Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors | Barbara Peeters

[Maya Smukler] Good evening and welcome to the opening weekend  of our series "Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and 1970s American Cinema." Tonight we have a  spectacular double feature: "Bury Me An Angel" and "Sumer School Teachers." Both written and  directed by Barbara Peeters who is here with us tonight. [Audience clapping]. Thank you so much Barbara from coming  down from the paradise of Oregon to the big city. So we're gonna do a Q&A after "Bury Me An Angel"  so please stick around for that. This series uhm... this series showcases the wide variety of  films made during the 1970s and we really wanted to be able to present to audiences today the variety of movies that folks were making and specifically women directors in the 1970s- the variety of films  that they were making during that decade. And so with tonight's films these movies are excellent  examples of low-budget, independent movies that now we describe as exploitation films. Uhm...and  these films although they were made within the production culture of exploitation- they were  made cheaply, they were made quickly, uhm... they show to a variety of exhibition spaces...theaters as well as  drive-ins and they targeted a young youth audience. These two movies... are also so distinct. They work "in genre." Uh..."Bury Me An Angel" is a biker film. "Summer School Teachers" invented a genre- the teacher genre. [Smukler and audience laughs]. Which...and the nurse genre...and these were real genres because they, they were franchises in the '70s. Uhm...and because of the quick and cheap nature of exploitation films in the '70s,  filmmakers really had to be inventive. They had...small resources and...and a lot of demands for outcome and production  and so that's something that we are really going to enjoy tonight in these two Barbara Peeters films. The way in which Barbara with not a lot of time and money produced two films that are  really spectacular in different and enjoyable ways. So enjoy "Bury Me An Angel" and "Summer School  Teachers" and our Q&A in-between with Ms. Barbara Peeters who's gonna tell us some secrets of the  trade. Some, may know. All right, maybe one. All right enjoy. [Smukler] Let's start with the opening scene. [Barbara Peeters] Which opening? My garage? [Smukler and audience laughs]. [Smukler] So where...tell us about the location? And tell us about how you staged that? What, what exactly were you trying  to capture in the opening of this film with that scene? [Peeters] I shot the whole first part of the movie and  the house and everything was in my own house that I was renting at the time about a half a block  from CBS Studios in Studio City. And uh... we almost got kicked out because the bedroom scene with the kid at the window? Uh...that was about three o'clock in the morning and the neighbors complained. When the  landlady came over there was Dixie naked in the window and it was like, "You guys are out of here."  So...but uh...so free locations, so that's why we used it. Uh...that was our garage and the bikes that they  were tearing apart was my bike and uh... most of the  kids were in a band and the rest of them were  actual bikers because I just finished a couple of... working on a couple of bike movies and so  I had a couple of the Galloping Gooses and the Satan Slaves that came to work on it. [Audience laughter]. Yeah, it was fun. [Peeters chuckles and audience laughter]. When you're 28 years old that's exciting. [Peeters chuckles and audience laughter]. [Smukler] I like the uhm...the knife with the drugs. [Peeters] Uh...yeah. That wasn't really drugs. [Audience laughter]. [Smukler] That was my next question. [Peeters] That's the disclaimer. [Audience laughter]. [Peeters] Yeah but, you know, that was the day. That was what was going on. And I tell ya... I feel bad because up above that garage there was an apartment and a nice young  couple with new baby we're living up there. And of course, you know, we're shooting that at night  because that's when you shoot when you have no permits and uhm...we invited them down but they didn't  want to come. I don't know. [Smukler] What? It looked like a pretty great party. [Peeters] Yeah, it was. And uh... Dixie's brother in it...or Dag's  brother in it...was actually her brother and his name was actually Dennis and he actually got  murdered about six months after the movie. Yeah, you know, imitation of life. Yeah. [Smukler] So how did you come to make this film? You said you were...had been working on some biker films previously? [Peeters] Well, yeah. Uhm...Dick  Compton, God bless him... he was in the uh...the, the bar fight... he was making a movie before me uh...called "Angels  Die Hard" and it was...there