Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Girl on a Motorcycle Blu-ray Movie Review

Easy ride-her...

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater April 18, 2012

Jack Cardiff is best known as the pioneering cinematographer who shot Powell & Pressburger's Technicolor masterpieces, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes--along with over 70 other films, shorts, and TV series in his seven-decade-spanning career--but it's often overlooked that he directed thirteen features of his own, including an award-winning adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. And then there's this little forgotten gem, Cardiff's 1969 bikesploitation movie The Girl on a Motorcycle, a sort of Euro-centric Easy Rider that was released in some markets under the saucy title Naked Under Leather. For a then-55-year-old guy in a decade that didn't trust anyone over 30, Cardiff was sure in touch with the vibe of the swinging '60s. Girl on a Motorcycle is as psychedelic as they come, a free-love road trip with acid- inspired flashback sequences and a groovy soundtrack. Forty-odd years on, it doesn't hold up so well as a cohesive film--it's repetitive and goofy and doesn't quite push the envelope as far as it could've--but as a piece of 1960s cinematic kitsch it's aces. It's got a fondue party! Unintentionally hilarious dialogue! An occasionally topless Marianne Faithfull as a bored housewife who gets off on speed! Gentlemen, start your engines.

The Girl on a Motorcycle

At the time the film was being made, Faithfull was a fairly high-profile it-girl thanks to her own singer-songwriter career, yes, but mostly because of her much-publicized relationship with Mick Jagger. She was supposedly even the subject of a number of Rolling Stones songs, including "Wild Horses" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want." A better theme song for her character in The Girl on a Motorcycle would be "I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)." Faithfull plays Rebecca, an unfaithful housewife who craves the open road and the throaty purr of a two-wheeled speedster between her thighs. The film opens with a dream sequence that seems intended to immediate freak out those in the audience who dropped acid before the showing. Rebecca imagines herself riding a white horse around a circus ring, whipped by her lover Daniel (Alain Delon, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Samourai) until her clothes tears away, leaving her stark naked and Godiva-like. Meanwhile, the schoolchildren in the crowd point and laugh at Rebecca's husband, Raymond (Roger Mutton), who sits impotently in the center of the ring. When she wakes up, in her boring house in boring suburban France, she has the irresistible urge to leave her soundly sleeping husband and go visit Daniel in Heidelberg, where he's a university lecturer. She goes to the closet, slips into her form-fitting leather jumpsuit--"It's like skin," she says, "I'm like an animal"--and hops onto her Harley Super Glide to tear off toward the German border.

The rest of the film documents her rubber-burning journey across Europe, interspersed with erotic non-linear flashbacks to the development of her relationships with both Raymond and Daniel. The former, a schoolteacher with no control over his classroom, is an acquiescing weakling who lets Rebecca do whatever she wants. Daniel, on the other hand, is a bit of a sadist, toying with her emotionally and sexually. And she likes to be toyed with. ("You're a sadist, my darling! A magnificent sadist!") She initially meets Daniel in her father's bookshop, and the horn-rimmed glasses- wearing intellectual regards her coolly at first. Later, though, when they happen to be staying at the same ski lodge in the Swiss Alps, Daniel sneaks into her room and has his way with her in a LSD-inspired sex scene that's extremely suggestive without ever really showing anything. (There were a few shots where I cocked my head and wondered, what exactly am I looking at here?) Rebecca goes along with her marriage to Raymond because it's the socially acceptable thing to do, but when Daniel gives her the aforementioned Harley as a wedding present, it gives her a license to escape the confines of domesticity. The bike becomes a masturbatory aid as much as it is a symbol of freedom. With protracted closeups of Rebecca squeezing and unsqueezing her legs around the chassis, her ass bouncing up and down on the seat, it's maybe a little too obvious that she's, you know, riding the Super Glide.

The potential sexiness of the story is tempered by the utter ridiculousness of the script. As she's tooling across Europe, Rebecca whinges on ceaselessly about how she's been "bored, stultified," and how "this place stinks of old wars." The constant stream-of-consciousness narration is tiring, an unsuccessful narrative gimmick that can't quite distract us from the fact that next to nothing actually happens in the film. Rebecca's flashback conversations with Daniel also tend to be so soapy and artificially emotional that they descend into camp. "Your body's like a violin in a velvet case," he tells her, running his hands over the feminine bulges in her jumpsuit. "Daniel...skin me," she pleads, and as he goes to unzip the thing--remember, she's "naked under leather"--you're much more likely to be cracking up than titillated. I haven't even mentioned the scene where they make love, whipping each other with roses, or the part where Rebecca daydreams that she exposes herself to a diner full of leering old men. It's all probably funnier than Cardiff ever intended, but that just feeds into the film's ongoing cult appeal. And to be fair, Cardiff does stage some impressive motorcycle scenes, with camera movements that swing around Faithfull as she flies down the open road. (Many of the longer shots were filmed with a male stunt driver wearing a wig.) Capping it all off is an abrupt, moralistic ending that backpedals from all the free-love espoused earlier in the film to show the consequences of Rebecca's need for speed.

Girl on a Motorcycle Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff had a prolific career that stretched from the silent era to Rambo: First Blood Part II--his last big project as DP, though he did a few more shorts--but Girl on a Motorcycle is unequivocally his wildest, trippiest film, a milieu-capturing ode to the psychedelic '60s. The dream/flashback sequences, in particular, are simulated acid trips of super-saturated two-tone color. Crazy stuff, man. The Blu-ray version of the film, from vintage erotica imprint Jezebel--the first in their distribution deal with Kino-Lorber--reproduces the 35mm experience well, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's fairly true to source. As usual with Kino releases, there's no gratuitous post-processing here--no smear-inducing DNR, no halo-making edge enhancement, no falsely pumped up colors. The grain structure is naturally preserved, and the resulting image has an appropriate filmic quality. There are some minor age-related print issues--some specks, slight brightness flickering, and the occasional shadows of hairs stuck in the camera's gate--but nothing remotely distracting. And while the picture is sometimes a little soft--more because of the way the film was shot than anything--the high definition treatment gives Girl on a Motorcycle a better sense of clarity than ever. Color is satisfyingly reproduced too, both in the normal scenes and the insanely vibrant LSD freakouts. My sole concern is the level of compression in the image--you may not notice it from a distance, or on a smaller screen, but up close you can frequently spot digital-looking artifacts.

Girl on a Motorcycle Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Girl on a Motorcycle cruises onto Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track that literally rumbles and purrs. The throaty motorcycle sounds are the most noticeable element of the mix, with surprising low-end for vintage 1960s audio. And then there's the positively groovy soundtrack, which can be a bit brash at times but otherwise sounds great, all hip-shaking bass and bright horns. Both the spoken dialogue and Rebecca's internal monologues cut cleanly through all this, always riding comfortably at the top of the mix. Like most films from this time period, you might hear slight hisses and crackles from time to time, but nothing continuous or off-putting. My lone complaint, as usual with Kino releases, is that there are no subtitle options for those who might need or want them.

Girl on a Motorcycle Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary: Jack Cardiff's solo track is spotty and a little slow, but he gives some great backstories on the making of the film, including how they achieved some of the psychedelic effects.
• Theatrical Trailer (SD, 00:50)
• Gallery (1080p): A user directed gallery with around twenty stills and posters.

Girl on a Motorcycle Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Girl on a Motorcycle isn't a very good film, but it's quite a ride, with psychedelic '60s colors, Marianne Faithfull "naked under leather," and lots of what amounts to motorcycle porn. Groovy. Recommended for Harley riders, 1960s erotica fans, and connoisseurs of kitsch.