Girl on a Motorcycle
Amazon.co.uk Review
Caught midway between 1970s soft-porn clunker The Story of O and Bunuel’s sado-masochistic fantasy Belle de Jour, the 1968 erotic curio Girl on a Motorcycle is one of Marianne Faithfull’s chief claims to notoriety. She stars as Rebecca, a leather-clad, former bookstore clerk in search of sexual fulfilment who flees her dependable schoolteacher husband for a dangerous liaison with Daniel (Alain Delon), a dashing Professor addicted to speed. The story is told entirely in flashbacks as Rebecca rockets along the road, having donned her leathers and walked out on her sleeping husband at the crack of dawn. It all must have seemed fairly daring and provocative in 1968, providing viewers with ample opportunities to view a naked Faithfull at the height of her allure. But today the existential musings of the lead character seem achingly pretentious, the erotic symbolism merely gawky and unintentionally amusing: the sight of Alain Delon with a phallic pipe dangling from his mouth is like something out of a Rene Magritte painting. The sex scenes between Delon and Faithfull are all swamped in a polarised visual effect that, while garish and psychedelic, is dated and distinctly unerotic. Director Jack Cardiff is better known as a cinematographer on classics such as The African Queen and Black Narcissus. Among Cardiff’s other directorial credits is a worthy adaptation of DH Lawrence’s Sons & Lovers, but Girl on a Motorcycle is a saucy road movie with no final destination.
On the DVD: This DVD version is misleadingly presented as being the fully restored and uncut version of the film. Yet it was the US version not the European one that was heavily cut (and titillatingly re-titled “Naked Under Leather”). The restoration certainly does not refer to the print quality: although the colours are vivid and bright, the print used to master the DVD (in 16:9 anamorphic format) is extremely grainy and, at times, speckled with dirt and scratches. Included as one of the special features, a theatrical trailer loaded with innuendo shows just how much the film was marketed to a prurient audience. Director Jack Cardiff provides an audio commentary but has few revelatory things to say about his film beyond technical considerations, and even makes several clunking errors (recalling his casting decisions concerning a scene that takes place in a provincial German café, he raves about how he strove to find authentic French locals!). He does reveal that the film’s use of a voice-over was inspired by the internal monologue that forms the basis of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Given Cardiff’s age and experience one feels that he must have more interesting anecdotes and insights, making this commentary feel like a wasted opportunity. –Chris Campion
I bought this in a fit of nostalgia, having enjoyed it as a boy interested in motorcycles and women (at a time when both were beyond me).
On watching it again I had a pleasant wallow in nostalgia, but the acting is wooden and the “erotic” scenes have dated very badly. The road movie aspect is a treat though; who wouldn’t want to ride a bike across 1960s Europe?
One to enjoy at the bottom of the second bottle with a group of friends who were there at the same time.
Rating: 3 / 5
This Sixties leather clad romp fails to live up to its sexy subversive reputation. The pouting Marianne Faithfull plays the bored housewife who slinks into her leather catsuit and rides off on her motorbike for trysts with the edible Alain Delon whenever the going gets tough. This sounds erotic but sadly isn’t. The acting is wooden and much of the dialogue is laughably inane. Even the sex scenes between these two hot young things are banal. Altogether a wasted opportunity – the only thing that throbs with passion is the titular motorcycle!
Rating: 2 / 5
I bought this un-cut in Germany, German packaging but English audio-track,a couple of extras but nothing much really to write about.
Imagine Diana Rigg joining “Easy Rider’s” Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda for a ride across France and Germany and you will have a pretty good idea what “Girl on a Motorcycle” looks like. Made one year before “Easy Rider”; this is an amazing 1960’s road movie that includes hip camera angles, groovy music, a leather suit and a Harley Super Glide.
While low-budget, it is not a thrown together “B” Movie but a thoughtful existential trip inside the mind of a flawed character who happens to be a sexy woman. On close examination, what appears to be yet another fruitless examination of the mysteries of female discontent is really a more expansive study of the human condition. Rebecca, the main character, illustrates life as a process of choosing between comfortable security and the need for freedom and excitement; a daily struggle with guilt and its consequent self-destructiveness, and the seductive lure of risk. Motivations familiar to almost all serious motorcycle riders.