was a whole period in the late '50s and the '60s when motorcycle movies,  believe it or not, were very popular and uh...it was the drive-in fare. You had to have  certain elements for the drive-in circuit and one of them was that no movie go over 90 minutes   because you wanted to get two in there and you wanted a nice big break in the middle so everybody can go up and get  their popcorn and their hot dogs and stuff. So there was a criteria but it was a great place  to dip your toes in the water. They don't have that anymore except for kids and their.. their video cameras and the digital world but this was before there was any of that. Uh...like the dream sequence, which we shot  in the garage- everything got shot in the garage. [Peeters and audience laughs]. And we just strung up a bunch of toys and ran it through and put a little grease on the lens and, you know, these are the things you did before you had all the templates that Final Cut Pro gives you. Uh...when you decided to make  a dissolve you...you measured it very carefully and you marked it with your China marker and you  taped it together and you sent it to the lab and three days later they got it back to you. Then  you took a look at it went "Ooh that's a little too short." "I think we need to..." Today, you just throw it into Final Cut... zip-zap and go, "Ooh...stretch" and there it is. So it was a whole different world in those days. [Smukler] How did you cast Dixie Peabody? [Peeters] Oh, that was easy. She was gorgeous. She was six foot tall  and she was a biker and she was one of the extras on Dick's movie that I was script supervising for $25 a day and uhm...I just thought she was stunning. And he had some backers that came to his set and he said, "Barbara, you ought to talk to them. You oughta talk to him. I'll introduce you." I said, "Well..." "Just talk to him." And we got talking they said, "Oh, well, I understand you have an idea for a movie?" And I'm looking at Dick going..."what?" [Audience laughs]. And he goes... So I said, "Uh...yeah, I do. Uh-huh." And they asked me about it and I stood there for about thirty seconds and my mind just exploded and I said, "Yeah, it's about a six-foot  woman who's a biker and she has a brother..." and then it just went blah-blah-blah. And uh... they said ,"Oh, I'd love  to read the script. Do you have it with you?" And I said, 'Well, I'm working on it but I can give it to  you tomorrow." And this was already at six o'clock in the evening. [Audience laughs]. I gave them a script the next day people. [Smukler and audience laughs]. Yes, I did. I was hungry. [Audience claps and laughs]. And they gave me $90,000 to make a movie. Here's the best part that got me to my next movie. I made it for $60,000 and I was so naive I gave the  investors back $30,000. [Audience laughs]. How dumb can you be? [Peeters chuckles]. But I got my first movie. [Smukler] This was actually  your second film though, right? 'Cuz... [Peeters] No. I had...I had gone in and fixed other people stuff  and uh...did some remake things uh... but it was like my first real one that was mine- I wrote it, I directed it,  I cast it, I got the money for it and then I got a distribution contract from Roger Corman  and that was the beginning of that...long eight years. [Smukler] How did you film the the motorcycle scenes? [Peeters] On a camera. [Audience laughs]. [Smukler] Did you have like a complicated rig...on your... [Peeters] No. We didn't have money for complicated rigs. I saved where I could and got a half a day with a helicopter and then we brought the helicopters. Sven Walnum was the DP. He confessed that he was terrified of heights. He...there was no way  he wanted to hang out of the...on the tiler mount. [Silence]. [Audience laughs]. You got to do what a girl's got to do! [Audience laughs]. So that's where and...and we were on the back of...a camera car and we had a ritter for the...for the blowing scene. But here's the interesting part. I'll tell you how hungry actors can get. Both of those guys had never had their butt on a bicycle before, let alone a motorcycle, and uh...they lied to me in casting.... [Audience laughs]. ...and therefore I sent Dixie out with them. In one week they learned to ride enough to make this movie. Yeah...what actor will do that today? I don't know. [Smukler] You rode motorcycles at this time...as well? [Peeters] Yeah. I was riding. [Smukler] How did did you get involved in riding bikes? [Peeters] Well just being around motorcycles and they  were great fun and uhm... Dan Haggerty, by the way, that was his first speaking role...ever. And uh...I met him in his shop where he was making furniture and I said, "Oh my god, this guy's gorgeous." "Have you ever thought about being in movies?" He said, "Yeah...I've been an extra