The Blue Hour (1971)
8/10
Interesting 70's soft-core drive-in obscurity
9 February 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Troubled young lass Tania (a fine and affecting performance by fetching brunette Anne Chapman) falls in with a bad crowd in Los Angeles while struggling to come to terms with her grim and enigmatic past.

Directors Sergei Goncharoff and Ron Nicholas -- the latter also co-wrote the intriguing script with Carl K. Hittleman -- relate the compelling elliptical story at a steady pace, maintain a haunting downbeat tone throughout, deliver a satisfying smattering of tasty female nudity, and make artful use of a fractured editing style that keeps the viewers on their toes from start to finish. Moreover, the disjointed oddball plot offers a poignant and provocative central point about the impossibility of running away from one's dark and tragic past. The sincere acting from a capable cast holds the picture together, with especially praiseworthy contributions from Edward Blessington as Tania's concerned and caring boyfriend David, Mary Beth Hurt as an evil manager of models, and William Bonner as a belligerent bearded biker. Voluptuous knockout Diane Webber has a memorably sexy bit shaking her scorching stuff as a belly dancer in a nightclub. Robert Maxwell's handsome cinematography provides an attractive bright look as well as boasts several neat dissolves and freeze frames. The melancholy piano score by Harry Fields hits the moody spot. Worth a watch for fans of offbeat 70's fare.
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