Director who 'fell from grace'

I was shocked to see that the film was directed by Lewis John Carlino, who directed "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea" and one of my favorite films, "The Great Santini." Class was his third and last direction (and second-to-last involvement with Hollywood, period) and seems a piece of mild teen-sex fluff in comparison to the weightier themes of his first two. As Maltin says, "and [he] took a wildly divergent turn as a director with the smarmy sex comedy Class". Maybe this explains the wonderment that the IMDB reviewer had: Carlino was not reconciled with doing an exploitation flick and tried to keep pulling the film back into "art" territory. However, we will forever have Carlino to thank for "Santini", writing the screenplay to "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" (an early study of schizophrenia) and for discovering Virginia Madsen.