There's a scene towards the end of Carnal Madness where two cretins driving a van happen upon a semi-naked girl and offer her a lift, her subsequent attempts to tell them about three convicts being on the loose, molesting woman, go unheard mainly because the two men in question are too busy drooling over and trying to fondle her breasts. If ever there was a scene that perfectly illustrates where a film's head is at that is it. Set at a private girl's school where all the female students have exceptionally large breasts and where all the teachers are uptight puritans who secretly daydream about the girls falling out of their t-shirts, the whole of Carnal Madness (better known as Delinquent Schoolgirls, or if the distributor is nervous Delinquent 'College' Girls or merely The Delinquents) could have been dreamed up by those two horny van drivers. Similar to the many 'Cheerleader' films of the time, pom pom titillation is the name of the game at the school, where the majority of the girls have been sent home for the holidays save for a bunch that have behaved especially bad. Not that detention has much effect since the girls waste no time in indulging in dope smoking, lesbian petting and flicking through porn mags. Enter the aforementioned escaped convicts, who chancing on the school begin virtually foaming at the mouth over the idea of wreaking some sexual mayhem. What they haven't counted on is that aside from the above pastimes most of the girls also practice karate and having had detention forced on them by the teachers are in no mood to be pushed around by men. "I won't stand for it, that chauvinist pig" a militant Sharon Kelly proclaims whilst practicing karate topless in the film's less than convincing stab at feminist credentials. The escaped goons are played by the unusual (to say the least) trio of character actor Michael Pataki, stuntman Bob Minor and the late Stephen Stucker (best known for the 'Airplane' films). Of this bunch Stucker is a psychotic gay fashion designer while Minor's character is simply known as Dick, possibly not the best name for someone in a male prison, but a name he lives up to on the outside, forever raving about needing sex after years behind bars. Pataki is an actor who effortlessly conveys the sense of being a few sandwiches short of a picnic and plays the head convict as if the character were a face pulling, desperately trying to be funny comedian. Had say David Hess or Jamie Gillis played the role then Carnal Madness would have turned out quite the severe little number, but the shambolic convicts in Carnal Madness have more in common with the Three Stooges (check out the escaped snake sequence) and Pataki's quirky characterisation is very in tune with the film's juvenile, R-rated sex comedy tone.
Carnal Madness is in fact one of the great examples of how exploitation films can often be a thinly veiled front to indulge in all manner of fetishes on behalf of a needy audience, and Carnal Madness is no cheat jollily delivering episodic fetishes in spades, catfights cum mud-wrestling, women in wet t-shirts, women exercising in their underwear, forced nudity, some light bondage. A sense of equality is established by the fact that the film also gets off on scenes of men being overpowered, clobbered about and karate chopped by feisty women. It all goes on here, to the degree you wonder why the film isn't more well known in exploitation film circles, it really should be regarded as a classic, or why companies like Something Weird Video haven't sprung it from its undeserved obscurity.
One of the most noteworthy aspects to the film, and a legitimate reason why all the female students do have exceptionally large breasts, is because the financiers had ties to a Los Angles company that specialized in cheesecake loops designed to showcase Hollywood Big Bust models. As a result many of the most well known big bust models of that era, Nika Movenka, Rosalie Strauss and of course the legendary Roberta Pedon make up the female cast. The fact that many of these women, ubiquitous of skin magazines of the time, only ever appeared in this one film does give it great novelty value, and makes the film that something bit special.
Of all the women Roberta Pedon makes the most impact, and the film does a particularly fine job at eroticizing her. The infamous 'jumping jacks' sequence clearly held in high regard by the filmmakers given that they repeat it again at the end in slow motion, has rightly entered into legend. Providing eye candy aside Roberta's performance does hint at an appealing exploitation film actress in the making (I'm reliably informed by someone who knew her that the peculiar foreign accent she speaks with in the film is just her acting rather than how she actually spoke). All of which makes it that more unfortunate that fate, personal problems and various outside elements would conspire to make Roberta a one movie wonder. The trouble with Roberta is that its very easy to fall under her spell and become completely enchanted by her, this eventually leads to a need to discover what was beyond the big breasts, the pretty face and the famously alluring, slightly crooked smile. Once you cut through much internet mythologizing of her as a free loving hippy chick pin-up, and get to some hard facts the story of the real Roberta comes across as truly heartbreaking, desperately sad. Yet while being privy to the tragedy behind unhappy starlets does tend to rob you of the ability to ever think of them merely as fantasy figures it does strengthen the resolve that these people should continued be celebrated and make sure they and their legacies never be forgotten. It's the best thing that we can do for the forever lovely Roberta.
