresses sadness about the first murder because she was a "good little cheerleader."

The real subplot here is soft porn. Sometimes referred to as T&A, this film is more about the "A" as Vadium manages to get plenty of them in the film from the very first scene. There is some topless stuff too but the most shots are below the waist with all the women clad in miniskirt's. This does tie with the original Star Trek as a lot of mini-skirts dominated that series, though 1971 is more than 3 years after that mission ended.

There are some ironic scenes in this with Coach Tiger (Hudson) looking very much at home in the teams locker room with sweaty young men. Vadium almost certainly as a Hollywood Insider, knew by then about Hudson as even the times with Tiger and Ponce together almost reflect another relationship though not according to this script.

Spoiler- when the movie ends, with the death of Tiger, there appears to Surcher whose vain pursuit of Tiger appears to have ended, a chance that Tiger is not dead, and went to Brazil. Meanwhile, Ponce has assumed Tiger's role as the ladies man with young ladies as Miss Smith has moved on to a man her own age. This film is really quite short and an oddity in the writing and casting.

One of Roddenberry's daughters, Dawn, is one of the pretty maids in this, her only role outside of being a little blonde girl on Star Trek in 1966. James Doohan (Scotty) is Follo, working with Surcher trying to solve a string that goes to 3 young girls and a campus policeman. At least there are still lots of girls left, though it is a good thing Tiger is finally stopped at the end of this one.

Amoral, hypocritical waste of time

[tarmcgator · 1/10 · 12 September 2006]

Another blast from my past! I was a horny college student when this film was released in 1971, and I recall a big photo spread in "Playboy" promoting the film with revealing images of various "Pretty Maids." (Joy Bang? Nothing suggestive there!) I went to see the film based on that promise of titillation, but rather than being turned on, my tender sensibilities were turned off by the amoral characters and plot line.

I recently watched the film again on TCM (give them credit for not censoring the mild nudity!), and I can't say that my view has changed much in 35 years. Those who try to excuse this fecal matter as "black comedy" or as an unsung "cult classic" are putting a lot of lipstick on a warthog.

Many privileged Baby Boomers (of which I was one) developed in the 1960s a peculiarly self-centered notion that youth is morally superior to maturity, that idealism always trumps experience. The media -- especially a movie industry with a new ratings system that released filmmakers from the restrictions of the old Production Code -- pandered to the Baby Boomers' self-congratulatory moral smugness. This film is rife with such pandering. Rock Hudson's lecherous/murderous teacher is represented as the only cool adult in the film, as much for his "youthful" sense of style as for his unorthodox ideas about educating horny teenagers. The only other remotely hip adult is Telly Savalas' detective, who himself develops a grudging admiration for the murderer. The Angie Dickinson character is an overly earnest teacher who has to be "enlightened" by Hudson into seducing Hudson's sexually frustrated protégé (John David Carson). The other adult characters are essentially movie idiots (Keenan Wynn and Roddy McDowall are particularly offensive -- I hope they were paid well), while the hip, turned-on teens in the film protest the Vietnam war and lecture their elders on sexual freedom and openness.

I have nothing against good old-fashioned lust, but even in 1971 I saw the impropriety of Hudson's character having sex with his female students (which he excuses as a way to enhance their psychological well-being). That sort of sexual power-mongering is bad enough, but then the controlling bastard must kill certain sexual partners (and others) who might expose his escapades. Rather hypocritical, isn't it? Advocating sexual license but afraid of having his own licentiousness exposed? (His wife, played by the lovely Barbara Leigh, is strangely passive in all this mess. It's never clear if she's totally clueless or remarkably tolerant of her husband's extramarital liaisons, though the film's ending points toward the latter.) After the Hudson character's demise(?), the newly unfrustrated protégé (who earlier is dismayed by revelations of his mentor's murderous behavior) adopts the same style of sexual duplicity for himself. (He attains symbolic hipness by abandoning his wimpy Vespa for a studlier motorcycle.) Perhaps the filmmakers were trying to argue that the new sexual mores of the '60s were a sham -- just the old, inescapable sexual hypocrisy coated with hip psychobabble – but that point itself is objectionable, and the film's own hypocrisy emphasizes just how disgusting the old sexual double standard really was (and is).

One would think that this film was a rather blatant fantasy by that unapologetic libertine, Roger Vadim. But the film was written and produced by that celebrated intergalactic moralist, Gene Roddenberry, for God'sake! This guy gives dirty old men a bad name, and the film makes me yearn for the mindless but honest lasciviousness of hardcore porn. Comedy, even black comedy, still needs a moral center, something we can laugh with rather than just laugh at. This film glories in its amorality and mocks what the many progressive Boomers of the 60s, for all our ignorance and pretense, were trying to accomplish (and to some extent, have achieved) in making society's attitudes about sex more humane.