Simply A Masterpiece

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I saw this film in the 1970s at a Cleveland Drive-in, then titled "Naked under Leather", and enjoyed it as a peculiarly big-name (stars in the cast) exploitation film. I later have realized it was perhaps the first of its kind and influential.Of course, it is compared to Easy Rider, though predating that hit by a year. The use of the road movie format to present an existentialist story was later to reach its apotheosis in 1971 with Monte Hellman's "Two-Lane Blacktop" and Richard C. Sarafian's major cult classic "Vanishing Point", the last-named becoming my favorite film of the time. I even bought a Dodge Challenger and enjoyed watching "VP" and other similar movies at the drive-in sitting in my favorite car.This Jack Cardiff original is being revived at the New York Public Library upon the suggestion of staff from Film Comment magazine, so it's due to be taken seriously. My problems with the film are worth this short review.Similar works by French authors were quite popular at the time, my choice being Sebastian Japrisot's "The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun", a strange work that was filmed twice, the first one being vastly underrated: Jean Negulesco's glossy movie starring Samantha Eggar and Oliver Reed.Cardiff adapted the screenplay and rather adventurously presents the story almost exclusively in voice-over from the heroine's point-of-view: much of the action is mere fantasy on her part. Mick Jagger's girlfriend at the time, singer Marianne Faithfull, stars, and the movie unfolds almost as a love letter to her - endless closeups and enough smiles for her to audition for The Sound of Music.The director in his commentary emphasizes the participation of Alain Delon as her co-star: a subordinate role but crucial as he was the top leading man in Europe for the 1960s. But Cardiff is off-base in his self-praise for the frequent use of positive/negative post-production alteration of the visuals, that create a "psychedelic" effect intended to fend off the censors. The technique is crude and ineffective. Similarly, his yeoman work to disguise the fact that Faithfull cannot ride a bike, let alone a magnificent Harley at high speeds, goes for naught -most of the footage looks fake or clearly second unit (with a stunt guy doubling for the beauty).But as an experiment its power continues, even to the extent of the Tom Hardy one-man-show "Locke", which I thought was imitating "Vanishing Point" with its protagonist behind the wheel for an hour and a half, but owes more to Cardiff's single-minded creation.And the sex that earned the movie an X-rating (though at a time when X rated movies included "Midnight Cowboy") is more of the fetish kind. You know, the British kink for rubber and leather and such, best epitomized in the '60s by Diana Rigg's fabulous fetish outfits in the hit TV series "The Avengers".We get to see tasteful nude shots of Marianne, which now should prove amusing to her fan base as she morphed from Jagger's ""As Tear Go By" to a fine, mature folk singer over the years, and an emphasis on her leather costume that puts to shame the thousands of ridiculous bondage/fetish videos that clutter up this IMDb database (search for odd-ball names under the Genre "Adventure" and you'll find them.

Cult movies don't come much 'cultier' than "The Girl on a Motorcycle". This film was British in name only; fundamentally it was French through and through from its source novel, (La Motocyclette by Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues), to its leading actor, Alain Delon. Pop singer Marianne Faithful, naked but for a black leather jump suit, was really only standing in for Bardot. There's no real plot to speak of but there's a lot of sixties psychedelia, sex, nudity, cheesy dialogue (Your body is like a violin in a velvet case), and, of course, Faithful tearing along the highways and byways of Europe on a big, phallic motorbike to the bed of her lover, Delon.The director was a somewhat unlikely Jack Cardiff whose superb cinematography also gives the film its texture. Faithful's non- performance is really rather appealing while the film itself is ripe for rediscovery. It's not actually very good but it's certainly weird enough to be of more than passing interest.

The 1960s brought some very interesting films--especially with society's changing mores. Some of these untraditional stories were very successful (such as "Bonnie and Clyde", "Rosemary's Baby". "Tom Jones" and "The Graduate") and some were just downright silly (such as ALL the films about LSD). "The Girl on a Motorcycle" is clearly one of these unsuccessful films that runs from traditional structure and morality but doesn't work because the plot is paper-thin and the characters are just as deep. It's a curious curio--but nothing more.The film begins with a young bride stealing her husband's motorcycle and driving across Europe to meet a lover in Germany. Along the way, she takes off her clothes with little provocation, makes love and just lives for the moment and for her own desires. Why does she do all this? You assume she's just an immature jerk, that's why! No real depth--just a pretty but thoroughly unlikeable lady 'doing her thing'. And, in a case of self-indulgence on the director's part, you see lots of psychedelic colors (for no apparent reason) from time to time.I really don't think the film was designed at all for the average person--and they probably never would have sat through this thing. My feeling is that it was meant to be a fusion--a film for the hippies and artsy types. As I said, it's a curio but not a film most folks would particularly enjoy. As for me, I may be crazy, but I like a modicum of depth to the films I watch. Heck, this film has LESS depth than a Sylvester Stallone flick!All in all, a waste of a good motorcycle and even the occasional glimpses of the star naked aren't enough to keep this interesting!

Cute chick (and Marianne Faithfull really was back then) in tight black leather, riding on a motorcycle -- it just has to have some redeeming quality about it, right?Wrong! This was the sort of snoozer that gave '60s avant-garde European directors a bad name. No story, no plot, no interest, no nothing!