CULT – The Centerfold Girls

Published on: 18th December, 2009

CULT - The Centerfold Girls  | read this item

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Whilst the censors and critics have always shifted awkwardly at the combination of sex and violence, truth be told was that fans of exploitation have never been able to get enough. The 1970s were awash with all manner of sleaze and drive-ins would often screen double bills in an effort to keep up with the demands of their audience. With the decade kicking off with Wes Craven’s rape/revenge flick The Last House on the Left, the next few years would see countless examples of depravity and gratuitous violence that would bring around a definitive end to the 1960s. Much like Andrea Bianchi’s Nude per l’assassino (Strip Nude for Your Killer), John Peyser’s 1974 feature The Centerfold Girls combined sex, violence and the world of fashion to produce a shameless example of 1970s exploitation: perverse and unapologetic. Thirty-five years later, it remains one of the more underrated and obscure flicks of the era.

John Peyser was born in New York City on August 10 1916, at the height of the First World War as the Battle of the Somme raged in Picardy, France, resulting in the deaths of 1.5 million soldiers of different nationalities. Peyser was the son of an insurance man who had produced two unsuccessful plays on Broadway. Thus, their home would often be filled with performers and artists, so it was perhaps inevitable that John would eventually want to follow in his footsteps. Having enrolled at the Colgate University, Peyser would also be employed part-time for an independent radio station in Utica, working as an assistant program manager. After four years of university, he directed several shows for local radio stations before being offered a post with NBC. Soon afterwards, he found himself at the 1939 New York World’s Fair where he would assist with the NBC Exhibit and would remain there the following year, with the second season coming to an end on October 27 1940.

By this time, the Second World War had been ongoing for over a year and Peyser would be shipped over France, Italy, North Africa and various other countries, eventually returning to New York at the end of the war in the fall of 1945. Opting to continue his directing career, he found himself employed by CBS, which had been founded by William S. Paley in 1927. Paley had been Peyser’s commanding officer whilst fighting overseas and had been awarded the Legion of Merit, the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre. During this era, Peyser would work on a variety of television shows for the studio including episodes of Suspense (featuring stories based on Roald Dahl and Charles Dickens), The Frank Sinatra Show and Studio One (broadcast between September 1950 and August 1951).

Throughout the 1950s, Peyser became a popular fixture on the small screen with one successful series after another: Danger saw him direct James Dean just one year before both his breakout role in Rebel Without a Cause and his tragic automobile death at the age of just twenty-four, whilst The Man Behind the Badge guest starred Anthony Perkins and Leslie Nielsen. His exhaustive list of credits during this era included such critically acclaimed shows as Casablanca, Behind Closed Doors, The Untouchables and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In 1966, Peyser relocated to Spain to shoot The Rat Patrol, in which future genre star Christopher George (later of The Exterminator and City of the Living Dead fame) appeared as Sgt. Sam Troy, one of four commandos in North Africa during the Second World War. Opting to remain in Spain, Peyser continued to enjoy success of the next few years with Massacre Harbor, Honeymoon with a Stranger and the western Four Rode Out, once again working with Leslie Nielsen.

Peyser returned to America and by chance ran into Arthur Marks, who had worked as his 1st assistant director on The Man Behind the Badge in 1955. Born on August 2 1927, Los Angeles native Marks was the son of a production manager and assistant director at MGM who had worked on the classic The Wizard of Oz and so Arthur had also been raised in the industry, eventually joining the studio after graduating from the University of Southern California and first making a name for himself during the 1950s. Having lost touch with Peyser soon afterwards, Marks had become a successful producer and director in the years since, having found acclaim for his work on Perry Mason during the early 1960s. Following the George Hamilton comedy Togetherness and the thriller Detroit 9000, Marks devised a story about a maniac targeting beautiful young women who have posed for a men’s magazine.

The Centerfold Girls was designed as pure exploitation: the photo shoot elements allows the filmmakers to show ample breasts to titillate the viewers, whilst the killer’s desire to punish those that have allowed themselves to be objectified for erotic pleasure is pure slasher (which would become a common subgenre in later years). Marks had opted to develop his concept through his production company General Film Corporation, who had initially distributed such low budget offerings as Ransom Money and Togetherness during the early 1970s. The task of adapting Marks’ story into a script was given to first-time writer Bob Peete, who would later work on the series Good Times, for which he would be nominated the Humanitas Prize in 1975.

With a budget of $181,000 raised by a team of local investors, Marks was without a director but immediately decided to offer the job to Peyser, who was intrigued by the project’s sleazy premise. Produced with the help of William B. Silberkleit (whose work on Detroit 9000 would later lead to Linda Lovelace for President and Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare) and his partner, Chuck Stroud, Peyser was amongst the last to join the team, which was due to begin pre-production the following week. Cinematographer Robert Maxwell had first worked as a grip and cameraman during the 1960s, before lensing such cult favourites as Girl in Gold Boots, The Astro-Zombies and Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.

Peyser’s assistant director was William F. Sheehan, who had collaborated with such filmmakers as Blake Edwards and Robert Aldrich, whilst the makeup would be provided by Chuck House, who would follow his work on comedies like Stripes with the hit show Baywatch. Production manager Robert Doudell would become a producer himself during the 1980s with Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy, whilst the following decade would see him work on the cult series Eerie, Indiana. For post-production, the editing chores would fall to Richard Greer, a veteran of The Beverly Hillbillies and Wonder Women, having also previously cut 1972’s Gabriella for Marks. The score, meanwhile, would be handled by Mark Wolin, whose access to a music library would help with the majority of the songs, whilst additional music was composed by a group called Wheeze.

For the role of the antagonist, Clement Dunne, the producers cast former Broadway star Andrew Prine, who had also appeared in episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Gunsmoke. Following on from The Centerfold Girls, Prine would enjoy minor success with Amityville II: The Possession, V and Murder, She Wrote. Aldo Ray had twenty years experience in the industry and, much like Marks, had also attended the University of California. Amongst the cast of attractive young actresses were former Miss Illinois runner-up Jaime Lyn Bauer (later to enjoy a recurring role as Laura Spencer Horton in Days of Our Lives), Janet Wood (Russ Meyer’s Up), softcore star Tallie Cochrane (Sexual Practices in Sweden, Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman), Paula Shaw (who would later replace Betsy Palmer in the role of Mrs. Voorhees for 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason) and Francine York (The Doll Squad), whilst Teda Bracci would co-star alongside Ray in the ‘video nasty’ Human Experiments in 1980.

The Centerfold Girls was shot over three weeks in December 1973 on 16mm and blown up to 35mm for theatrical release. With the movie being targeted principally at drive-in audiences, many of the actresses would be required to bare their flesh for the cameras, although Peyser would spend each morning during makeup discussing the scenes with them. The film was eventually released in mid-1974 and would become a success among fans of exploitation and T&A, even surprising many critics with its style and tension. Having first played around New York, Massachusetts and several other states along the east coast, The Centerfold Girls became a modest hit when General Film Corporation released the movie nationwide.

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