I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

One thing's for sure about this movie - you won't think of The Rolling Stones' "Time is on My Side" the same way again, following a scene where the few remnants of society in a post-apocalyptic wasteland - we don't see the apocalypse, it just happened - are sitting around at night and there is this strange curiosity called a record player that somehow, despite electricity and power being something of a rarity, can play a record. They have a single of the Stones song, and it sometimes goes a little in and out of track, warbling a bit, and everyone just sits around listening to it. Impassive, just taking it in. What is this thing called 'Music' after all?It's one of those oddball moments, which is funnier perhaps on paper than how it's played, that comes out of Jim McBride's film of Glen and Randa. Watching this film you get the impression that it's almost like a bizarre, wild-child style documentary on what would happen to people years and years down the line after society had been broken apart with no infrastructure to set it up. Oh, and there's sex between these two crazy kids and lo and behold Randa becomes pregnant. So that becomes an issue as the two of them go wandering around, trying to find food, shelter, and some place they can call home.McBride's film is a true oddity, shot in grainy film and done to look like some sort of artifact of a time and place (maybe intentional, maybe not), and the two leads are non-professionals. You know, for example, when Steven Curry is shouting out the same 'TIME IS ON MY SIDE' over and over, as it's in his head, this is a performance that is stripped down to its essentials. It's either a very good performance or a bad performance it that makes sense, but this guy is always in it, always showing this crazy kid's curiosity about the world, about the "City" that could be out there - he learns this through his tattered comic book remains he carries with him - and Shelley Plimpton is the same way.As with the McCarthy book The Road we don't get many other people here. There is the tribe early on, but Glen and Randa can't stay there as it's too unstable and Glen wants bigger and brighter things. The last "act" as it were of this gangly narrative takes them to a beach where Randa may finally deliver her child into the world. The ending itself is as bizarre as anything else in the film, but less logical. Why does Glenn do what he does, or Randa, or the baby, or the old man who has another few remnants to help them? In some ways the movie has not stood the test of time, but in a way it has. It's longish-freaky-looking characters are out of the late 60's, victims of the Flower Power movement, but they're also real and tactile and are fascinating to watch just from an anthropological point of view. In other words, it's not like a Mad Max post-apoc future, there are no motorcycle gangs or the like, it's, again, stripped down to where nature has taken over the Earth in major ways. If anything it's low-budget-ness shows a little too much, but the script via Rudy ("Two Lane Blacktop" Wurlitzer makes this experimental and low-key in good ways. What they don't got, they make it an advantage.Simply put: one of the stranger films of 1971.

A young, naive post-nuke couple (Steven Curry with Sideshow Bob hair, and Martha's mother Shelley Plimpton) leave their commune to search for "the city" (using Wonder Woman comics as a reference). They never do find it, and she dies during childbirth at the end of this mostly dreary, low-key 16mm American Film Institure-backed effort that received an X for casual nudity when released in '71. The best part is early on with Garry Goodrow (a jobbing character actor who later co-wrote HONEY I BLEW UP THE KID) excellent as a lecherous motormouth travelling "magician" who puts on a show (great use of The Rolling Stones' Time Is On My Side). Shot in California and Oregon. The first screenplay attempt by then-hip novelist Rudy Wurlitzer, he wrote TWO-LANE BLACKTOP next. McBride had already made a couple of documentaries and David HOLZMAN'S DIARY. He made HOT TIMES (also with Curry) next.Movie reviews at: spinegrinderweb.com

Science Fiction/fantasy is a genre different in certain ways from other genres. In order for its ideas to be communicated a physical world usually needs to be constructed, and in order for this to happen, big dollars need to be invested. The most high brow concepts fall in a heap when the sets start wobbling or the cheesy music starts. There are not many low budget Sci- Fi/fantasy success stories. Glen and Randa is an exception. On an absolute shoe string budget a work has been created of genuine vision. In terms of a narrative there isn't much to speak of. The story tells of two teenagers who, after being visited by a traveling merchant in a post apocalyptic world, trek across the country side in search of a city. Something they have read about in comic books but never seen. It is never alluded to what caused the breakdown in society, but people live in it's remnants, in a kind of stunned simplicity. The story is told in a long series of scenes, which tell a story, but they are really there to give impressions of a world devoid of social structure and technology. Rather than creating elaborate sets and situations, Glen and Randa explores this through examining the internal world of the two main characters. They experience the world around them with a mixture of innocence and ignorance. They have a horse but no idea that it can be ridden, They aren't able to understand what a minute is, and when Randa becomes pregnant, they have no understanding of what that means, or how to deal with it. The internal logic of the film plays out without any flaw, always a real acid test for any work in the genre. Situations are often troubling, but not illogical. And through use of whatever locations were handy, an otherworldly reality is effectively created without a dime spent on lumber. It took a while for the film to work it's magic on me, because it was such unusual story telling. Because of it's early 70's origin I figured it would have a Hippy kind of naturalist message like Gas or wild in the Streets, but it became apparent that it went much deeper than that, which, to me is why it is such a crime that this film has been so completely overlooked. My advice is if you enjoy the genre beyond Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, then take any opportunity you get to watch this film, if you can bond with its ideosyncratic style of story telling you definitely won't be disappointed.

I find it interesting that nobody has yet mentioned how much casual nudity there is in this film. It's what got the film its "X" rating, even though there's no overt sexuality connected to it. It's more of a device to underline the innocence of Glen and Randa and their nomadic life. Nothing in the film would get it more than an "R" today. There are no special effects as such, just vistas of nature and of the ruined technology from which the survivors glean their living. The young actors are very appealing, and there's a quiet inevitability to the story's unfolding. I wish this were available on DVD, but given that there's no studio money behind it, this is unfortunately unlikely. This little film has stayed with me for many years since the release. It's too bad so few people know about it; it deserved a better fate.