Shower Time: Institutional Pipes

I know. I just did a post not long ago that had showers as part of the focus. But... as luck would have it, I've since stumbled into three more projects that each featured a shower sequence. And, ever the completist, I am compelled to document and share them here now. All three of these take place in a communal environment versus, say, a home bathroom. This is why I refer to them as "institutional." You'll see what I mean as we go along. (Needless to say, the bulk of guys today would not only cringe to use showers such as those depicted above-right, but most would rather go home dirty than use one!) Not only are these photo-essays in chronological order, but they also happen to be in the order in which I viewed them. And, yes, my overly-detailed, microscopic approach will be in full swing. Now let's crank the tap and begin!  

Raise your hand if you've ever even heard of this TV-movie, The Glass House, from 1972. A slightly longer version saw release in foreign movie theaters.  

The movie stars Alan Alda, just a few months prior to beginning his lengthy stint on M*A*S*H. He plays a man who is sent to prison for manslaughter after killing a driver he thinks has run over his wife and child. 

Alongside him as a fellow new inmate is young Kristoffer Tabori, busted for dealing pot.

1970s movies had a tendency towards the gritty and the stark to begin with, but having this one shot at an actual correctional facility in Utah, with real prisoners as extras, lends an even more realistic aspect to the project.  

Having been booked, Alda and Tabori are then sent to the gang showers. It's a brief scene, but I give it to you in the best way I can under the circumstances. 

I'm not sure how Alda went about it (there's no visual evidence), but Tabori was indeed naked for the sequence. There's even a frame or two of complete frontal nudity, though I cannot say if that appeared in the TV cut or was only left in for the international version. 

As is so often the case in movie showers, there's an audience. Among them Scott Hylands, Vic Morrow and Alan Vint. (I don't know the tall one.) 

Following their shower, the men are disinfected (by Billy Dee Williams!)

The ever-intimidating Morrow sees something he likes... 

And Tabori is it. If you don't know, Tabori was the son of actress Viveca Lindfors and director Don Siegal. He enjoyed a healthy acting career as a youth and young man, later emerging as a busy voice actor for Star Wars video games.  

So marks "The End" of part one. 

Our second offering was also a TV-movie, this time from 1973, called Firehouse. Rarely-screened (and unlikely to be now), it was the pilot for a proposed series to rival the then-popular rescue show Emergency! This is a bargain DVD cover. At least one other out there had the thoughtlessness to feature Fred Williamson's picture on it instead of Richard Roundtree's! 

Roundtree stars as a big city fireman, being assigned to replace a fallen one who perished in the line of duty. 

He has his doubts about accepting the assignment, which he talks over with his wife (Sheila Frazier), because he will be the first black in that particular station. 

I offer you these shots of Mr. Roundtree now because when the shower sequence comes around, he's not really shown to the best advantage. 

His worries over taking the job turn out to be well-founded. 

Veteran firefighter Vince Edwards, whose best friend is the one who died, is less than welcoming and is, in fact, downright hostile. 

His crony, Richard Jaeckel is little better.

This sequence takes place in the station house's bathroom. Some strategically-placed steam helps to shield us from Edwards' and the company cook Val Avery's nether regions. 

The video quality is so poor, it's difficult to see what, if anything, is being worn by the two gents in their shower stalls. From a blurry distance, Avery is carrying off the illusion of nudity better than Edwards.

I feel pretty certain that the men were wearing something during filming.

That, or Edwards had one razor-sharp and very distinct tan line. 

But the pleasure from the scene comes from Edwards a) wetting down that awful, bouffant hairdo he used to rock at that time...

...and b) seeing him luxuriate in the stream of warm water rolling down his head and chest. His Ben Casey days were over... 

 

...but he could still provide a little daddy-ish eye candy when the occasion warranted. 

Especially when flashing that smile. 

As for Avery...

...not really my bag. 

Anyway, as the three of them are hashing out the problem of Roundtree, he is seen lurking outside. 

He (and his watch!) makes his way into the bathroom. 

But rather than make a scene, he heads for a third, previously unseen stall. 

Any crisis is averted, for now, but the issues between these men are far from over. 

It's a strange thing, but this pilot featured Roundtree so heavily, but when the show went to series (briefly), he was not part of it and all racial tension aspects were completely removed. He'd been in three Shaft movies by this time and, in fact, headlined a short-lived series as that character in the 1973-74 season. So that's likely why he moved on. Only Jaeckel remained from the pilot to work on the 13-episode series.

