Today's filmmaker for our Female Filmmakers series is definitely someone who deserves praise. She was a provocative writer-director who was responsible for a few very famous softcore 70s films - and she was one of only a handful of women to do it! Let's give it up for Babara Peters.
Barbara was one-of-a-kind. Barbara Peters began her career in the makeup department and moved over to script supervising and production managing. She was able to work for B movie legend Roger Corman. That's how so many people make it!
She was essentially one of two female directors making these kinds of films at this time - both working for New World Pictures in the 1970s. The other is director Stephanie Rothman whom we have previously talked about in this series. Her work is often compared with Rothman's and has been called "more subversive" by some film scholars.
She loved this work. She has said of this time in her life, "I thought I had the best life in the world. I was making movies. What were the other girls I’d graduated high school doing back in Iowa? They were marrying the boy who had the biggest farm." She definitely had the cooler job!
Barbara Peters made her mark alongside producer Roger Corman with a fairly shocking debut film. Originally titled The Dark Side of Tomorrow and re-released under the title Just the Two Of Us, this 1970 film told the story of two lesbian lovers at a time when that was certainly provocative.
Two housewives get together while their husbands are away on business and they really get together. However, one of them has eyes for a male neighbor which makes one of the women jealous. Elizabeth Plumb has a seriously sexy nude scene on a pool table with her lady that will make you jealous that you aren't in the room with them!
In 1971, she got on board with the biker film trend and put her spin on it. She wrote and directed Bury Me An Angel in which Dixie Peabody plays a woman who has to avenge the death of her brother. She takes to a bike and travels around the country to track down the killers. She only had one nude scene, but it was worthwhile. She swam naked in a lake and left us all wanting to get down with Dixie.
Barbara Peters proved that she knew what was sexy and her next project was one of her sexiest. In 1974 she directed Summer School Teachers which makes all of our co-ed dreams come true. Candice Rialson and Pat Anderson should get good grades for showing us their anatomy in this super sensual 70s movie.
[scene id="184686" preivew="03"]
One of her best-known films is 1980's Humanoids from the Deep. This film takes us down into the depths of the ocean for a slimy creature who comes out of the water to chase down innocent women. He has his way with them and things turn vicious. This is a creature feature mixed with a slasher film for a monster movie that really pushed the boundaries when it came to babes going naked.
Sadly, in the late 70s, Barbara got very sick and had to take time away from the industry. Thus this film that she was slated to direct was handed over to Corman for a while who added scenes that she did not agree with. She actually asked for her name to be taken off of the movie, but that was not granted.
Due to that incident, she had a slight falling out with Corman. That is why she decided to pivot and she did a little bit of a turn as a director of episodes of Cagney Lacey and of Remington Steele. She spent most of the decade directing television.
She still does some directing to this day, but she also opened a new film company called Silver Foxx Films where she mostly produces commercials and documentary projects. We hope that she still knows how important she was to sleaze and skin!