a couple of..." I said, "How about being in my movie?" He goes, "Yeah, sure." [Smukler] So he was really that sensitive in real life? [Peeters] Was he? I have no idea. But uh...he was a great guy and he was very sweet. He was...he was a great guy. [Smukler] This movie really moves between comedy and serious drama. How... [Peeters] Yeah, well that's my life. [Smukler, Peeters and audience laugh]. [Smukler] How did you...how  did you plan for that? How did you think about that as you were writing your script   and working with your actors? [Peeters] As I told you, I wrote the script overnight. That was an overnight thing and then once they read it I took it back and I said, "Well...I need to do a little work on it." And I did take it home and uhm...it, it just... there were just too many things that I thought, "Oh well, you know, real life is funny" and so it just grew into it. I had the basics and I knew what was going to happen and I knew she was gonna kill him in the end or or she was gonna bury her brother- one of the two, we never know. But uhm... so yeah life is... Hey, I had very few professional actors in that movie. The guy who played "Preacher"... he was an old hippie who was making that furniture out there. That was his home. That's where he lived. Uh...in the bar fight the big curly headed  guy was a writer for L.A. Times. There was Dick Compton who was a director. The guy in the red polka-dotted hat was one of the investors. [Audience laughs]. The two guys who were sharing the shots... that's what they were doing. "Hoss!" he was uh...one of them. They were just in the bar when we got there and we said, "Hey, you ever been in a movie?" Because that's what you did with $60,000. "Have you ever been in a movie?" Thank God we got quite a few who were willing to do it. Ooh, where did I get all dirty? Anyway. [Smukler] Some questions from the audience? [Peeters] Oh, really. [Smukler] Yes. [Smukler and audience laughs]. [Smukler] Yeah, right here in the white shirt. [Smukler] Oh, wait. Sorry. Please wait for the microphone. [Peeters] I heard him. Uhm... [Audience member #1 unintelligible]. [Peeters] Yes...they're dead. [Audience member #1 response]. No! [Peeters] Is Tracy...Terry still alive? Are you Terry? Are you Terry? [Audience laughs]. [Peeters] That had been a hell of a shock. [Peeters and audience laugh]. [Audience laughs]. [Audience member #1 response unintelligible]. [Peeters] Oh! Yeah. I, I know for sure Dixie has passed. Uhm...Dick Compton has passed. I would say  50% of the people in that movie are now moving on. [Silence]. [Audience member #1 response]. Terry's alive. [Peeters] Where is he? What's he doing?   we all hey I was just curious about the color in [Audience member #1 response]. Uh...surviving. [Peeters] Thank...thank God we all are. [Peeters chuckles]. [Smukler] Somebody else? Back here in the glasses. Here's uh...up here. Yeah. [Audience member #2] Hey, I was just curious about the color in the film. All the red and purple? [Peeters] I think that's the  quality of the negative and the print that's left. [Smukler] Yeah. This is something that... [Peeters] This is over 50 years old. [Smukler] Right. [Audience member #3]. Movie-land color (?). [Smukler] It's something that's gonna come up a lot in this series. We talked about it last night. That some  of the prints are just uhm...not as pristine as we'd like. [Peeters] Black was fade to red in all of this. [Smukler] So it really is a preservation issue that these films are certainly older and they're classics and uhm... the one that we're gonna be watching following up next is actually a new print. So uhm...so... [Peeters] And it's a comedy too. [Audience laughs]. [Smukler] Yes. Right here with the...yeah. [Audience member #4]. Hi. Uhm...I'm curious about... there was a lot of her, like, dealing with trauma and sort of... what we would now call, like,  PTSD kind of flashbacks and things like that and uhm...I guess I was wondering... how you were approaching that at the time?  Like, what you were bringing into that uh... you know, did that come up in the writing? Or uhm... was that part of...sort of the original core idea? And what you sort of brought into writing that? [Peeters] Okay. Uhm...PTSD was not a phrase back in that time. Vietnam Vets weren't coming back yet. That was  a phrase that we're very casual with today but it wasn't even used back then. But what we were  dealing with was a trauma of a sister losing her brother and that was the only family she had left. So a lot of it and uh...and remember Dixie was not an actress. She had no training. So we would just work  it out each day, each scene, and how she felt about it and what she could bring to it and so I used  to deal with her a lot about the suppositions of her brother... if Dennis, something