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There’s some­thing spe­cial about the teen­sploita­tion films made in California dur­ing the mid-to-late 1970’s.  They had an eye for the teen cul­ture of the era and, like the best exploita­tion flicks, they had the where­withal to depict its phe­nom­ena at the places where they occurred.  Whatever they might lack in tech­ni­cal or nar­ra­tive slick­ness, they made up for in pure verisimilitude.

A great exam­ple of the form is Summer School, known to many view­ers by its orig­i­nal title of Mag Wheels.  This eye-opening quickie was writ­ten and directed by Bethel Buckalew, a California-based exploita­tion film­maker bet­ter known for his work in the soft­core sex-flick field (he was a spe­cial­ist in hillbilly-themed efforts like Sassy Sue and The Pigkeeper’s Daughter).  With Summer School, he turned his eye to the youth cul­ture of his era — and what he put on cel­lu­loid offers pure b-movie entrancement.

Anita (Shelly Horner) is a new stu­dent at a beach­side community’s high school.  She’s got a tough per­sonal life, com­plete with a worka­holic dad (Irwin Schaeffer) who’s always has­sling her about her lack­lus­ter school per­for­mance and a thank­less arcade job with a boss (Jeff Richards) who sex­u­ally harasses her.  She’s swept off her feet when Steve (John Laughlin), the school’s big-man-on-campus, takes an inter­est her.  Unfortunately, this puts Anita in the crosshairs of Donna (Verkina Flower), Steve’s intensely jeal­ous and vin­dic­tive main squeeze.  Anita finds sup­port from a group of tough, inde­pen­dent girls led by Jill (Phoebe Schmidt) but it may not be enough to fend off the unpre­dictable twists and turns of Cali-teen life…

If viewed purely as teen­sploita­tion fare, Summer School deliv­ers the sun-kissed goods. Buckalew’s script piles on every bit of exploitable con­tent he can muster on his tiny bud­get: cat­fights, car-chases and heavy pet­ting (some­times unclothed) are the fuel that keepd the exploitation-flick engine run­ning. The per­for­mances are all rough around the edges — but this actu­ally enhances the film’s vibe, with the ten­dency for melo­drama and pos­tur­ing of its cast unin­ten­tion­ally offer­ing a pretty accu­rate psy­cho­log­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of how peo­ple act at this age.  Best of all, the film uses real loca­tions to atmos­pheric effect, giv­ing it tremen­dous pro­duc­tion value and a tan­gi­bly you-are-there Californian mood that a bigger-budgeted film wouldn’t be able to capture.

However, what is really fas­ci­nat­ing about Summer School is how it cap­tures the socially Darwinian nature of teen life with an eerily casual per­fec­tion.  It por­trays a social order amongst its teens that is set in stone, with Steve and Donna at the helm.  Anita attempts to buck it by mak­ing a play for Steve and suf­fers at the hands of Donna as a result.  She does her suf­fer­ing in silence because she knows that’s the price of her actions.  Another char­ac­ter in the same boat is Pledge (Steven), a good-natured nerd who puts up with abuse and end­less menial tasks from Steve’s crowd in the hope he might one day enjoy it.  No one dares come to his defense — he’s cho­sen his role and must heed its con­se­quences.  Even Jill’s band of femme-rebels, the film’s most inter­est­ing and forward-thinking cre­ations, aren’t try­ing to over­throw the social order: they’re just try­ing to carve out their own place within it.  Adults are either use­less or ignored in the scheme of things and are there­fore ignored, even when they are preda­tory like Anita’s boss.  They’re just old peo­ple, they might as well be dead.

Whether inten­tional or not, this ele­ment of bru­tal hon­esty beneath the expected hijinx lends a fris­son to Summer School that no one would expect.  It’s teen­sploita­tion with a dif­fer­ence and this dual­ity makes it a stand­out for any­one inter­ested in reliv­ing this genre.

Great Clip from Summer School (warn­ing: NSFW language):