The Class of '74 is a soft core nudie flick about some young women in college. It came out in 1972 and has an odd lot of creators. It lists two directors, Anthony Marks and Mack Bing. Arthur produced a 145 episodes of Perry Mason. I know I've seen them as I just watched the whole series a year or so ago. He also directed 76 episodes of the same show. In the 1970s he directed several movies, I've only seen Detroit 9000 and Linda Lovelace For President. Neither of them is outstanding.
A big chunk of The Class Of '74 was lifted from the 1970 film Gabriella, Gabriella. Mack Bing directed GG and the film is a mess of themes and images. It's a bit surreal and not the kind of thing people are going to want to book in their theaters. Mack worked various jobs in TV and movies. He directed 19 episodes of The Garry Moore Show back in 1964, I know we watched that show when it was new. His last directorial job was the first episode of The Smothers Brothers Show in 1975. Mack's greatest number of credits are for producing shows like The Garry Moore Show, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Roots, Quark, The Greatest American Hero, Airwolf, Magnum PI and Moonlighting. He passed away in 2008 at 85. GG was produced and financed by Louis Yale Brown who was Jerry Lewis's musical director. Jack Mattis wrote the story and the screenplay. It's Jack's only writing credit on the IMDb. He also was in GG as the molestin' coach and he was one of the producers.
The two movies are way different in story even though they share a good bit of footage between them. They're both about 80 minutes but only about half of the footage from GG is in TCO'74. In the latter we meet four independent college women who talk about their lives and attitudes toward men. Most of that's new, the footage from GG is cut into that as flashbacks and such. There's plenty of nudity and sex but nothing too explicit. The way the footage was edited from GG really tells a different story. In GG Gabriella's family story is much longer and kind of sad, the father is womanizer and her mother has an affair. The documentary film makers get much more time to get their clothes off and the sexual lecture is much longer. The end of GG shifts gears as it gets more heavily political with a rather odd and somewhat surreal anti-racism message. There are musical montages too and at the end the cast dance naked by a pool. It's not something you see everyday, though I could now that I own the Code Red DVD. Not that I would, no time for that.
The movie doesn't get the Blood Bath treatment extras wise, it has a trailer for each movie and 8 random trailers for other Code Red releases. I thought it was fun enough but it's the sort of thing that won't appeal to all.
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