Half-serious drive-in flick has two teen girls, driving up the coast from Southern California, picking up a handsome hitchhiker, a soldier who is experiencing bad flashbacks from his time in the Army; meanwhile, the police are searching for a serial killer who targets female hippies. May be one of the earliest movies of the Vietnam-era to imply that killing for the military leads to the damaged mental states of the veterans here at home--but even so, the movie is so pedestrian and amateurish that no underlying message can rescue it. Michael Ontkean proves to be a self-assured young actor, and Ralph Waite amusingly turns up as a hippie guru with mutton chops, but the young ladies are vapid and unlikable. Cinematography is by David M. Walsh, who quickly became the go-to director of photography on some of the most popular films of the decade (his wavy, green-tinted flashbacks would be witty under different circumstances). * from ****
Review of Girls on the Road
