Take an Easy Ride

Booklet and interviews by Simon Sheridan. Simon did the documentary on British pornographic star Mary Millington; I mentioned the boxset in an earlier post. This film is forty minutes with extras including audio commentary and Interviews with filmmaker Ken Rowles and actress Françoise pascal. Cover by Sean Longmore.

It begins as a genuine documentary - students interviewed about their hitchhiking experiences, a sober cautionary tale - and then, without apology, becomes something else entirely: a piece of sleazy British exploitation of the sort that used to play before the feature in cinemas. It was effective in that context and ran for long weeks. Knowles had screened it for a man with money and a bit of a reputation, who suggested it would do better with sex in it. The result is an exploitation film with a split identity. The early footage will be instantly recognisable to any child of the seventies, steeped as it is in that essence of well-meaning dread those public information films carried. Then it pivots, and suddenly every hitchhike ends in a sexual encounter or worse, even murder.

In the interview, Knowles says ‘some might call this film Rubbish, maybe they are right?’ I will answer this in my own way; the film preserves a corner of British film history that might otherwise go undocumented and opens a genuine conversation about the exploitation genre. For students of psychology, film studies, or media studies, the material is surprisingly rich: British sexual attitudes of the 1970s refracted through exploitation cinema, the formal mechanics of how sex was staged and sold on screen, the distinctions between British and American approaches to the genre, and the music that underscored all of it. That a student has already cited these types of film in academic work is, frankly, unsurprising.

Beyond the obvious subject matter, these films function as accidental time capsules - the villages, the storefronts, the clothes. There is another England preserved in them. And I’m one of those people that enjoy that. The drives have their comic moments, and the dialogue drew more than a few laughs from me. Knowles, at one point, expressed a desire to make something in the vein of The Avengers - a remark I found funny, given that the film’s opening already has that essence: classic cars threading through country lanes and small villages, the whole thing carrying that particular brand of British surrealism the show did so well.

Knowles discusses his career and the losses he suffered following his work as a filmmaker and it was interesting to hear about his life. Some people are free to pursue their interests and may have extra funds to do so, others may struggle to have a dream and pay and then there are people who’ve had to faced real disapproval when following their desire. People can become trapped by others or their situations. Some filmmakers may have financial struggles and sometimes this might change the direction of a film or their decision making. It’s unfortunate for some but there is fight and sometimes losses for wanting to do something in life. I loved the interview with Francois Pascal, she’s so open at talking about her experiences in film and it’s fascinating to hear her talk. I think she could talk about anything and make it interesting!

It’s worth seeing this film.