This may well be an accurate picture of rather plain girls coming down to London, hooking up with rather ordinary rock musicians and being lugged around the country providing the off piste extras. It is, however, without doubt a dull, dreary and depressing view of life. The guys may look okay on stage but there is a distinct lack of presence or barely of life backstage where they seem even more morose than the girls who wait to open a fly, or two. There is some attempt to vary the dismal look or the proceedings with rapid zooms and speeded up flash backs and even flash forwards but would I ever want to see this again? No thanks.
11 Reviews
Once shocking but now very dated
tomgillespie200222 April 2011
Made in 1972 and relatively forgotten about since the BFI recently restored it onto Blu-Ray and DVD, Permissive follows the fortunes of a young girl who enters the world of the rock star groupie, back when Britannia was cool and was at the forefront of fashion and music. Suzy (Maggie Stride) arrives in London and meets up with her friend Fiona (the unfortunately named Gay Singleton), who is in a relationship with the hairy-faced Lee (Alan Gorrie), bass player and lead singer of rock band Forever More. She adopts the lifestyle and offers herself for sex to the bands various sleazy members before she is left behind as the group go on tour. On their return, she is eventually accepted and begins to fall into a moral downward spiral.
Perhaps quite shocking in its day, showing plenty of full frontal nudity, drug abuse and generally questionable behaviour, the film now seems extremely mild and somewhat tedious. The acting is especially dubious, mainly from the band members of real-life group Forever More, who although not given much to do, look noticeably uncomfortable delivering their lines. It isn't without good points however – Suzy's decline from wide-eyed innocent into full-blown slut who seems to have no goal other than to have sex with as many people as possible without a second thought of the effect it will have on her friends, is very interesting, and is performed reasonably well by Stride.
Interesting to view as a time-capsule of a time when extreme facial hair was cool and free-love was frowned upon, but as a piece of filmmaking it cannot hide from its low-budget limitations, and the years have had its effect on the film's power.
www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com
Perhaps quite shocking in its day, showing plenty of full frontal nudity, drug abuse and generally questionable behaviour, the film now seems extremely mild and somewhat tedious. The acting is especially dubious, mainly from the band members of real-life group Forever More, who although not given much to do, look noticeably uncomfortable delivering their lines. It isn't without good points however – Suzy's decline from wide-eyed innocent into full-blown slut who seems to have no goal other than to have sex with as many people as possible without a second thought of the effect it will have on her friends, is very interesting, and is performed reasonably well by Stride.
Interesting to view as a time-capsule of a time when extreme facial hair was cool and free-love was frowned upon, but as a piece of filmmaking it cannot hide from its low-budget limitations, and the years have had its effect on the film's power.
www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com
Who's fantasy was this?
johnc-2007610 September 2020
A cautionary tale of Young women following a decidedly average rock band and giving themselves away whenever they can.. I mean lets start with the rock band, these guys are no Jim Morrison or Marc Bolan types, there are more Worzel Gummage lookers with their nicotine stained fingers, who probably smell like a mixture of sweaty socks and rotting sprouts.. they were incredibly plain dull and nauseating, off stage all they seemed to do was walk around in slow motion or sit staring into space and occasionally get it on with one of the young waifs who are strangely queuing up to be with them, goodness knows how they manage to get it up so to speak as they all seem so lifeless and dreary...
The girls don't really seem to know what they want, clearly the band are not that successful in terms of the films story, hence there is no glamour for them to ride on, just a life of long dark motorways, rusty transit vans, being groped by dirty nicotine stained hands and being used then cast aside... as for the busker/preacher character who was shoe horned into the story, the one who lives 'under the stars maaaaan' god that guy was terrible but luckily the segment with him in is only 15 mins or so and of course it goes without saying for a film about groupie girls there is also a very brief lesbian scene tacked into the film before its downbeat climax... I
I wouldn't say this film was truly abysmal, it was after all made in that late 60s / early 70s period with its styles, fashions and morals so was maybe quite shocking and meant to be a gritty piece of realism but now some 50 years on it all seems rather contrived and an opportunity wasted and traded just to show some skin... here we are now in 2020 so I dare say any of the surviving band members are probably sat in some old peoples home, bald and covered head to toe in nicotine patches staring into space as usual... whilst any of the girls are probably all about size 20 with 4 or 5 broken marriages behind them and lecturing their grand daughters about the perils of sleeping around...
