THE TOUCHABLES (1968)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Though THE TOUCHABLES contains no explicit Fellini quotes, I feel that his shadow looms large over this movie and similar surrealistic takes on "swinging London," not least the contemporaneous quasi-giallo DEADLY SWEET. Fellini showed aspiring cinema-craftsmen that they could shoot a lot of footage in which actors could reel off reams of pretentious dialogue, and some viewers out there would take meretriciousness as a commentary on meretriciousness.

That seems to be all director Robert Freeman (best known for photographing the Beatles for their album-covers) and his writers have on their minds. Film a lot of wild scenes in exotic locales and feature a lot of gorgeous actors reciting blather about Aristotle moments before they start singing TV jingles for breakfast cereal. Our four guides to this trippy world are all upper-class Brit women: Sadie, Melanie, Samson and Busbee (Judy Huxtable, Esther Anderson, Kathy Simmons, and Marilyn Rickard-- of whom only the first two made much of a career in acting). The audience never knows any of them as individuals with specific backgrounds: from the first they're just seen hanging out at trendy clubs, watching the British version of TV wrestling (which reminded me of American wrestling of the eighties). They break into a wax museum and steal a statue of Michael Caine, but the owner reclaims it. Nothing daunted, the girls decide they'll abduct popular rock star Christian (David Anthony). The take him to an odd hideout; a geodesic dome which, in real life, a famous architect constructed in the Surrey countryside.

At the time all this transpires, Christian has become totally bored with the rigors of being a famous rock star, so at first, he's only bemused at having been kidnapped for four leggy beauties. Early on, he breaks free of his bonds and overpowers one of the girls. A jump-cut later, he's joining in all of their goofy games, clearly regarding his kidnapping as a fun vacation. He implicitly sleeps with most or all of them, though there were no sex-scenes in the version I saw. Eventually Christian chafes at captivity and tries to flee via a stolen motorboat. However, one of his captors has access to a rifle, and she shoots him. Incredibly, she only grazes his temple, and the ladies are able to haul the singer out of the water and nurse him back to health, so that he's no worse for wear.

The film easily could have ended with Christian's death (which might have lent some symbolic resonance to the singer's given name). Instead, some London criminals learn that a valuable celebrity is being held in durance-not-too-vile, so they congregate at the dome and take everyone prisoners. The crooks can't convince Christian's manager to believe their ransom demands on the phone, so they send Samson to convince the manager, with warnings not to contact the cops. No cops intervene, but the gangsters are defeated because Samson does come back with the manager and a couple of the wrestlers in her circle, and the wrestlers stomp the heck out of the criminals (and manage to destroy the stately pleasure-dome too). Christian doesn't bid his cute kidnappers farewell but simply leaves with his manager to go back to the lesser travails of being a big star. The ending implies that nothing will happen to the wacky girls, perhaps because they're upper class, though nothing is said of specific connections.

Putting aside the maybe-Felliniesque playfulness, TOUCHABLES bears a loose relation to the sort of "femme formidable" movies being made at the time. Still, in terms of content, Freeman's flick is pretty vapid next to even lightweight fare like Losey's MODESTY BLAISE, to say nothing of FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! Before TOUCHABLES, the only non-marvelous film that involved "feminine rapine" might be the Ed Wood-scripted VIOLENT YEARS, but the four "good time girls" aren't very representative even of negative feminism. Aside from the incident where Christian gets shot-- where it's not clear how much skill the rifle-girl has-- only two other scenes suggest formidability. The kidnap-scene at the opening shows two of the ladies (dressed as nuns!) overpowering Christian with the help of chloroform, and in the concluding fight, Samson repels an attacker by jamming him in the ribs with her elbow. But the fact that the ladies need big strong men to rescue them reduces most if not all of the movie's potential claims to feminine empowerment.