terrible were to happen to Dennis- which six months after the film was over did- uhm...how would she deal with it. But it was basically written in the script as- the script was originally called "The Hunt"- and it was just supposed to be a running adventure of them on the hunt for the fellow who killed their brother. It was...it was to be a drive-in movie that fit all the criteria that would bring in the cash to get me the next film. We weren't digging all that deep. And, like I said, it was written  overnight but it took me a week to rewrite it. [Audience laughs]. [Audience member #5- off microphone] I have a question about that. Dove tails... [Audience member waiting for microphone] [Audience member #5] -Uhm...I think it's great that you wrote it overnight.  I think so much of that. I just love that you said that because you didn't have time to judge yourself. You were just like, "And we're making a movie!" [Peeters] Oh yeah. [Audience member #5 continues] It's... [Peeters]...in the hotel room on a, on a little  Smith-Corona that I was write... typing up the, the script notes. [Smukler and Peeters talking over one another]. [Peeters]...because I had to work all night. [Room noise]. [Audience member #5 continues] I think I completely forgot what my question was. [Audience member #6] Oh, I'm sorry. [Audience member #5 continues] The story is so amazing. She was talking about PTSD and trauma. Oh and, for me, what really stood out was the scene with the witch and this truth that was being spoken about... [Peeters] And the dove (?), of course. [Audience member #5 continues]...her anger. Yeah, there was so...I mean, on the line with the PTSD and the trauma and the I mean, to have a generation of people watching  something that's talking about how to process anger without continual violence speaks very much to the society at the time and when Vietnam was shifting down  and I don't know if that was...I mean, clearly it wasn't intentional intentional but I'm  curious about the witch character and I'm curious about what she brings to the story? [Peeters] Well, she was...she was  sort of the narrator in a sense. Talking to the kids saying, you know, "This...it's  useless what you're doing." "It's not gonna bring him back. It's not gonna make it better." Uhm... I would say she was the reason- the "reasoning"- person in the film. But had I made this movie five years  later it probably would have been much different. [Smukler] In what way? [Peeters] Well...there would have been a bigger  sense about PTSD and all of that. It wasn't an issue at that time of war. It was one person  with the loss of her brother and uh...so it hadn't expanded to that point yet where it was PTSD was  a discussion and we were going and interviewing people in Vet hospitals. That came later. [Smukler] When you...when you wrote the script uhm... were the sort of dream sequences always in it? [Peeters] Yes. Oh, yes. I loved  dream sequences. I'm a big fan of Fellini and all those movies that I skipped college classes to  go to the Iowan theatre and watch foreign films. [Audience laughs]. "Knife In The Water," "La Strada"...Oh yeah. That  was my meat, you know. So that was my ode to the foreign films. [Smukler] Back here. Way in the last row. [Room noise. Audience member waiting for microphone]. [Audience member #7] I would like to commend you for being bold enough  to put issues like PTSD and brother-sister incest in a film, especially in those days, because  nobody was talking about those issues. [Peeters] Well and you couldn't have gotten a film made in your  regular markets. Nobody would have bought that film. [Audience member #7 responds] Right. I worked in a psychiatric hospital in the  late '60s and it was treated as fantasy. [Peeters] Yeah...yeah. [Audience member #7 continues] And... [Peeters] So they started coming home from Vietnam. [Audience member #7 continues] Yeah...and  I also want to say that you really had me in this film very early on when the guy starts coming  on to her. I can't remember exactly who it was. Some random guy and she collars him. [Peeters] Little Weasel? [Audience member #7 continues] Yeah...yeah. And I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna like this film." [Peeters and Smukler laugh]. [Audience member #7 continues] "Go for it!" [Peeters] You know the first screening... thank  you very much. The first screening I was invited to was the Women's Film Festival in Canada, up in Toronto, and...no. [Peeters chuckles]. [Smukler] Yes, tell the whole story Barbara. Tell the whole story. [Peeters] The thing was...I was there with some very heavy weight women... Agnes Varda...uh...uh... [Smukler] Shirley Clarke... [Peeters] Shirley Clarke... [Smukler] and Vida... [Peeters] and Viva... [Smukler] and Viva. [Peeters] and...and, you