Also bearing in mind its 2020, Netflix, amazon prime, even you tube have pretty much killed off home video / dvd... meaning your choices with this film are to try and track it down online or pay £14.99 or whatever the price is for a BFI blu-ray edition... is it worth it? Probably not, the extras might sway it for some people out there but this isn't worth wasting your money on.. that said if you see it cheap somewhere on your travels there are worse things you could buy!
5/10
The girls don't really seem to know what they want, clearly the band are not that successful in terms of the films story, hence there is no glamour for them to ride on, just a life of long dark motorways, rusty transit vans, being groped by dirty nicotine stained hands and being used then cast aside... as for the busker/preacher character who was shoe horned into the story, the one who lives 'under the stars maaaaan' god that guy was terrible but luckily the segment with him in is only 15 mins or so and of course it goes without saying for a film about groupie girls there is also a very brief lesbian scene tacked into the film before its downbeat climax... I
I wouldn't say this film was truly abysmal, it was after all made in that late 60s / early 70s period with its styles, fashions and morals so was maybe quite shocking and meant to be a gritty piece of realism but now some 50 years on it all seems rather contrived and an opportunity wasted and traded just to show some skin... here we are now in 2020 so I dare say any of the surviving band members are probably sat in some old peoples home, bald and covered head to toe in nicotine patches staring into space as usual... whilst any of the girls are probably all about size 20 with 4 or 5 broken marriages behind them and lecturing their grand daughters about the perils of sleeping around...
Also bearing in mind its 2020, Netflix, amazon prime, even you tube have pretty much killed off home video / dvd... meaning your choices with this film are to try and track it down online or pay £14.99 or whatever the price is for a BFI blu-ray edition... is it worth it? Probably not, the extras might sway it for some people out there but this isn't worth wasting your money on.. that said if you see it cheap somewhere on your travels there are worse things you could buy!
5/10
Torn from Yesterdays headlines...
gavcrimson29 September 2002
Warning: Spoilers
SPOILERS INCLUDED
The Groupie scene- a headline making 'problem' in the late Sixties- seems to have inspired a fairly nasty and mean-spirited reaction from British filmmaking, at least if this and Derek Ford's Groupie Girl are anything to go by. In spite of baring as much teenage flesh as possible, both Groupie Girl and Permissive adopt the stance of sad, downbeat, would be morality tales of runaways who come to London looking for adventure as groupies but only end up being used, abused and 'damaged'. Even Val Guest's Au Pair Girls (1972), essentially a mini-skirt wiggling 'swinging comedy' stops the fun dead when a naïve star-struck virgin is deflowered then cruelly tossed aside by a famous rock star. For an audience of middle-aged men these sexploiters also probably carried the too close-to-home realisation that that girl on screen with no clothes on messing around with rock stars- could be your daughter.
Permissive, under the direction of Canadian Lindsay Shonteff, eschews a straightforward narrative in favour of an almost documentary approach. There's unique flash forward editing, proto-music video sections and scenes of rockers and groupies huddled into cramp, dingy rooms that are shot in a 'fly on the wall' fashion. Into this world comes Suzy (Maggie Stride), a non-descript ugly duckling who trades in her country life and duffle-coat for becoming a groupie and being sleazed after by rock group hangers-on and bands like Forever More whose lead singer wouldn't be out of place sitting at the end of someone's garden with a fishing rod. But the London rock scene is no place to make friends- it's the sort of world where the wrong word to the wrong man can have you kicked out onto the streets by an irate girlfriend, where a prune faced road manager (Shonteff regular Gilbert Wynne) sleeps with girls then violently ejects them from the digs the next morning, and where the groupies themselves are always ready to dispense to each other a slap in the face or a knife in the back ('If I had tits like yours I wouldn't flash em about' snipes one girl wearing junkie dark glasses).
