Model Shop (1969)
8/10
Lost in L.A. 1969...
14 May 2011
This film is not the worst. Gary Lockwood as lost young architect George Matthews and Anouk Aimee as Lola, a stage name for a lost french model who works at a cheesy photo shop for erotic models.

The street scenes from 1969 are quite interesting. The actress who plays Gloria died at a young age from arteriosclerosis. She also is good as a rather direction-less actress, she wants to act, but George tells her ..."I will just see you naked in a bathtub, more soap commercials"... .

The sets are odd in that L.A. was still a relatively undeveloped city....its fun to see the old cars, the oil well and cheap housing George and Gloria live in right on the beach no less. Wonder where that was, in actuality, filmed. It would be interesting to compare how it looks today.

George basically meets up with some friends, tries to get interested in a newspaper his friends are running, he mostly needs a distraction to prevent himself from thinking about the draft, as his father informs him that he must return to San Francisco after the weekend to be entered in to the military for Vietnam. Vietnam and its cease-fire is hinted at here by a radio broadcast, but overall you get the sense of the pointless war, the young men trying to avoid the draft.

He eventually meets up again with Lola and tells her he wants to love her. She, a few years older, simply smiles. They eventually wind up at her friends nearby apartment though she is already packing to return to Paris to see her estranged son. They spend the night, and it gives George a slight sense of hope. He allows his former relationship with Gloria to evaporate, debates deserting the army, but eventually realizes, it is what it is.

Aimee is good, understated here, as a rather lost and empathic character who just wants to afford a flight back to Paris. Not an intricate theme here, but worth seeing for older scenes of L.A. 8/10.
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