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Delinquent Schoolgirls
[Psychotronica]
1974; color
Directed by Gregory Corarito
Starring: Michael Pataki, Bob Minor, Stephen Stucker, Sharon Kelly, Brenda Miller & George "Buck" Flower
Dream No Evil
[Psychotronica]
1972; color
Directed by John Hayes
Starring: Edmond O'Brien, Brooke Mills, Mark Lawrence, Michael Pataki, Paul Prokop & Arthur Franz
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The double feature has long been considered one of the hallmarks of the drive-in era. If our mail is any indication it would seem many DVD companies have wholly embraced this concept as well; in some ways using the two movie format to signal from afar their “genre” titles from more mainstream fare. Psychotronica takes this concept one step farther by packaging three double feature DVDs in one box set. (This is Volume 1; Volume 2 features Mondo Keyhole / The Raw Ones; and Volume 3 features The Mermaids Of Tiburon / Yambao - Cry Of The Bewitched.) Of course the connections between these three DVDs are equally as thin as the connections between each of the double features themselves, which just adds to the overall grindhouse vibe. This particular volume really seems ripped right from a Times Square marquee because, really, is there a more appropriate venue to show a movie called Delinquent Schoolgirls? Also known as Carnal Madness, this ultra obscure obscurity has got to be one of the least politically correct films I’ve ever been sent for review and, at this point, that is really saying something! Take our selection of anti-heroes (protagonists, as the box cover calls them) who we meet in their collective cellblock house away from home: first we have Richard “Big Dick” Peters, played by Bob Minor. Big Dick, as he likes to be called, is an ex-professional athlete (a baseball player I think) who has a lust for the ladies. In fact it’s his overactive libido, coupled with his inability to differentiate consentual from non-consentual sex, that got him into this dilly of a pickle in the first place. Sadly, this rape arrest won’t stop him from raping the first woman he comes across as soon as they get out... Oooops, I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t even gotten to the other two weirdos - acclaimed homosexual fashion designer Bruce Wilson (played by Stephen Stucker) and amateur impressionist Carl C. Clooney. (Played to the hilt by Michael Pataki; who, among other honors, played Count Mallachi on a brief series of Happy Days episodes. If I remember correctly he challenged Pinky Tuscadero in a demolition derby bout.) I’m not sure why the gay fella is in jail, nor Clooney, but the latter appears to be a student of the Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest style of sociopathology, which we can tell from the fact we see him getting an EST in the first few minutes of the film. At any rate, the trio makes quite the odd couple - or, uh, odd triad - but they do share two common goals: busting out of the clink and menacing all who cross their path. After securing a get out of jail free syringe during his treatment, Clooney and co quickly achieve the first goal and set out to work on the second, invading the home of a fat, flaccid farmer and his horny housewife. (Big Dick fucks the relatively willing wife while the other two menace, then befriend and get drunk with, the husband. At the end of the scene, the farmer drunkenly begs the guys to tell his wife he put up a fight to protect her honor.) The three then head off down the road in search of further kicks, eventually finding themselves at nearby Oxford Corrective Institute For Young Woman, home to a curiously well endowed group of delinquent schoolgirls. (You’ll have to listen to the commentary track for that explanation!) Of course, this is bad news for the busty detainees - at least the ones who aren’t dying for male attention / affection - but, not to worry, part of their rehabilitation program involves studying karate. Did you get all of that? Well, there’s more. But that was most of the part I understood. If you think this movie has a challenging plotline, wait until you get to Dream No Evil. At first the story almost seems simple. The main character is a woman named Grace. She spends her time traveling around the country with her brother-in-law-to-be (Michael Pataki again, sporting the beginning of what could grow up to be some fierce mutton chops), carny-ing for the lord in the grand old tradition of her family-to-be while her husband-to-be is away at medical school. As much as Carla loves diving off platforms into plies of hay in the name of Jesus and pining away for her fiancee, her greater goal is to find her biological father. Seems simple enough right? It’s not. Because much of what happens in Carla’s world doesn’t actually happen, except in her mind. Or at least that’s what the narrator that pops up sporadically to offer very little insight told me. Since that fact, coupled with everything I already mentioned, is all I retained from the film we’re gonna have to take the narrator’s word for it. At one point I turned to the Kommandant, who bravely volunteered to watch this double feature with me, and said “Oh... so the one brother is studying to be a medical doctor while the other is a faith healer... does that symbolize something?” To which he replied, “I don’t think any aspect of this movie symbolizes anything.” He has a valid point. This DVD on the whole is probably best left to the seasoned B-Movie viewer, and might even leave this segment of the audience scratching their heads.
—Bunny
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