Suzy is temporally taken under the wing of Fiona (Gay Singleton), an old school-friend who's shacked up with Forever More's lead singer. But when the band hits the road, Suzy gets left behind to fend for herself. As in the Ford film solace comes in the form of a folk singer who Suzy first meets at a backstage party and then runs into begging in Piccadilly Circus, but 'Pogo' (Robert Daubigny) turns out to be an unbalanced individual prone to dragging Suzy into churches and delivering his own screaming sermons until the police show up. Later Pogo and Suzy are making their way across town when out of the blue he's hit and killed by a car. His death though coincides with Forever More rolling back into town, Suzy rejoins the groupie scene a more hard and manipulating character. After enduring more than her fair share of miserable luck, Suzy finally beds Forever More's lead singer and a neglected Fiona reacts to the situation by slitting her wrists in the bathroom. Discovering her one time friend drenched in blood and slowly expiring in the bath, Suzy takes one last emotionless stare into her predecessor's eyes before leaving her to die, providing the film with its characteristically bleak and tragic parting shot.
Permissive is partly a vehicle for Forever More, who play the band in the film and whose songs ('Beautiful Afternoon' 'Good to Me' 'We Sing') provide a running commentary on the action. A real life band who cut two LPs for RCA, the reasons for Forever More's involvement in Permissive remain a question mark. However it's fair to say their reputations as musicians (or actors) probably wasn't greatly enhanced by their appearance here. Lets face it have you ever heard of Forever More? Maybe the idea of being in close proximity to sexploitation novelty act the Collinson twins and top models of the day like Nicola Austine and (in her last known role) Maria Frost, was too much of a temptation for these hairy individuals. Coming across in the film as having limited talent and equally limited money its unlikely Forever More would have been much of a desirable prospect to any of these women in real life!
Shonteff, a Jack-of-all-Genres who began his career with cut-price chillers like Devil Doll and The Curse of Simba, shot Permissive very much as a hired gun. Tigon were looking for the second feature to their ménage-a-trois drama 'Monique' to be based around the groupie scene. Duly Shonteff typed off a script (known at various stages as Suzy Superscrew, The Now Generation and The 'X' Project) and brought the film in for less than £20,000. In a far cry from the sight gags that litter his silly spy spoofs like Licensed to Love and Kill, Shonteff maintains a deliberately squalid tone throughout the film. Shots of people having sex on toilets and cruelly funny lines like `I thought he was marvellous till he left me lying on the floor' pretty much sum the proceedings up. In the world of Permissive the groupie scene is as cold and miserable an experience as wandering around London streets at night or sitting on park benches- two of the film's most reoccurring images. Three decades later, Forever More's warblings and an absence of likeable characters have left a film without much appeal outside of period authenticity. A less glamorous view of life on the road, though, is hard to imagine.
The Groupie scene- a headline making 'problem' in the late Sixties- seems to have inspired a fairly nasty and mean-spirited reaction from British filmmaking, at least if this and Derek Ford's Groupie Girl are anything to go by. In spite of baring as much teenage flesh as possible, both Groupie Girl and Permissive adopt the stance of sad, downbeat, would be morality tales of runaways who come to London looking for adventure as groupies but only end up being used, abused and 'damaged'. Even Val Guest's Au Pair Girls (1972), essentially a mini-skirt wiggling 'swinging comedy' stops the fun dead when a naïve star-struck virgin is deflowered then cruelly tossed aside by a famous rock star. For an audience of middle-aged men these sexploiters also probably carried the too close-to-home realisation that that girl on screen with no clothes on messing around with rock stars- could be your daughter.
