The Touchables

You can't spoil giving anything away. The plot's thinner than a paper towel. From the opening, pre-credit scene, you quickly realise that whoever directed this..'film' was using his 'direction' as a chick-magnet. Well, the women who...'star,' can't act. But they're really good at applying eye makeup and posing (well, the posing's a little bit tired) The male star- Christian- the 'rock' boy is a really good looking, pouty-lipped, (but with an annoying adenoidal lower class voice/accent, that's grating even if that turns you on) late 60's quintessential pop star (though this one, David Anthony- didn't have any songs out, or at least any hits, or...well, he's very cute (and does seem a bit 'light in the loafers).

This movie's one of those you can watch in fast forward. You won't miss any plot (it's just a lot of bad pop art in the background, like Faux - Warhollian type stuff, Jimi Hendrix psychedelic posters- and Jimi WAS alive at this time),Chiquita bananas, with the girls cavorting for the camera. The best set is the AWESOME gigantic bubble where half the movie takes place in. I WANT THIS BUBBLE (and David Anthony)!

I'm gonna agree with John Seal, and what he said in 1999. This movie's...BAD. Just watch it in fast forward, look at the pretty boy, pretty girls, and then you're done.

Remember this was an X rated flick back then, so it's really like a bad Benny Hill, in terms of the TITillations-wink wink.

It is true to say that this movie is not good, to say the least. But it does capture some of the craziness of the time.1968 was a very good time to be young & living in London, as I was. I also worked on the dubbing of this movie at Shepperton Film Studios. It still brings back good memories of the time & I wouldn't be without a copy, which took me a long time to find. The girls in the movie were quite well known at the time, one of them became the late Peter Cook's second wife, & all of them were attractive. David Anthony The mail lead was also an icon of the time, with many girls pinning his picture to their bedroom wall. The Dome in the film was built at Frencham Ponds in Surrey & there is nothing of it left.

In many ways the movie depicts the beginnings of women asserting themselves & being seen to be in control of their lives in a much more controlled way than the previous generation. The plot is simple; four girls capture a pop star & have their wicked way with him. There are other influences in the movie with gangsters & a well known wrestler of the time. What is immediately striking is that all the girls speak good English with educated accents, something that is sadly lacking in English movies of this type today. This movie is not an icon, as in "Wonderwall" for example, but it does have something.

In 1978, I was living in Lincoln, NE where the cable system there would play B rated movies scheduling them to play twice a day for a week. I watched The Touchables six times that week. It hardly made any sense at all, though I did like the Pink Floyd Interstellar Overdrive during the boat on the lake scene. I still remember how cool it was to see everybody pile out of the car that had the front door on the entire front of the car. The movie was actually quite awful as they were holding the boxer hostage at the glass dome house. I was lost during that part of the movie. I kept watching the movie for a glimpse of something that never materialized. Yet, I still want to watch it today to see if I had missed anything.

I have had my FOH film still of this that showed what looked like a roundabout but inside a large bed and a guy almost naked but tied spreadeagled and with four girls in short skirts and the outside that looked like a large bubble. I had never seen the film and never thought about it but then the other day when I was reading Mick Brown's book, Performance and it mentions Donald Cammell having helped the story of The Touchables after taking some idea from the 1971 Jagger film. Looking around on my shelves I found a copy of this 1967 film and decided to watch it. Of course, it turns out that is very strange but rather splendid. It doesn't make much sense but rather lovely and psychedelic with some decent music of Nirvana, Ferris Wheel and some of it from Pink Floyd. There is not much of a story but there is some wrestling and a kidnap of a mannikin of a film star and of a pop star really, but not really one and there is some gangsters and the director worked with the Beatles. Did I mention that this was very much of the sixties and very much of 1968.

The Touchables had intrigued me for a decade or more before I had the opportunity (thanks to FXM) to actually see it. It would have been for the best if they hadn't programmed it. The ONLY reasons to watch The Touchables are if you a)have an insatiable appetite for plotless 60s fashion shows masquerading as films, or b)you want to hear the terrific theme song by the (English) Nirvana. There's also a snippet of The Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive used inexplicably as background music during a boat ride, but it's precious little consolation for sitting through this piece of ripe tripe.