User Reviews

It depresses me how I can remember something like this from my youth. At a multi-screen drive-in, the movie my family and I were supposed to watch was rather dull (I can't even remember the film's title) so I just turned my head and looked out the side window and saw the film Class of 74 w/out sound. The vision of a bikini-clad black woman dancing to the credits and topless swimmers in the pool was quite a sight. Not to mention, the scene where a macho athlete was getting molested by the team doctor stayed with me forever.

After a few too many decades, I accidentally came across the film from an Internet trader and I had to see if my memory was still as sharp as always, or if had it failed me. Well, my memory didn't fail me; here was one of many films that captured my interest in the trashy low budget drive-in films of the past.

Well, seeing the film with sound didn't do much for the film. The plot has a group of young college students led by Pat Woodell, Sondra (billed as Sandra) Currie, and Marki Bey as the dancing black woman in the bikini taking into their clique, a young Gabriella- the film's original title, and how she should be freer and sexually liberated to be a total woman. Uh- okay.

The viewer is treated to a series of scenes guaranteed to get a howl as these students go from free love seminars, to a filmmaking couple making a documentary of sexually liberated people (featuring the macho athlete now a swishing gay male), a threesome, and open relationships.

The filmmakers must have realized this film didn't a little more than an hour, so they padded the film with Gabriella reminiscing about her Lothario father cruising Sunset Blvd. Which ironically is a scene that would have fit in the 1960s, and not the seventies when this film was made.

The climax consists of Pat Woodell (in a horrendously fake platinum wig) inviting Gabriella on a small yacht owned by her rich sugar daddy played by Gary Clarke of How to Make a Monster and Missile to the Moon infamy. How does Gabriella handle the situation? She becomes a mistress to another sugar daddy on the yacht with his wife's approval.

The ending is rather surprising as Gabrielle is taking a young college student under her wing and getting ready to tutor the young student on how she can make her life much better and be a free woman.

Ah yes, the Seventies.

Your enjoyment of this will no doubt depend on how much you like 70's movies--this movie is VERY 70's. The "plot" (like you really need one in a 70's flick) involves a sexually inexperienced college co-ed "Gabriella" (Barbara Caron), whose three far more experienced girlfriends (Marki Bey, Sondra Currie) decide to help her get more experience by each setting her up with a guy--a photographer, a virginal male roommate, and an older married guy with a sympathetic wife. But which of these suitors will she have sex with?. . OK, the answer is all three--this was the 70's after all (and that is NOT a spoiler).

This "plot" though only takes up maybe half of the 80 minute run-time, but the movie is padded out with long stretches of goofy counter-cultural dialogue, fantasy sequences (like a mouth-watering Garden of Eden sequence with Caron playing the mother of all humanity), and flashbacks--lots and lots of gratuitous flashbacks. There is even a flashback within a flashback where a gay guy tells of being seduced by his PE coach (a highly unusual scene in a 70's movie). The best flashback though is when the heroine flashes back to her father(!) cruising the Sunset Strip looking for "young stuff". This is a VERY weird scene (what was she following him?), but you do get to see some great, sleazy footage of Sunset Boulevard circa 1972. I live for such things.

The co-director of this Arthur Marks went on to do films like "Bonnie's Kids" and the blaxploitation flick "Detroit 9000". Lead actress Caron is--how can I say this--absolutely, unbelievably, frickin beautiful, and she spends the whole movie modeling skimpy bikinis, groovy 70's duds, or her even groovier birthday suit. Marki Bay plays the liberated black chick and gives by far the best acting performance. Then there's "Sandra Currie" (actually SONDRA Currie), who looked like a bustier version of Claudia Jennings, and was the older sister of Cherie and Marie Currie of the Runaways fame. I personally remember her best though as the evil stewardess in the airplane episode of the old "Incredible Hulk" TV show. (That's one reason I love 70's exploitation flicks--you can see a lot of the same actresses you on saw on TV as a kid, but in a much sleazier setting). This is actually a pretty tame movie as far as 70's exploitation goes though, and it goes off on so many unrelated tangents that it's more like a series of unrelated tangents than a movie. But if you like 70's movies, you might kinda like it.