Permissive, under the direction of Canadian Lindsay Shonteff, eschews a straightforward narrative in favour of an almost documentary approach. There's unique flash forward editing, proto-music video sections and scenes of rockers and groupies huddled into cramp, dingy rooms that are shot in a 'fly on the wall' fashion. Into this world comes Suzy (Maggie Stride), a non-descript ugly duckling who trades in her country life and duffle-coat for becoming a groupie and being sleazed after by rock group hangers-on and bands like Forever More whose lead singer wouldn't be out of place sitting at the end of someone's garden with a fishing rod. But the London rock scene is no place to make friends- it's the sort of world where the wrong word to the wrong man can have you kicked out onto the streets by an irate girlfriend, where a prune faced road manager (Shonteff regular Gilbert Wynne) sleeps with girls then violently ejects them from the digs the next morning, and where the groupies themselves are always ready to dispense to each other a slap in the face or a knife in the back ('If I had tits like yours I wouldn't flash em about' snipes one girl wearing junkie dark glasses).
Suzy is temporally taken under the wing of Fiona (Gay Singleton), an old school-friend who's shacked up with Forever More's lead singer. But when the band hits the road, Suzy gets left behind to fend for herself. As in the Ford film solace comes in the form of a folk singer who Suzy first meets at a backstage party and then runs into begging in Piccadilly Circus, but 'Pogo' (Robert Daubigny) turns out to be an unbalanced individual prone to dragging Suzy into churches and delivering his own screaming sermons until the police show up. Later Pogo and Suzy are making their way across town when out of the blue he's hit and killed by a car. His death though coincides with Forever More rolling back into town, Suzy rejoins the groupie scene a more hard and manipulating character. After enduring more than her fair share of miserable luck, Suzy finally beds Forever More's lead singer and a neglected Fiona reacts to the situation by slitting her wrists in the bathroom. Discovering her one time friend drenched in blood and slowly expiring in the bath, Suzy takes one last emotionless stare into her predecessor's eyes before leaving her to die, providing the film with its characteristically bleak and tragic parting shot.
Permissive is partly a vehicle for Forever More, who play the band in the film and whose songs ('Beautiful Afternoon' 'Good to Me' 'We Sing') provide a running commentary on the action. A real life band who cut two LPs for RCA, the reasons for Forever More's involvement in Permissive remain a question mark. However it's fair to say their reputations as musicians (or actors) probably wasn't greatly enhanced by their appearance here. Lets face it have you ever heard of Forever More? Maybe the idea of being in close proximity to sexploitation novelty act the Collinson twins and top models of the day like Nicola Austine and (in her last known role) Maria Frost, was too much of a temptation for these hairy individuals. Coming across in the film as having limited talent and equally limited money its unlikely Forever More would have been much of a desirable prospect to any of these women in real life!
Shonteff, a Jack-of-all-Genres who began his career with cut-price chillers like Devil Doll and The Curse of Simba, shot Permissive very much as a hired gun. Tigon were looking for the second feature to their ménage-a-trois drama 'Monique' to be based around the groupie scene. Duly Shonteff typed off a script (known at various stages as Suzy Superscrew, The Now Generation and The 'X' Project) and brought the film in for less than £20,000. In a far cry from the sight gags that litter his silly spy spoofs like Licensed to Love and Kill, Shonteff maintains a deliberately squalid tone throughout the film. Shots of people having sex on toilets and cruelly funny lines like `I thought he was marvellous till he left me lying on the floor' pretty much sum the proceedings up. In the world of Permissive the groupie scene is as cold and miserable an experience as wandering around London streets at night or sitting on park benches- two of the film's most reoccurring images. Three decades later, Forever More's warblings and an absence of likeable characters have left a film without much appeal outside of period authenticity. A less glamorous view of life on the road, though, is hard to imagine.