In voice-over, Marianne Faithful gives us Rebecca’s story in a series of flashbacks, with minimal scenes of conventional dialogue. Most of these work very well although there is a ski weekend flashback about midway through the film that looks more like a travel advertisement than a movie scene. And while much of Jack Cardiff’s film is beautifully shot, the action sequences are somewhat clumsy looking and obviously low budget. And there is excessive reliance on the Elvis movie technique of projecting moving scenery(shot by the second unit) with the star pretending to be cruising along the road while actually stationary in the studio.
Cardiff was very creative with the editing and came up with some great match cuts, typically used to bring Faithful out of her frequent flashbacks/dreams. In one we see her lover slowing pulling open the zipper of her suit, then the film cuts to the tread of an Army tank moving past the place where she has been napping by her motorcycle.
Cardiff’s technique was quite revolutionary at the time as his camera has a love affair with the leather suit , the motorcycle, and Faithful’s eyes. His extensive use of very tight shots is extremely effective and the most pleasing thing about the film.
Faithful is on screen in almost all the scenes and gives a surprisingly good performance. Alain Delon as her lover gets a fair about of screen time (all in flashbacks). I’ve not been able to take Delon seriously as an actor since his performance as a character named “Baldy” in Dean Martin’s “Texas Across the River” in 1966. Plus I get him confused with Jorge Rivero and his almost identical character “Capt. Pierre Cordona aka Frenchy” in “Rio Lobo”. Maybe they are the same person and used two names as a tax dodge.
The DVD include a nice stills gallery and a couple trailers.
All in all I recommend this film. It has thoughtful themes and many well-shot scenes. If you like motorcycles, a sexy body in and out of a leather suit, the most beautiful eyes ever, and cute freckles you should view this film if your a real Faithful Fan.
Rating: 5 / 5
This was purchased for my husband who had always told me what a great film it was. He loved it just as much as he has always loved Marianne Faithful. For me it was ok but that’s all. It was a 60’s film! I think it was really the leather motorcycle suit that stayed in his memory all these years and he wanted to recapture a bit of his youth. In it’s time probably a very good film but now just a little dated.
Rating: 3 / 5
This was Marianne Faithfull’s greatest moment when she starred in what was to become one of the great films to close the 1960s era in ‘Girl On A Motorcycle’.
This film is beautifully shot with some fabulous early morning scenes. Some scenes are quite melancholic – others are simply exhilarating! With lots of psychedelic suggestions, the story of this great movie runs far deeper than is given credit for.
A young woman attempts to ‘save’ herself from her own sexual addiction to a virtual stranger by rushing into marriage with a man she has become ‘comfortably’ engaged to, but he’s somewhat boring and a little weak, which does not help her fight her temptations… The pathetic portrayal of her future husband is done without any sentiment at all with a great example being the humiliating scene involving the children in the classroom quite early on in the picture – this in particular ignites much sympathy from the viewer for the girl and her plight. The girl Rebecca, finds herself torn between love and excitement, but she becomes too embroiled in what will become her ultimate downfall… The flashbacks are cleverly interspersed in a way that keeps the viewer guessing as to whether she’s arrived at her destination – or if it’s just another daydream. This little quirk becomes more gripping as the film and story progresses.
There’s also some great dialogue from Faithfull’s character as we enter her thoughts as she rides along on her bike at tremendous speed, that for any of those who woke up towards the end of the 60s decade, to find that nothing had really happened at all – this will be particularly poignant; there were still people living boring lives, people still got married, and people still died… Nothing had really changed at all…
I think this movie is a sort of ‘wake up call’ for those who believed that the 1960s had changed everything.
I find I have to be in a certain mood to really appreciate the absolute gems that some of the scenes in this picture are, and to also appreciate the devastating impact the whole story has. Anyone who falls asleep watching this, will most certainly wake up at some point with a start!
Fabulous!
N. B. The release I purchased could do with a ‘re-mastering’.
Rating: 5 / 5