The Seniors (1978): A Satirical Look at Sexploitation and Capitalism

Four students open a bogus sex clinic for cheap thrills and then are amazed to see it blossom into a profitable business. Four randy college clods looking to raise money for life after school decide to pose as sex researchers and open a phoney clinic. They get federal funding and use it to pay college girls for sex under the pretense of producing a study on their sexuality (which supposedly makes it respectable). When they can no longer keep up with the volume of sex they must engage in they become pimps charging other men money to have sex with the girls. It balloons into a million dollar business with bankers, local politicians and corrupt police also profiting.

Production and Notable Cast

This 1978 Dennis Quaid movie is pretty lewd. It also has one of Priscilla Barnes' first screen appearances making it another entry in that infamous series known as "Before-they-were stars" but other than that this movie mostly falls flat. At least it has better young actors in the main cast and solid veteran actors (like Alan Reed) in the supporting cast than most sexploitation flicks (which this pretty openly and unapologetically is) and is thus less of an ordeal to sit through. Stanley Shapiro who wrote the script for the Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie PILLOW TALK also penned this one.

The film features a blend of talent:

• Young actors: Dennis Quaid, Priscilla Barnes, Lou Richards.
• Older actors: Edward Andrews, Robert Emhardt, Alan Reed, Lynn Cartwright.

Critical Analysis and Genre

I think it's a wonderful satire on laisez faire capitalism, and, although not hilarious, it does has some snippits of clever dialogue in that bent. It is remnant of a time when some sexploitation and soft-core porn movies were disguised as scientific university case study or instructional films. Other such films like DAUGHTER OF THE SUN, MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM, THE NAKED APE and THE HARRAD EXPERIMENT proved lucrative through niche marketing in their time even though they purportedly played like high school social studies movies. This one seems to spoof the mentality of those and of what federal money can sometimes end up subsidizing.

Movie Data and Metrics

Viewer Version Warning

I found this a few weeks ago in VHS form in a thrift store and settled down to watch only to find out it had been edited to delete ALL the nudity (which was the best part of the film). Enough of the plot still remained to keep the film entertaining but be warned there's a PG version out there with an R rating on the package! From a producers point of view a movie like this is a glowing success in that it performed well as an investment. From an auteur's perspective it is not a complete failure either in that what we see on screen is not completely unwatchable but I can't recommend it and very few critics have.