By Todd Garbarini
If Pretty Maids All in a Row were made today exactly the same way as it was made forty years ago, there would be an enormous outcry against the film’s cavalier attitude towards mentor/student sex. Such scenarios parodied in Roger Vadim’s 1971 film version of Francis Pollini’s novel of the same name are today the stuff of headlines as middle-aged teachers, both male and female, have been caught engaging in extracurricular activities with their young students that go far beyond anything that an educational institution would ever have in mind. To put Pretty Maids All in a Row into proper perspective, it is necessary to understand the era in which the film was shot. The sexual revolution was in full swing, Playboy and Penthouse magazines were enjoying unprecedented success, and Masters and Johnson were studying the sexual mores of many couples. A film about a vice principal/guidance counselor nicknamed “Tiger†bedding underage female students didn’t seem to ruffle too many feathers. Whether one chooses to look at the film as social commentary or the satire its director intended it to be is a matter of personal choice, though given the aloof handling of the murders that ensue it is impossible to regard the film as anything other than black comedy. Aside from this, it also doubles as a time capsule of attitudes and fashions from the early Seventies.