Wow! Such a good movie.

An Exercise In Nonsense

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

THE TEACHER is a typical exploitation flick put out by Crown International Pictures. It's cheap and grainy, shot on the fly with the bare vestiges of a proper storyline and plenty of padding to get it up to feature length. The story is mainly romance-focused, with a senior school student getting it on with his sexy teacher, as played by Angel Tompkins who is about a decade older than her character. Inevitably in the 1970s era this turns out to be a skin flick, with lots of dressing and undressing and unnecessary shower scenes. Even with all of the associated drama this plot only comes to half length, so there's an extensive sub-plot in which the teacher is pursued by this creepy psycho guy; this is more interesting than the romance, but still very slow-moving.

After his last day in a Southern California high school, shyly cute virgin Jay North (as Sean Roberts) goes out with a friend to spy on beautifully-figured Angel Tompkins (as Diane Marshall). Also watching the topless young teacher is psychotic Anthony James (as Ralph Gordon). The sleazy-looking stalker is in love with Ms. Tompkins. They (and we) get to see Tompkins rubbing her naked upper body with suntan lotion. Then, a tragic accident occurs as North's friend falls off a warehouse tower. The luckless lad is also the little brother of Mr. James, who blames North for the incident. Tompkins, who is no longer North's teacher, seduces him. This makes James jealous...The three main characters proceed through the story without rhyme or reason. Considering how haphazardly writer-director Howard Avedis presents the action; they often appear, understandably, lost. The main reason to watch is seeing Tompkins topless. She's never convincing as a teacher or "older woman," but the show stops every time Tomkins takes her shirt off. Her upturned assets are highly appealing. North gets bits of genuine acting in here and there, but it's an aimless effort. Far from his famous "Dennis the Menace" role, North appears to enjoy himself as an "R-rated" movie star. Inexplicably popping in and out, James suffers most from the production's overall weaknesses.***** The Teacher (5/29/74) Howard Avedis ~ Angel Tompkins, Jay North, Anthony James, Marlene Schmidt

"Diane Marshall" (Angel Tompkins) is a 28 year-old teacher who wants a divorce from her 40 year-old husband. Sexually frustrated, she wants to have an affair with an 18 year-old student named "Sean Roberts" (Peter North) who has just graduated from high school and is off for the summer. Unfortunately, there is a mentally disturbed person named "Ralph Gordon" (Anthony James) who is completely obsessed with Diane and becomes insanely jealous of the attention Diane is lavishing on Sean. Adding to the tension is the fact that Ralph's brother, "Lou Gordon" (Rudy Herrera Jr.) was recently killed in an altercation when Ralph caught Sean and Lou spying on Diane. Ralph blames Sean for Lou's death even though it was clearly an accident. Anyway, rather than spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this type of low-budget film was quite typical at drive-ins during the mid-70's. The plot was extremely basic, the dialogue was awful and the love scenes were laughable. Quite frankly, the only good thing about this movie was the presence of Angel Tompkins as she was simply divine. Everything else was quite forgettable. That said, I will rate it as only slightly below average even though it feels like a bit of a stretch to rate it even that high.

Now if you just want to see some really nice shots of Angel Tompkins's bosoms than The Teacher is definitely your kind of film. It's barely half a step above soft core porn when she and Jay North get down to the deed.I'm sure Jay North was seeing this as some kind of comeback film for him after Dennis The Menace and Maya where he could finally establish himself as an adult star. And what better way than to finally have some screen sex with an older woman.But the acting in this film was some of the worst ever put on celluloid and the photography looked like it was shot with my father's old Bell&Howell movie camera.Angel's is a 28 year old high school teacher on her summer vacation with the rest of her peers and she's also a neighbor of one of her recently graduated students, Jay North. Her husband has up and left her both miserable and horny. She lights on North and the two of them go at it hot and heavy.Not that North hasn't noticed here, but so has creepy Anthony James. He spies on her occasionally from his crib in an abandoned warehouse. One day North and friend Rudy Herrera who is James's younger brother go up to the crib to take a gander for themselves and James spots them, while fleeing Herrera falls off a catwalk and James in his twisted sociopathic logic holds North responsible. Both for the death of his brother and the fact he has taken up with the object of his voyeurism.Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster wrote a truly insipid song for this film and it saddens me that two Oscar winning songwriters got reduced to this in order to find work in Hollywood.It all ends badly for the protagonists as Angel the cougar learns the error of her ways.For fans of Angel Tompkins's bosoms only.