That marks "The End" of part two! 

So, let's see... We've had a prison shower and a fire station shower. Our third one will be taking place at school. (I saw this movie under an alternative title, "Crusin' High.") The 1976 film Cat Murkil and the Silks is a rather dire, low-budget flick about rival gangs and their increasingly dangerous shenanigans. It contains, however, one of THE most bizarre sequences to take place in a shower that I can recall outside of Fear No Evil (1981) or A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1984.)

I could actually smell this movie while watching it. And it didn't smell great. LOL 

Some (but not all) of the actors are so little-known that I cannot even tell you their names! The long-haired dude on the left (who looks something like Gwyneth Paltrow did at the dawn of her career) is one of the key participants in this post. 

And the smiling one here (who resembles a delinquent Matthew Labyorteaux) is another. 

Far out, man...

Anyway, following the death of one of their own (leader Derrel Maurey, of Massacre at Central High, 1976), these two (first and third from left to right) are called upon to exact revenge while attending his funeral. It's one of the most hare-brained schemes ever!

They two don gym uniforms of their rival high school's and jog onto campus. 

Then they slink into the empty gym where only one distracted employee is on the phone.

Next, they dart into the group shower room and turn on every shower head on hot. 

I'm sure you've already noted the requisite 1970s tube socks!

Then our guys sneak into the "Visitor's Room," a glorified closet, and unsheath some knives! (They also unsheath their bodies by removing their clothes!) 

Suddenly, outdoor Phys Ed is over and a teeming horde of students comes in from the field. There are about a dozen shower heads in that room, yet all these kids and more come scrambling in and yanking off their uniforms? 

The hilarity kicks in quickly when we meet these two "high schoolers!" The one in front, sort of caveman-like, is one thing. But dig the one with the 'stache!!!

Seriously. Give me a BREAK! So many of the extras look like actual students and then he shows up looking like it's Parent Day. LOL

So the (ostensibly naked) would-be assailants wait in the Visitor's Room for their prey to shuck their gym shorts and head to the showers.  

How convenient that they're together, on the nearest end to where the knife-wielders are.

Looks like we're a "go!"

Our brawny lads are ready to rinse off. Will we get to see anything? 

Success!

It's VERY steamy in there, but one can make out the bare buns of one guy near the door. 

Then we watch this guy head to an open nozzle...

...with his burly bud close behind. Speaking of behind. I like the mustached man's. 

Next come the naked attackers...!

The interlopers slink into the shower room and position themselves behind their targets. 

One of the intended victims is seen facing the wall, then that's IT! The movie cuts to an outside conversation between some of the rival gang, sitting in the getaway car. 

Next thing we know, the attackers are rapidly fleeing the scene, fully dressed again, and are hitting one of the coaches in the "balls!" But the editing there was so choppy and discordant. I became convinced that the scene had been edited! Now you know I am never one to rest when it comes to things like this.....  

I tracked down a hideous, cropped, blurry copy of the movie on VHS. The color is more saturated and the framing is more generous on the top and bottom, but the picture quality is very rough. We go from this aforementioned moment...

To the burly pal heading into the shower room to stand next to his friend. 

We see the face of the intended victim in better color. (I think the reason I've got it so bad for this guy is that he closely resembles an employee of my father's at the service station he owned. His name was Teddy and he was an early crush of mine.) 

Then, not shown in the prior cut of the movie I watched, we see a knife being drawn and threatening to be used! 

The skinny, long-haired gang assassin grabs the rival from behind and sticks him hard with the blade. 

Though it's steamy and hard to see, it's revealed that the actor was indeed naked during the filming of this scene. 

Slightly better clarity here. 

Both rival gang members having been stabbed, the guys tear out of the shower room. And here we can see that the dark haired one is wearing pale briefs. 

We get a couple of glimpses of the stabbed "high school student" lifelessly lying on the floor of the shower, with red blood leaking down the drain. But this is where it gets totally unreal. No one notices!!! Two classmates are stabbed and fall to the ground and no one else in that room knows, steam or not?!?!

The attackers head gingerly out of the shower room and slink back to their Visitor's Room hideout. 

There, they carefully remove any blood from the knives and themselves, then get dressed without any sense of urgency!!! Really...?!?! 

It's only after they've run into the coach, fully dressed and dry, that a towel-clad twink comes to tell him that there's something wrong back in the showers....! Crazy. And that brings us to...

The End!