With Marki Bey being the first ever actress to make me think "Wow!,this woman is hot!" from the first moment that she appears in the sadly over looked Zombie Soul film Sugar Hill,I was thrilled to recently get hold of another movie that Bey had co-starred in,which led to me excitingly getting ready to see this very special "Bey City Roller" light up the screen again.

The plot:

Talking to a new student called Gabriella who has recently arrived at their college,friends Carla,Maggie and Heather are surprised to find out that Gabriella has a much more reserved attitude to her life,then any of them do.

Keen to try and make their new friend at last let her hair down,the gang arrange Gabriella to go with them to a beach,where she will be able to have some very eye-opening photos taken by a photography.As they head to the beach with Gabriella,Carla,Maggie and Heather begin to tell their new friend about the events that led to each of them having a very liberal attitude towards life.

View on the film:

Kicking the movie off right from the start,by dancing over the opening credits in a very alluring white bikini,Marki Bey, (who does not appear naked in the film…boo!) gives a sparkling performance that sets the film alight when ever she is on screen,due to Bey showing that along with her very good looks she is also able to give Carla a real sassy side and also a sharp,to the point "liberal" side.

Joining Bey,the other beautiful actress's each give the movie a real Power Pop atmosphere,with Sondra Currie (sister of The Runaway's singer Cherrie)giving Maggie a real sensual edge,whilst Barbara Mills shows Gabriella's innocence to transform into a raw,anything goes attitude.

Initially making the film look like it is going to offer an explosive pop bubble,the screenplay by Johnny Legend and Jack Mattis surprisingly decides to go into a good amount of detail about the friends views on their liberal out look,which despite offering some very refreshing takes on some at the time controversial issues, (such as the fact that one of the main male characters being gay,being shown in an positive light)does sadly lead to the movie feeling much slower pace than it should have been.

Moving away from the sun,sea and girls that the movie has at the beginning,directors Mack Bing and Arthur Marks give the film a stylised,Prog Rock inspired appearance,with Bing and Marks using pastel greens and blues to show Gabriella allowing nature to take its cause in her life,which leads to this class visit being one that is fun,but not as joyous as it so easily could have been.

Beautiful, but uptight and repressed college student Gabriella (nicely played by lovely brunette Barbara Mills) gets inducted into a more open and free-spirited lifestyle by her three loose and uninhibited pals: fiery Carla (a wonderfully brash Marki Bey), saucy Maggie (luscious redhead Sondra Currie), and brassy Heather (spicy blonde Pat Woodell). Through a series of flashbacks and fantasies, the naughty trio teach Gabriella the joys of wild wanton sex and the need for a sugar daddy to support you. Directors Arthur Marks and Mack Bing, working from a cheerfully silly script by Jack Mattis, load this flick with a pleasing plethora of tasty distaff nudity and equally yummy simulated soft-core sex scenes while offering a merry celebration of the 70's free love mentality and typically wacky Me Decade radically permissive do-your-own-thing progressive thinking and cockeyed feminist politics. Moreover, this movie delivers a few choice daft moments: a gorgeous young couple do just what you think in front of an appreciative live audience and a gay man gives an incredible monologue on masturbation and homosexuality (we're also treated to a great flashback in which the gay man is seduced by a lecherous high school coach!). The lady leads are quite attractive and have a ball with the racy material, with sound support from Gary Clarke as hearty skin magazine publisher John, Chris Beaumont as hunky young stud Wally, and Luanne Roberts as liberated underground filmmaker Carol. The groovy soundtrack, some gnarly nightclub footage, and the gloriously gaga pretense that this picture is somehow all about female empowerment all considerably add to the funky period charm. Robert Charle Wilson's basic, yet effective cinematography boasts a few trippy visuals. Louis Y. Brown's jaunty score likewise does the trick. A real trashy hoot.