England,
1968, 97 min
Shown in 1968
CREDITS
- dir
-
Robert Freeman
- prod
-
John Bryan
- scr
-
Ian La Frenais
- cam
-
Alan Pudney
- editor
-
Richard Bryan
- cast
-
Judy Huxtable, Esther Anderson, Marilyn Rickard, Kathy Simmonds, David Anthony, Ricki Starr, James Villiers, John Ronane
- source
-
20th Century-Fox Film Corp.
-
COMMENTS
Judy Huxtable, Esther Anderson, Marilyn Rickard and Kathy Simmonds attended.
OTHER
This film is the culmination of the stylish pop-baroque tradition that "swinging London" of the 1960s has contributed to the cinema. Robert Freeman, a refugee from the world of television commercials, has gleaned the very best artistic touches from that dreadful milieu, and merged them with the events of a wondrous, modern fable. Four beautiful London "birds," tired of the fashionable kindness of the city, and the overripe sexual escapades of a society-wrestler (their willing protector), move to a fabulous pleasure dome in the country. In need of a new love object, they decide to kidnap Christian, a famous rock singer, for their lusty inclinations. The fortunate youth is naturally bewildered to find himself imprisoned in the groves of erogeny, where aquamarine forests shade the girls' carousel-bed of languorous pleasure. The sequences concerning this menage-a-cinq are superbly rich in color imagery: pastoral grazings of a white horse on a leaf-strewn lawn; some camera swirls of early morning delight; the gambolings among mountains of pink and golden pillows—The Touchables provides a continuous visual feast, with a tongue-in-cheek sense of satirical fun permeating its carefree narrative. When Christian begins to tire of his captivity after several months, and his gangster-managers finally discover his hiding place, the action of the film becomes ominously violent: the intrusion of reality throws a previously idyllic atmosphere into moments of suspenseful terror as the girls decide to defend and retain their escape-prone stud. The acting is flawless. Each of the girls has a distinctive look and personality that defines every feminine gesture, and in his screen debut, David Anthony does a brilliant job of personifying the young hip hero, drugged into the action of a beautiful dream.
—Albert Johnson
FACTOID #65
The combined running time for all the films in the Festival is approximately 310,000 minutes. Or to put it another way, 5,167 hours. That’s about 215 days of viewing, 24 hours a day, with no breaks.
