No.238 : The Teacher (1974)

The Teacher (1974) at the IMDb

The wonderfully named Angel Tompkins stars as the titular teacher who does no teaching but offers plenty of the rest. The film opens slowly with it reaching nearly 11 minutes before we get our first line of dialogue : “Damn”. We watch teacher Diane get ready and head out in her sweet Tran-Am. Meanwhile creepy Ralph is stalking her in his hearse - subtle! Diane heads to her cabin cruiser ‘Diane’ and takes it out into the middle of the harbour where she whips off her top for some chilly looking sunbathing. Ralph has a vantage point staked out and enjoys a bit of peeping at Diane through his binoculars.

Sadly for Ralph, his perving is interrupted when is brother Lou and friend Sean show up for some peeping of their own - they should have set up a turnstile! Ralph isn’t happy and charges the late coming perverts and Lou falls to his death. Sean runs off but is later warned by Ralph to say nothing to the cops. 

Sean has recently left school and is on friendly terms with Diane who is all alone now that her racing driver husband has left the scene. She has designs on young Sean and invites him over to help her ‘clean out her garage’ - that’s a new euphemism on me. After a quick start Diane and Sean start to see each other, much to the outrage of the locals , although his Mom is pretty cool about it all. Ralph isn’t though, and stalks the couple with his menacing bayonet in hand.

Things inevitably come to a head with Sean kidnapped by Ralph, with Diane in hot pursuit - who will survive and is there enough time for her to get her top off again?

This was a dreadfully poor and cheap looking exploitation flick, but it wasn’t without it’s charms. I liked Anthony James, whom we know from ‘W’ Classics ‘World Gone Wild’ and ‘Wacko’ as the crazed stalker Ralph. He had a weird coffin full of stuff including a Chekov’s gun to go with his hearse and he was ‘weirdo’ personified. There was a funny scene where he went into his coffin of tricks and next minute he’s in a frogman suit eyeing our couple having sex on their boat.

Angel Tomkins was decent in the main role as the sex mad and poor judgement burdened Diane, who had a succession of bikini tops that she just had to keep shedding. ‘Dennis the Menace’ Jay North was less good and his floundering was annoying.

Down the cast, the players looked like they were working for beer with Sean’s Dad especially bad. The film ran a long 100 minutes with a lot of padding generously provided. Frolicking in the swimming pool is fine but five minutes of it didn’t advance the plot an inch! There were scenes where awkward silences were interrupted by non-sequitors and it looked improvised to no real effect, apart from adding to the amateur vibe.

The nihilistic ending seemed unnecessary but I guess that’s the genre - blood and boobs with no learnings to be had!

THE Tag Line : You’ll Learn Nothing!  61%

 

No.52 : The Bridge (2006)

The Bridge at the IMDb

Here’s nice uplifting documentary to cheers you up - bunch of folk killing themselves by flinging themselves off the Golden Gate Bridge. If that’s not enough to put a spring in your step the clips of the suicides are inter cut with interviews of those left behinds, sometimes to literally pick up the pieces.

The film was made in 2004 and caught most of the 24 suicides who plummeted off the bridge to their near certain deaths. The director set up a long lensed camera at a suicide hot spot on the bridge and over the months he filmed he gained dubious footage of damaged people ending it all.

The actual suicide footage, although tremendously powerful lasts a matter of seconds so clearly he had to go and find some padding in the shape of talking head relatives who were largely trying to find some sense in the senseless and selfish acts. There is also further padding with long and arty establishing shots of the bridge and of various bridge users which soon causes a sense of ‘is he over next’ in the viewer.

There is no narration to the film and it seems somewhat random. There is an attempt at a central spine to the film in the shape of Gene, a long haired layabout, who pops up throughout.If I was being cynical I’d say that Gene’s story is focused upon because he was the one that they had the best death footage of. His relatives were also quite eloquent but unable to add much to what a pretty straightforward tale of depression followed by suicide.

The point of the film is hard to establish and it’s almost pornographic the way the ‘money shots’ are carefully doled out through the 90 minutes running time. I’m sure the random and uneven feel to the film would be explained as a narrative on the damaged people’s motivations but it’s more likely it was cobbled together using the best footage and the relatives who were willing to talk for reasons unknown.

It would be hard not to be moved by the film given that we share the last seconds of several peoples’ lives and the big finale is genuinely shocking but the lasting impression is one of sadness that these desperate people never got the help they needed.

I would have liked to see more of the other side, the poor buggers charged with recovering the bodies and State officials who could explain why the world’s favourite suicide spot doesn’t have higher barriers or catch nets. I guess the attitude is that if they are going to kill themselves it’s better to do it here than onto a busy freeway.

Almost every suicidee found a positive advocate but for the most part the tales were consistent in terms of depression and escalating attempts to take their own lives. Sometimes suicide attempts can be cries for help or for attention but the guys we saw here knew there was no going back.

The overall feel of the film is of one built around a few seconds of footage with bricks of worthiness and head shaking. The actual effect is one of grubby exploitation with no message I could see.

THE Tag Line : Take Me Away From The Bridge 52%