The Touchables (film)
| The Touchables | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Robert Freeman |
| Produced by | John Bryan |
| Written by | Ian La Frenais |
| Starring |
|
| Music by | Ken Thorne |
| Cinematography | Alan Pudney |
| Edited by | Richard Bryan |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
Release dates |
(US) |
Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Touchables is a 1968 British film directed by Robert Freeman and written by Ian La Frenais from a story by Donald Cammell. It stars Judy Huxtable, Esther Anderson and James Villiers.
An archetype of the semi-coherent, style-over-content fashion of the time, the screenplay was written by Ian La Frenais, who had created the comedy The Likely Lads for television with his partner Dick Clement, and later responsible for some of the best-loved sitcoms of the 1970s. It was the only film directed by Robert Freeman, the photographer responsible for a number of iconic Beatles album covers. A mannequin of Diana Dors which appears in the film was the same model used in the cover montage of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Other cast members included John Ronane, Peter Gordeno, Harry Baird, Simon Williams and Joan Bakewell in a cameo role as an interviewer. The cast also includes appearances by many popular British wrestlers, including Ricki Starr, Steve Veidor, Danny Lynch and Bruno Elrington.
Largely ignored on its release and since (owing to the scarcity of prints) it has more recently acquired something of a status as a cult film of its type, in part due to a DVD release.
Douglas Cammell, who supplied the original story, would later rework a similar theme to much higher profile effect in Performance (1970).
Plot
Set in Swinging London, four girls decide to kidnap their pop idol and hold him hostage in a giant plastic dome in the countryside. His manager tries desperately to find him, as does a wrestler and an upper class London gangster. However it becomes clear that the young man does not want to be freed from his glamorous captors.
Cast
- Judy Huxtable - Sadie
- Esther Anderson - Melanie
- Marilyn Rickard - Busbee
- Kathy Simmonds - Samson
- David Anthony - Christian
- James Villiers - Twyning
- John Ronane - Kasher
- Ricki Starr - Ricki
- Harry Baird - Lillywhite
- Michael Chow - Denzil
- Joan Bakewell - Interviewer
- Peter Gordeno - Jimmy
- Simon Williams - Nigel
Reception
Reviews at the time were almost unanimously negative, Renata Adler writing in The New York Times being typical. She found it to be
a sort of fidgety mod pornography, which uses the advertising convention for eroticism—cutting abruptly from teasing sex scenes to gadgetry, in this case pinball machines, trampolines and odd items of furniture and clothing. Robert Freeman, who directs (his first feature film) is a former fashion photographer... There is no question of acting, since the range of expressions runs from seductive to sinister to mod vacuous.[1]