know, they were all... "Jason"... "The Portrait of Jason"... and then they're gonna show my movie and, I'm like, "Oh my God! I could just die." And when the movie started it was, you know, all  these ladies who had come for this intellectual weekend of women's films and it was like, "Oh..." and  and I thought this would be a good time to leave. [Audience laughs]. Yeah and then...when she took off on the motorcycle,  they all started applauding and I went, "Yeah, we got a movie." [Peeters and audience laugh]. But I've always dealt with film like that,   you know, it's a party. [Smukler] Did you...considering that this was an exploitation film  and there were these expectations of certain amounts of violence and action and sex and nudity... [Peeters] Oh, you had have to have those things. [Smukler] So, how did you...how did you deal with that in this film? How did you decide what kind of  nudity you were going to show because considering... [Peeters] She was beautiful. It was easy. But uh...and Dan Haggerty  what a gorgeous, gorgeous piece of meat. [Audience laughter]. Do you like that girls? He was...he was a sweetheart. What  a body. And so...you don't ever see a lot of... very little frontal nudity and other than her breasts  in the water and I must say that was another one of my art shots- was her walking into  the ice...cold...Kern...River. And what a trouper she was. [Smukler] You could really tell how cold she was. [Peeters] Ooh...ooh. The guys were showing it too. [Audience laughs]. [Smukler] Yes, right down here. [Room noise. Audience member waiting for microphone]. [Audience member #8] Hi, and thank you for coming. I had a two-part question about "Humanoids From the Deep." [Peeters] I don't talk about that film. [Audience member #8 continues] Okay, fair enough. [Peeters] Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you came though to see this. [Audience member #8 continues] Well, actually getting back to  this film... [Peeters] I'm glad you came though to see this. [Audience member #8 continues] Uhm...there seems to be a undercurrent of Greek mythology, you know, I was thinking of the "Odyssey" and "The Enchantress" and I was wondering were you aware of that when you're making...and some of your other films that we're not talking about but...but were you aware that when you're making  these films? Or is that just something that, that sort of permeated your work as a filmmaker? [Peeters] Well, I've always since a small Iittle girl been a feminist and so I in those years viewed women  much differently than was viewed by men filmmakers and if that's what you're referring to that's...  yeah, I just didn't see why the hero had to be a guy. [Light audience applause]. [Smukler] Let's set up the next film- "Summer School Teachers." [Peeters] And our cinematographer is right there, Eric Saarinen. [Smukler talking over audience applause]. For "Summer School Teachers." [Peeters] And Leslie Otis...Annie Hetzel (?). I'm not the only guilty person that ever worked for Roger Corman. Uhm...and it was meant to be a comedy.  It fit into the three girl genre that was what he would have. And so he told me if I could write a three girl picture and I'd been there awhile cleaning up for other people... [Smukler] Working for Corman? [Peeters] and he said, "Well..." I said, "When am I gonna get a movie?" And he goes, "Well, write me uh...some uh...three girl stuff." "How about a school teacher?" I said, "That'll do." [Audience laughs]. And I'm from Iowa. So all the girls came from Iowa. They came  on the...bus...on a Greyhound bus. And uhm...once again we shot it all locally. And I noticed in something  that you either published or... that...that the budget was $750,000? Ooh, please! [Smukler] Too high? Too high? [Peeters] Roger never spent $750,000 for those things. He may have publicized he did but he didn't it. Uh...it was more like about two and a quarter, two hundred  fifty and we had 12 days to shoot it. They shoot episodes, 45 minute episodes, in television today  in 12 days. [Smukler] Tell us what was the interest in the three girl formula? Or sort of explain what that... [Peeters] He felt that it worked for him. It had the right amount of exploitation. You had three stories so you didn't  have to get too deep on any of them and you could have three naked girls at some point in the movie and you had to have some action. It was the same formula and it had worked for him for a very long time. So it was my job to see if I could make one in that... in that little niche that he laid out. [Smukler] Mm-hmm. [Smukler] All right, well... [Peeters] And we have "Summer School Teachers." [Smukler] All right, good. Look forward to that. Thank you Barbara. [Peeters] Thank you and thank you all for coming. [Audience applause].