GROUPIE GIRL (1970) ** ½

A young girl named Sally (Esme Johns) takes off to swinging London on a quest for sexual misadventure.  She stows away in a passing van and inadvertently winds up becoming a groupie.  She’s passed around from rock group to rock group, one of which becomes involved with a hit and run accident.  Sally understandably freaks out, and the band tries to keep her quiet to save their squeaky-clean image. 

Groupie Girl contains a handful of memorable moments to keep fans of English sexploitation happy.  There’s a clothes-ripping catfight, nude dancing, and an all-out orgy.  The best scene though is the bizarre prelude to the orgy where the participants crawl around the floor on all fours imitating animals.  If you assume that most English people are prudes, here is a scene that suggests otherwise.

It’s also loaded with out-of-date slang, groovy music, and funky late ‘60s fashions.  So much so that it works better as a time capsule than as a sexploitation picture.  I mean any movie that features an opening credits sequence in when the titles are painted on the side of a van can’t be all bad.

It all starts innocently enough, but Groupie Girl becomes darker as it goes along.  The third act is particularly bleak, and it ends on a downbeat, depressing note that much of the fun of the earlier scenes gets cancelled out.  To make matters worse, it seems as if the filmmakers are chastising Sally for her sexually liberated lifestyle.  Ultimately, there’s enough nudity and camp value here to make it worth a look.  It’s just a shame that the abrupt and callous ending leaves such a bad taste in your mouth.

AKA:  I am a Groupie.