Super groupie
Bribaba19 August 2012
In the development stage the title for this truly dispiriting film was Suzy Superscrew. Better had it been kept for at least it gives you an idea of where the action is heading. Suzy is a duffle-coated runaway, arriving in London to join the groupie scene. Unable to score with the band her groupie friend introduces her to, she hooks up with Pogo an itinerant musician and mad preacher. "Where do you live?' she enquires of him. "Under the stars, the world is my scene, man", he responds. Unfortunately the world isn't listening as he gets mown down by a car shortly afterwards. The subsequent narrative is reduced to what band member or groupie Suzy will wake up with next.
The film, shot in a quasi documentary style and was partly intended as a promotional vehicle for heavy rock band Forever More, which accounts for their music being way up in the mix and sometimes drowning out the dialogue. This same logic explains footage of the band performing being inserted whenever the director runs out of ideas, which is often. On the plus side the relentlessly downbeat tone does provides a telling snapshot of the fag-end of the sixties and a particular sub-culture, while at the same time maintaining a grim synergy: hairy men and ugly women having bad sex together in cheap hotels to a Forever More soundtrack. Just desserts are sometimes delicious.
The film, shot in a quasi documentary style and was partly intended as a promotional vehicle for heavy rock band Forever More, which accounts for their music being way up in the mix and sometimes drowning out the dialogue. This same logic explains footage of the band performing being inserted whenever the director runs out of ideas, which is often. On the plus side the relentlessly downbeat tone does provides a telling snapshot of the fag-end of the sixties and a particular sub-culture, while at the same time maintaining a grim synergy: hairy men and ugly women having bad sex together in cheap hotels to a Forever More soundtrack. Just desserts are sometimes delicious.
Horribly dated and not too exciting either.
RatedVforVinny2 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Not sure about this one as i usually go for the gritty and realistic, which is what this exactly is. 'Permissive' follows a unattractive, duffle coated groupie (back in the 70's), as she infiltrates a very average band (backstage) and sleeps with each member of the outfit (which really annoys the other groupies). Lots of dope smoking, crap 'Folk Rock' and the very lamest sex scenes. The non star, climbs the pecking order to be number 1 groupie but to what cost? Sadness, loneliness, suicide and a fate far, far worse, that godawful music.
Grubby
Leofwine_draca22 November 2023
PERMISSIVE is a surprisingly grim and unworkable film that marks an early milestone in the career of cult director Lindsay Shonteff. The story follows the fortunes of a couple of groupies as they hang around with the dregs of society in the form of a rock band, looking for fame, fortune and love and finding only seediness and squalor instead. It's a grubby little production that seems to go nowhere for its entire running time, instead dawdling around with a presentation of completely unlikeable characters who garner too much screen time. Shonteff shoehorns in some gratuitous nudity, but it's not enough to retain the viewer's interest.
Forever More.
morrison-dylan-fan15 August 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Being extremely impressed by the care that the BFI had displayed in bringing Stanley Long's Bread to be included as a bonus feature on their "Flipside" DVD,I felt that it was a the perfect time to take a look at the DVD's main feature ,and discover how permissive director Lindsay Shonteff could really be.
The plot:
Having recently moved to London,Suzy decides to pay her old friend Fiona a visit.Expecting to find Fiona on her own,relaxing in her apartment,Suzy instead almost rushes out of the building when she catches Fiona getting "hot & heavy" with a man in bed.Quickly pausing the "bedroom activates" and telling Suzy not to run off,Fiona gives her friend the wonderful news that she has recently become a groupie for an up and coming band called Forever More.Initially trying to distance herself from entering Fiona's world,Suzy begins to find the temptation impossible to resist,and soon joins her friend in entering the world of the groupie,which holds deadly consequence's for both of them
View on the film:
From the opening of the movie featuring a women's reflection behind the credits,director Lindsay Shonteff cleverly features a reflective object in the background or foreground of every scene,to show how despite their future staring right back at them,Fiona and Suzy stay focus on the fun they are currently having in the groupie world,and completely ignore all of the future trouble that is right in front of their very eyes.
