Motorcycle Emptiness? The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968)

 

This is a film from my youth… it was family viewing in the living room but I’m not sure we made it all the way through which intrigued me enough to watch it on my small black and white portable when it was screened by HTV in the early eighties… Of course, then I had no idea that the director and master of so many psychedelic visual effects, was none other than Jack Cardiff, previously a cameraman for Powell and Pressburger and so adept at enabling their magical realism.

With its theme of sexual infidelity, head versus heart and the visceral sexiness of motorcycling in nothing but a catsuit and boots, The Girl on a Motorcycle has often been reviewed as a guilty pleasure and there’s no end of references to sadomasochism, tapping into both the sexual freedoms of the time as well as the darker neo-Giallo elements and, of course, Bunel’s Belle du Jour and the works of Jess Franco and beyond.

The results are mixed but it’s a wild ride man that features direct-to-Sun camera shots that capture the same optical affects as the following year’s Easy Rider. The latter film may have been more directly linked to the youth movements of the time but there’s still something stirringly free and risky about a blonde on a motor bike whether he’s called Peter or Marianne, albeit mostly played by British Grand Prix motorcycle champion Bill Ivy, blonde wig not quite convincing as he speeds around the country roads on a Harley Davidson Electra.

Marianne Faithful and the Harley

Based on the 1963 novel La Motocyclette by André Pieyre de Mandiargues the film was released as Naked Under Leather and was the first film to receive an X rating in the United States, clearly on purpose. “Racy” was on the mission statement and using, pop singer and girlfriend of at least one Rolling Stone as the lead character, Rebecca was obviously considered a masterstroke. Faithful had already appeared in I’ll Never Forget Whatsisname (1967) with Oliver Reed and would go on to feature in Tony Richardson’s Hamlet (1969) with the great Nicol Williamson, Anthony Hopkins and Judy Parfitt.

So, she could act without doubt but she was also from the intelligentsia and, as coincidence would have it, related to the Leopold von Sach-Masoch, her great-great uncle, who wrote Venus in Furs and, of course, coined the term, Masochism. Marianne was later found wearing only a fur rug by the police when they raided Keith Richard’s house looking for drugs. All a far cry from the catholic convent schoolgirl who also lived in Ormskirk for a while growing up as her father completed his doctorate at Liverpool University; you could have stuck around and met George or Ringo?

Anyway, here she’s a posh young thing trying to escape the expectations of her father Marius Goring, an academic bookseller who would much rather she stayed and helped with the family business than run off and marry young musician Raymond (Roger Mutton, here dressed as lamb…) but there is far worse to come sir.

Alain Delon and Marianne

From the film’s opening Rebecca is dreaming of Daniel (Alain Delon) a sexy but distanced academic who she met as he browsed her father’s shelves looking for a volume to meet his needs. Daniel is dreamy but also devilish, looking at the young woman’s derriere when he really should be paying attention. He is interested in sexuality and not so much romance whereas Raymond has more mundane things on his mind and is about as sensual as a semi-quaver. Rebecca thinks of her first encounter with Daniel and the cruel excitement he offers has her dreaming of him as a circus ring master driving his motorbike around Raymond as he attempts to entertain the crowd with his feeble cello.

Cue, sequence of Rebecca on a black horse, leaving the circus tent and heading into the psychedelic outdoors, total sexual and bodily freedom and an inspiration that, as soon as she wakes up she resolves to visit her lover in Germany, hours away from the stultifying marital home in boring Belgium. The film features long monologues from Rebecca as she contemplates her seismic reunion with Danielle, pulling on only her fur-lines leather jacket and leather boots as she takes out her bike and roars off to the border through the suburbs that, even after a few months of marriage, already wear her down.

She has travelled this way many times before, never able to resist the lure of Daniel for long and encounters leering pump attendants, touchy-feely customs officers and one less lecherous, who she assumes is “queer” … naturally. But, comments of their time apart, Rebecca is celebrating her sexuality and is planning her reunion down to the last detail; she must arrive around 8am when he will be in his garden room and surprised as he will be to see her, they will renew their physical bond with an intensity far beyond what she has experienced with her ill-chosen husband.

On and on she rides and back she goes in a reverie to their romantic history and those intense moments and before the audience can be too disapproving of her leather-clad sensuality, there are those constant reminders of how men, generally, view women who are sexually present… a squad of soldiers cheering when they find her resting on a bench, not wanting to be too early for Daniel. The closer she gets the more we learn of his instructing her on his fine British bike, a Norton, having liberated her, despite his own romantic detachment, his still broken heart, he makes her into a motorcyclist and then sends her the Harley as a wedding gift… knowing full well that she will only use it to return to him.

