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I wouldn’t mind picking up THE HITCHHIKERS (1972)

Posted by Daniel Metz

Dir. Beverly and Fred Sebastian
Alamo Ritz, 6/9/10, 11:59pm

This rough and tumble quickie is really good. Directed by the husband and wife time of Beverly and Fred Sebastian, who pleased me very much with their ‘Gator Bait, this picture’s got it all: women, women, women. But also crime, hippies, cars, guns, and did I mention women?

The film starts out with one of my favorite title tropes, organizing the cast by their character groups. So the first title card read: “Hitchhikers,” followed by “Victims” and “Others.” I think this adds a great level of narrative coherence/realism, and also democratizes the actors who clearly don’t command much name recognition anyway.

From this title sequence we are introduced to the sweet sounds of Danny Cohen, the composer/performer of all kinds of wonderful songs for the film (according to IMDB, he’s got no other credits to his name…). He did three or four great numbers for the picture, songs that actually comment on the narrative. The music is a sort of bluegrassy-country-rock style that features great instrumentation and wonderful vocal harmonies. I really mean it that the songs are top-notch, and I’m still singing some of them in my head.

And thus the story opens up. Meet blonde ingenue Maggie, played by Misty Rowe. She’s knocked up and abandoned, so she thumbs it out west. On the way, she gets tricked and robbed by a black-haired sinister bitch, I think named Diana and played by Linda Avery. Avery’s Diana (and, I’m guessing, Avery’s Linda) has the kind of thick Long Island accent that makes you wish oil spills happened up north instead of down in Louisiana.

So, broke and bumped, Maggie relies on the kindness of strangers to get around. In the process, she flirts with prostitution and gets raped in a van. This is a kind of a brutal turn of events, but I guess it reflects Weird Wednesday host Lars’ predilection towards movies with rape scenes.

Anyway, after the rape she gets busted for stealing milk from a grocery store (how tragic!) but makes a getaway with a long haired patriarch, a sort of mix between Charles Manson and the guru from that Rainbrow Bridge movie. She ends up on his commune/harem, where a group of misfit babes are hanging around in shacks with little electricity and littler clothes.

Guess who’s there? That bitch who stole Maggie’s cash. That won’t stand, she figures, so they have a cat fight which results in, you guessed it, a miscarriage! Straight on the heels of the marvelously subversive Student Nurses, The Hitchhikers also features a semi-graphic medical scene involving the non-birth of a baby. This time, though, it is sadder.

That reminds me, this sequence broke what I consider to be a cardinal rule of filmmaking: after a miscarriage scene, don’t cutaway to a closeup of a stewing pot. That sends the wrong message.

Now about fifty minutes into the picture, the titular hitchhiking scheme can get underway. It seems that this cult of ladies and their ringleader are involved in a shake-down racket involving their thumbs and some creative gesturing. The girls lure drivers with their smiles, gams, and bosoms and when the helpless men pull over and offer the pretty girls a ride…BAM! There’s Timothy Leary with his pistol.

This little swindle is a great devious plan, wonderfully playing on the culture’s fears of hitching and of young people. It also allows for a very funny montage where Mr. Personality teaches Maggie how do the different grifting techniques associated with their scheme. The only thing better than watching suckers get robbed is watching someone learn to do it. It’s like that Bresson film Pickpocket, only, well, with more nudity.

Speaking of nudity, there is a healthy amount in this film. More worth noting, however, is the outfit Maggie insists on wearing throughout the bulk of act 2. Outfit might be too generous a term for this piece of white lace with a hole at the top, tied together around the waist with a rope. I’m not sure what she was trying to prove, but she sure presented a lot of evidence.

All good things must come to an end, and sadly the ending of this picture dragged. There is a crazy late-night romp that results in a car getting smashed and a bunch of people getting beer on their clothes, and then a final bus-driving montage. Eh, it’s making me sleepy just to write about it. Suffice it to say, the film was fat around the edges, especially for a film that so masterfully captured the essence of some weird shit going on.

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