Keeping the movies "music scene" in smoke filled pubs and clubs,screenwriter Jeremy Craig Dryden gives a terrific mix of surprisingly tender moments, (such as Suzy and Fiona's heartfelt relationship) with a wicked sense of humour and truly macabre plot twists of jumping to the future a number of times to show the tragic deaths that the two friends meet!Along with the giving the film its smooth folk Rock soundtrack,Forever More unexpectedly play themselves as a real bunch of creeps,with the moments when the two friends attempt to breakaway from being groupies,always having a member of Forever More ready and willing to temp them back for more dangerous fun.
As the relationship between Fiona and Suzy starts to deepen into an ahead of its time Lesbian love affair,actresses Maggie Stride and Gay Singleton do amazingly well at changing the mood of the scenes,from director Shonteff showing off,their admittedly beautiful bodies,to instead make the mood of the scenes a lot more emotional and tender.
The plot:
Having recently moved to London,Suzy decides to pay her old friend Fiona a visit.Expecting to find Fiona on her own,relaxing in her apartment,Suzy instead almost rushes out of the building when she catches Fiona getting "hot & heavy" with a man in bed.Quickly pausing the "bedroom activates" and telling Suzy not to run off,Fiona gives her friend the wonderful news that she has recently become a groupie for an up and coming band called Forever More.Initially trying to distance herself from entering Fiona's world,Suzy begins to find the temptation impossible to resist,and soon joins her friend in entering the world of the groupie,which holds deadly consequence's for both of them
View on the film:
From the opening of the movie featuring a women's reflection behind the credits,director Lindsay Shonteff cleverly features a reflective object in the background or foreground of every scene,to show how despite their future staring right back at them,Fiona and Suzy stay focus on the fun they are currently having in the groupie world,and completely ignore all of the future trouble that is right in front of their very eyes.
Keeping the movies "music scene" in smoke filled pubs and clubs,screenwriter Jeremy Craig Dryden gives a terrific mix of surprisingly tender moments, (such as Suzy and Fiona's heartfelt relationship) with a wicked sense of humour and truly macabre plot twists of jumping to the future a number of times to show the tragic deaths that the two friends meet!Along with the giving the film its smooth folk Rock soundtrack,Forever More unexpectedly play themselves as a real bunch of creeps,with the moments when the two friends attempt to breakaway from being groupies,always having a member of Forever More ready and willing to temp them back for more dangerous fun.
As the relationship between Fiona and Suzy starts to deepen into an ahead of its time Lesbian love affair,actresses Maggie Stride and Gay Singleton do amazingly well at changing the mood of the scenes,from director Shonteff showing off,their admittedly beautiful bodies,to instead make the mood of the scenes a lot more emotional and tender.
Peace and love are out of the window ...
parry_na20 May 2022
Ah, the Seventies. Made at the dawn of the decade where peace and love made way for glam rock, 'Permissive' is a (presumably) deliberately turgid affair. Featuring the character of Suzy (Maggie Stride), the story charts her rapid transition from a shy, duffel-coat-sporting girl to a sexually wiling rock chick every bit as hardened and dowdy as those around her.
Filmed in that very bleak Seventies graininess, often in rainy wintery locations, Lindsay Shonteff's occasionally inspired direction features real-life prog-rock band Forever More in a very unglamorous lifestyle that nonetheless inspires hordes of groupies to travel with them. The manager is a supercilious brutish bully; the rest of the band is clearly played by non-actors whose dialogue is frequently blotted out by the soundtrack. It all seems a decision to portray just about everyone as bored and horny and the lifestyle as passionless but relentless. Only Pogo (Robert Daubigney) seems to provide Suzy with any attention, and his fate determines a darker path for her story and that of her friend Fiona (Gay Singleton).
