****SPOILERS***** The movie "The Sweet Ride" begins with a ride on a Malibu highway where pretty actress Vickie Cartwright, Jacqeline Bisset, is dumped on the road from a speeding car and left to die or be run over and killed by the highway traffic.
The Malibu police round up three persons who knew and lived together with Vickie at a beach front house owned by tennis pro Collie Randsom, Anthony Franciosa. Collie was picked up by the police together with his two room-mates surfer Danny McGuire, Michael Sarazzin, and Choo-Choo, Bob Denver, an on and off professional musician whenever he can find work.
It turns out that Vickie left the trio some two weeks ago at Las Vegas when she had a big fight with her lover Danny over her secret life that she kept from him. Vickie depressed and hurt was even more hurt when Collie, who was Danny's best friend, found her alone in her hotel room and tried to make a play for her. Which showed Vickie just what a heel he is instead of the friend that she thought he was up until then.
Danny finds out from him being interrogated by the police that a local biker gang, The Freaks, were seen on the Malibu beach partying last night and may have been responsible for beating and raping Vickie. Danny going with Collie to the bar where The Freaks hang out to talk to Mr. Clean. Charles Dierkop, the gangs top honcho to finds out what he knows about what happened to Vickie.
Mr. Clean agrees to meets the two at a deserted warehouse but as soon as he shows up he's beaten by having his head smashed through a window and having a number of beer bottles broken over his skull. Mr. Clean tells Danny & Collie that he and his gang did have sex with Vickie on the beach last night but it wasn't rape it was Vickie herself who voluntarily conceded to have sex. Mr. Clean tells them it seemed as if she wanted to die and be killed by him and his biker gang.
Mr. Clean also told Steve & Collie that Vicki was in a big house on the beach that turned out to belong to her agent or producer a guy named Bradly Caswell, Warren Stevens. Caswell may well have been abusing Vickie to the point where death was an option for her. Danny thanked Mr.Clean for the info by breaking another beer bottle over his already cracked and bleeding skull with him, after he kicked Collie out of his station-wagon, driving to the Caswell Estate.
Danny has it out with Caswell as a movie of Vickie's is playing on Caswell's movie screen, this was 1968 before there were VCR or DVD's, with Caswell getting the hell beat out of him. Later Vickie, recovered and out of the hospital, breaks off her relationship with Danny with Danny leaving Collie for a job at a hardware store in Malibu. Choo-Choo also leaves Collie by getting married to his long time girlfriend Thumper, Michele Carey, as well as being drafted into the US Army. Poor and dejected Collie is left alone all by himself at his beach-front house with an unlimited supply of young and curvy beach girls for him to play with.
"The Sweet ride" is an uneven film that never explains just who dropped Vickie on the highway to die as well as beat her to the point where she had a concussion and six broken ribs. Mr. Clean if you believe him said that he and his gang only had sex with Vickie and left her on the beach covered up with a blanket; could it have been Caswell who beat and dumped Vickie on the highway?
I also couldn't understand why Vickie left Danny since he did everything to help her and she was in love with him. Why leave him now when you would think that she would need Danny more then ever? The scene with Mr. Clean and Danny & Collie in the empty warehouse was really insane. Why would Mr. Clean meet with the two alone and end up getting his head bashed in? When he had about twenty tough bikers who could have come to his aid stay in the bar and not at least be within earshot if anything happened to him where they would come to his rescue?
Mr. Clean also came across very sympathetic and it was both Danny & Collie, who are the good guys in the movie, who came across as vicious thugs by attacking and beating Mr. Clean when he came in good faith to talk to them. Poor Mr. Clean didn't even have a chance to open his mouth as he was brutally attacked by the two as soon as he walked into the warehouse!
The only two reasons I can give for watching "The Sweet Ride" is to see beautiful Jacqueline Bisset topless and the movie title song "The Sweet Ride" sung by the late Dusty Springfield.
