Trip With The Teacher

 (1974)

A group of four High School girls and their favorite teacher are on an extracurricular summer trip to the desert by bus. Meanwhile, two bikers have a flat tire, and a third stops to help. Of course, all of these characters must meet, and do so at a filling station. First the bus leaves, then one of the bikers takes a dislike to the gas station owner, and kills him before leaving. The bus dies on a back road, and our bikers arrive to help. They can't repair it, but decide to tow it behind their bikes. They tow it further into the desert, kill the bus driver, then the nastiest of the bikers decides to rape the teacher. The good Samaritan biker uses this opportunity to try and escape and get help, but the third biker chases him over a cliff. The virgin amongst the girls then tries to escape, and is caught by the nastiest biker and suffocated by pressing her face into the dirt. Nasty biker returns and decides it is time to rape one of the school girls. While he is thus occupied, another girl goes out to use the outhouse. The other biker is told to follow her. Remember the good Samaritan biker that went over the cliff? Well guess who is standing on the roof with a hanging rope.

Trip with the Teacher has a familiar grade-B plot, and its only real attraction is the lead playing the evil biker. It is none other than Zalman King, before he started writing and/or directing such films as 9 1/2 Weeks, Two Moon Junction, Red Shoe Diaries, Wild Orchid, Delta of Venus, etc. Apart from offering the opportunity to watch Zalman in front of the camera chewing the scenery, the film has little else going for it.

• We never learn anything about the backgrounds of any of the characters, and so it is hard to care what happens to them.
• For a film with 5 young actresses, the nudity is skimpy.
• Finally, I felt cheated by the ending. I wanted Zalman to pay much more for what he had done.

The transfer, obviously from a work print, is not that great, with some scratches and lots of grain, making this disc a perfect offering: a bad transfer of a bad film. It may end up in your collection anyway because it is part of a double feature with Malibu High, which is also bad, but in the good, hilariously inept way that we love. Of course, that's the way it always worked in the days of double features and drive-ins.

IMDb readers have this at 1.4, with 103 of the 177 votes being a perfect 1.

Trip With the Teacher is an F.

More of the director's cut with some value: additional Diane Kruger nudity from Troy. (These film clips are in German but the words are not important anyway.) Samples below.

A couple more of Ashley Judd in Bug

Teachers

Screwed again by the greedy studio bastards at MGM: the Teachers DVD release, at the end of August 2007, was advertised on all the web sites, (Amazon, Laser's Edge, Netflix, etc.), as "dual-sided dual layer" with both widescreen and full screen versions. Based on the caps I've seen of this movie, I wanted to be sure I had the full screen version for the nudity. Apparently, to save production costs, the jerks released only a single-layer widescreen version, and didn't even bother to warn their dealers. All the sources above report receiving only the widescreen version; the full screen version apparently doesn't exist on DVD, and that sucks. Still, I wanted it in my collection.

I've seen many caps of this 1984 comedy/drama over the years, but for some reason, never saw the movie until recently on one of the movie channels (and that was the full screen version). I really enjoyed it. It's loaded with then-stars, still stars, and soon-to-be stars, and it does a good job of being both funny and serious. Despite the 80's lameness, it gives a pretty good view of the problems facing teachers (and students) not just in the 80's, but today. Then as now, schools were churning out graduates that couldn't even read or add, and administrators were too busy covering their own asses to deal with the problem.

He's a drunk that's often too hung over to show up for work on Monday, but Alex (Nick Nolte) is also a darned good teacher, looked up to by his students. A graduate that can’t read is suing the school, and the administration goes into cover-your-ass mode. The boy's lawyer, Lisa (JoBeth Williams), is a school graduate who was one of Alex's students, and still has a crush on him, but she is intent on bring the school board to its knees.

When Alex refuses to help with the cover-up and tries to make the problems even more public, the administration finds a way to force him to resign, but Lisa, in a classic scene, tries to convince him to fight.

Lee Grant is the school board head, and a young Laura Dern and an even younger Ralph Macchio play students in this very interesting story. The movie is neither unique nor perfect, but still is a very entertaining movie with a very pertinent message, even today. Sorry about the widescreen version, though.

JoBeth Williams	Julia Jennings

The Comedy Wire

Comments in yellow...

O.J. Simpson is now facing eight charges, including a potential life sentence for first degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon, because the collectibles dealers he met with allegedly weren't allowed to leave the room.  An O.J. friend accused one of the dealers
of "setting O.J. up" by arranging the meeting and taping it. 

*  Double murder we can overlook, but keep a trading card dealer from leaving a hotel room and you're goin' away for life! 


Tuesday in Los Angeles, Phil Spector looked stunned when his jury returned to court after a week and announced they were hopelessly deadlocked 7 to 5 on charges of him murdering Lana Clarkson.  Arguments will be heard Thursday on considering a lesser charge.  In the meantime, officials aren't giving up hope of a verdict.  The judge will meet with the jury today to try to reinstruct them on the law.    

*  He'll try to explain that even in L.A., murder can sometimes be illegal.