Dusty verdict: Girl on a Motorcycle looks, mostly, gorgeous but there are a few too many odd shots of Faithful cavorting on a bike raised up on the back of a truck; the technology wasn’t quite there to show her riding in ecstasy actually on the road. There’s also a predictability about the direction of travel and the feeling that she will pay for all this freedom and sexuality even as the audience, mostly and not including that German border guard, enjoy Marianne’s beauty.

The film’s other issue is that despite Marianne and despite Alain, it isn’t that sexy especially with dialogue like 'Your body is like a violin in a velvet case…”, oh… “skin me!” There’s an awkwardness between the two leads in places and their flame burns brightest when Daniel is teaching her how to drive not unzipping her catsuit like a banana.

Cardiff’s psychedelic sequences and his gift for capturing landscape make it a visual feast yet maybe there was too much convent school left in Marianne. At least in this context… Mick would have a completely different take…

Alain abides...

 

Second class post… Penny Gold (1973)

Directed by the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff who worked with Powell and Pressburger on The Red Shoes, Black Narcisus and many more, Penny Gold has some interesting angles, great views of Windsor and Francesca Annis but, in the version I watched, not the marvellous, deep colours of his best work.

It has some pretty decent acting and Miss Annis is an absolute thing of wonder, with controlled expression across a face that could launch a thousand scripts… backed up by the care-worn febrility of James Booth and a good supporting cast; Una Stubbs, Nicky Henson, Joss Ackland.  It’s a little tame and feels like a TV pilot for Booth and Henson cop double act, but still highly watchable all the same…

It begins like a Berkshire Giallo with a young woman emerging naked from the shower in a plush flat full of the trappings of cool post-sixties style. Huge photographic posters of a glamourous model adorn the walls and the angle suggests we’re not the only ones looking into the vulnerable intimacy of the apartment. Then, from out of the dark, a figure with a knife, with hat, sunglasses and long raincoat, slashes into the helpless young woman, mutilating her lifeless form…

The police are called, a proto Sweeney/Morse combination of seasoned, romantic under-achiever, Inspector Matthews (James Booth) and his youthful detective sergeant Rogers (Nicky Henson). They interview the surviving sister, Delphi (Annis), twin sister of the deceased, Diane (also Annis, and shown in flashback) along with the young American woman who lived with her and the wild child’s associates.

Sisters, sisters... Francesca Annis, a dummy and Francesca Annis

There follows the tale of two wildly different sisters, one drawn to the wild side and the other involved in her uncle’s philately business where an ultra rare stamp called the Penny Gold might well have provided the motive for the murder. Matthews naturally suspects Delphi but quite quickly falls for her gamine charms – a not entirely convincing liaison. He spends a lot of time at Rogers’ gaff chewing over the evidence and being fed tea and biscuits by the always delightful Una Stubbs who plays Anna, the unlikely girlfriend of Mr Henson.

There are lots of flashbacks as we learn more about the poisonous relationship between the sisters – a chance for Annis to show her range, albeit in fairly two-dimensional ways. More deaths follow suggesting the killer still has unfinished business. There’s trip to the suppose owner of a Penny Gold,  Miss Hartridge (Penelope Keith) who discovers her Gold gone… somethings afoot and it’s moderately complicated but not entirely suspenseful in spite of a dramatic closing sequence with a Giallo-esque twist.

James Booth casts an eye...

Dusty Verdict: As the Time Out reviewer noted at the time: the film has a "…a brilliant opening sequence, otherwise this flat-footed British thriller is hampered by something like the world's worst script, including flashbacks no one would ever conceivably flash back to, and by a cumbersome storyline about big league stamp trading."

It’s all a bit pedestrian although there’s an uneasy feeling about just like the Giallo that, presumably influenced Cardiff. Things don’t really move quickly enough and the young American woman is a suspicious lose end from the start. That’s not to say that the scenery and the numerous guest-starring, house-hold names aren’t amusing backdrops but it’s a little predictable.

Also starring Windsor

This being a Jack Cardiff film, the camerawork is interesting although this is not the best of copies. Never-the-less, Windsor and the surrounds look great and we even have a well-filmed car chase.

It’s not without it’s charms but file it under Tales of the Expected. Still, watch it for Annis and her cheek bones… also her range… which did actually have me fooled for a few minutes.