THE HARPER VALLEY P.T.A.

US, 1978, 93 minutes, Colour.
Barbara Eden, Ronny Cox, Nanette Fabray.
Directed by Richard C. Bennett.

A small budget piece of Americana, of the type of film usually associated with American international pictures. It takes the popular ballad song of the early seventies and visualizes it for us. It is particularly American in its tone but probably audiences from English-speaking countries could well identify with the attitudes of the small town and of education. The film is funny in the way that Mrs Johnson gets her revenge on the people who criticised her. However, there is also a smug vindictiveness about her actions. The film in a way tries to have its cake and eat it. The film is also a show-case for Barbara Eden.

1. The popularity of' the song in the early seventies? In America, outside America? Its satirical tone? Its critique of hypocrisy? How much did the film presuppose knowledge of the song? Its use of the song?

2. The film as the visualizing of a song? Especially in the first ten minutes or so as the lyrics were illustrated at the meeting? The film amplifying the song?

3. The impact of the film for an American audience, non-Americans? Attitude towards small town life, the P.T.A., society, hypocrisy, education?

4. The film entering Harper Valley and leaving it at the end? The glimpse of life in a small town? What happens in the day to day life of a small town? Harper Valley as a microcosm of the United States? How much truth was told? The nastiness within Harper Valley? The vindictive attitudes illustrated? Where was the audience meant to stand? The kind of response? Humour in observation, feeling in revenge?

5. The vindictive attitude of Mrs Johnson and audiences identifying with her, her helper and her daughter? The funny aspects of her revenge? The meanness? How mean-minded? How satisfying is this kind of exposure and humiliation? How much was it merited?

6. The young girl and the lyrics of the song from her point of view? Seeing the town. her mother, the meeting, the revenge through her eyes? The device of her diary? An attractive girl, an ordinary young girl? Her coming home and our being introduced to her mother with her behaviour? Drinking, singing? The letter expressing the disgust of the school? The build-up to the meeting? Her reaction to her mother's behaviour at the meeting? With her mother on the various jobs? The way that she was hurt by the experience? The reaction of her friends and their nastiness? The boys? How much insight into what happens to a young girl in the school situation?

7. Barbara Eden's style as Mrs Johnson? The introduction to her, the blowsy type, drinking, men friends? The reading of the letter and her reaction? Her vindictive arrival at the meeting? Her being on stage and handling each of the members of the Board? How much truth was there in the letter? Motivation of the letter? The hypocrisies?

8. Her friend on the Board? His admiration of her? Dates, roses, help? The marriage and the conventional ending?

9. Audience response to the victims? Seeing them at the meeting and sitting at the table, their behaviour? Easily victimised? Mrs Johnson's helper and giving of the clues especially at the hairdresser’s? The victims as seen throughout the film, the comic aspects of the revenge, the nasty aspects?

10. The build-up to Mrs Johnson leading the wayward husband to the motel and locking him naked outside the room? The discovery by his wife? A fitting exposure?

11. The chairwoman and her society attitudes and snobbery, the revelation of her baldness? The picture of high society and its hypocritical snobbery?

12. The brother and sister and their drinking, the literal pink elephants with the farcical aspects of comedy?

13. The upright woman and the postman, the prurience of the film and the setting for its being shown in the classroom and her humiliation?

14. What had been achieved by the end of the film? A presentation of American values. American superficiality and hypocrisy and a critique of this?