Forever More is more club band than stadium rockers and the groupies are often a bitchy, possessive lot, the lazily passed around joints doing little to mellow their cattiness. Travelling on the open road certainly has its appeal, but none of them seems to be enjoying it very much. Peace and love seem in short supply here, but 'Permissive' is nevertheless a very interesting snapshot into a lifestyle belying the perceived accompanying glamour. My score is 7 out of 10.
Filmed in that very bleak Seventies graininess, often in rainy wintery locations, Lindsay Shonteff's occasionally inspired direction features real-life prog-rock band Forever More in a very unglamorous lifestyle that nonetheless inspires hordes of groupies to travel with them. The manager is a supercilious brutish bully; the rest of the band is clearly played by non-actors whose dialogue is frequently blotted out by the soundtrack. It all seems a decision to portray just about everyone as bored and horny and the lifestyle as passionless but relentless. Only Pogo (Robert Daubigney) seems to provide Suzy with any attention, and his fate determines a darker path for her story and that of her friend Fiona (Gay Singleton).
Forever More is more club band than stadium rockers and the groupies are often a bitchy, possessive lot, the lazily passed around joints doing little to mellow their cattiness. Travelling on the open road certainly has its appeal, but none of them seems to be enjoying it very much. Peace and love seem in short supply here, but 'Permissive' is nevertheless a very interesting snapshot into a lifestyle belying the perceived accompanying glamour. My score is 7 out of 10.
Masterful film-making
moray-jones7 January 2011
I just watched this as a restored BFI DVD and I'm glad someone took the trouble to bring this film back to public attention.
It has the look of being docu-drama, with nothing glossy, as it tracks a young woman coming to London to join her friend in the big smoke. Dressed in duffel coat and thoroughly unschooled in life, she finds her friend not the perfect protector, though friendly and helpful.
Her friend holds, and guards, the coveted position of band-leader's girlfriend amongst a gaggle of groupies and is well ensconced in the life of swinging London.
There are drugs and sex, all of it mundane and unglamourous. People use the drugs to check their feelings and avoid the hurt and fears they all want to be too cool to have.
There is living on the streets and the drudgery of a band constantly packing up its Ford Transit and moving from one cheap hotel to the next.
But the director uses a great device to imbue scenes with tension and momentum, sneaking us little flash-forwards in the lives of the characters, silent clips of where they will soon be - whether it's having sex on a toilet or dead.
Along the way we see the band playing, and have their music on the soundtrack giving a great authentic feel.
The film isn't about the band though, it's about the women who follow them. What looks like it is starting out as a moralistic tale about women getting abused by callous men in their naiveté, develops into something much more powerful.
The men are pushed into the background and hardly show any initiative. They are pretty much 2-dimensional, unobtrusive and show little in the way of being predators. One guy is painted that way, but is not ruthless and far from the centre of focus and actually does display more to his character.
I have a friend who went to an all-girls school and assures me that, as a man, I would never know how brutal a female pecking order can be. In films, we see it all the time with the core cliché of the beautiful girls who get usurped by the plainer girl who wins the heart of the hero. But it's usually there to show the underdog winning through despite the machinations of the beautiful stereotypes.
I feel this film does something quite rare. It makes women and their relationships the subject of the film, and attempts to make it authentic as well - even rarer.
It has the look of being docu-drama, with nothing glossy, as it tracks a young woman coming to London to join her friend in the big smoke. Dressed in duffel coat and thoroughly unschooled in life, she finds her friend not the perfect protector, though friendly and helpful.
Her friend holds, and guards, the coveted position of band-leader's girlfriend amongst a gaggle of groupies and is well ensconced in the life of swinging London.
There are drugs and sex, all of it mundane and unglamourous. People use the drugs to check their feelings and avoid the hurt and fears they all want to be too cool to have.
There is living on the streets and the drudgery of a band constantly packing up its Ford Transit and moving from one cheap hotel to the next.
But the director uses a great device to imbue scenes with tension and momentum, sneaking us little flash-forwards in the lives of the characters, silent clips of where they will soon be - whether it's having sex on a toilet or dead.
Along the way we see the band playing, and have their music on the soundtrack giving a great authentic feel.
The film isn't about the band though, it's about the women who follow them. What looks like it is starting out as a moralistic tale about women getting abused by callous men in their naiveté, develops into something much more powerful.
The men are pushed into the background and hardly show any initiative. They are pretty much 2-dimensional, unobtrusive and show little in the way of being predators. One guy is painted that way, but is not ruthless and far from the centre of focus and actually does display more to his character.
I have a friend who went to an all-girls school and assures me that, as a man, I would never know how brutal a female pecking order can be. In films, we see it all the time with the core cliché of the beautiful girls who get usurped by the plainer girl who wins the heart of the hero. But it's usually there to show the underdog winning through despite the machinations of the beautiful stereotypes.
I feel this film does something quite rare. It makes women and their relationships the subject of the film, and attempts to make it authentic as well - even rarer.
Sordid, downbeat groupie movie
lazarillo23 March 2011
These early 70's groupie films were one of the most uber-depressing cycle of films I've ever seen, and really make you wonder why ANY girl at any time would ever want to be a groupie since it inevitably leads to heartbreak, squalor, venereal disease, and a tragic end--the only apparent upside being getting to sexually service talentless hair-ball rock musicians like the real-life band Forever More. The bleak ending of this is SO bleak, it makes you lose sympathy even for the protagonist herself, which is one reason why I think the similar UK film "Groupie Girl" is definitely superior to this one (the girl in that is also serving as a sperm dumpster to slightly more talented musicians).
My personal favorite film in this cycle though is the German film "I, a Groupie", which features the incredibly sexy Ingrid Steeger and at least provides a lot of eroticism along with the downbeat degradation. The girl in this, Maggie Stride, is not unattractive, but definitely pretty ordinary-looking compared to the smoking-hot Steeger. And speaking of smoking-hot, apparently the famous Collinson twins, stars of Hammer's "Twins of Evil" have a small part in this film, but I'm not sure where exactly (they also appear, much more prominently, in "Groupie Girl").
Lindsay Shontieff is an interesting director, mostly for his rather black-hearted view of humanity--even his outright sex comedies like "The Big Zapper" contain some memorably nasty, misanthropic turns. He does use some interesting devices here like flash-forwards that give glimpses at the ultimate fates of many doomed characters. The band Forever More meanwhile comes off like such a collection of untalented and unlikeable douchebags,you have to wonder why they agreed to be in this (or why they didn't subsequently sue Shontieff). Still, while this movie is definitely inferior to "Groupie Girl" and "I, a Groupie", it isn't totally bad (like the aptly-named American groupie flick "Bummer!"). But definitely don't expect to be uplifted here.
My personal favorite film in this cycle though is the German film "I, a Groupie", which features the incredibly sexy Ingrid Steeger and at least provides a lot of eroticism along with the downbeat degradation. The girl in this, Maggie Stride, is not unattractive, but definitely pretty ordinary-looking compared to the smoking-hot Steeger. And speaking of smoking-hot, apparently the famous Collinson twins, stars of Hammer's "Twins of Evil" have a small part in this film, but I'm not sure where exactly (they also appear, much more prominently, in "Groupie Girl").
Lindsay Shontieff is an interesting director, mostly for his rather black-hearted view of humanity--even his outright sex comedies like "The Big Zapper" contain some memorably nasty, misanthropic turns. He does use some interesting devices here like flash-forwards that give glimpses at the ultimate fates of many doomed characters. The band Forever More meanwhile comes off like such a collection of untalented and unlikeable douchebags,you have to wonder why they agreed to be in this (or why they didn't subsequently sue Shontieff). Still, while this movie is definitely inferior to "Groupie Girl" and "I, a Groupie", it isn't totally bad (like the aptly-named American groupie flick "Bummer!"). But definitely don't expect to be uplifted here.
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