06/10/10 - The Hitchhikers

The Hitchhikers (1972, 92 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067206/

This Weird Wednesday feature didn't look at all promising, but with a busy Tuesday, I had to choose it over the better looking Terror Tuesday. Let's see if I was right in my guess.

The film follows Maggie (Misty Rowe) who leaves her life behind to head to Los Angeles. She quickly falls in league with a hitchhiker gang led by Benson (Nick Klar) and featuring numerous other gals (mainly Diana played Linda Avery). The film then follows Maggie's life with this gang.

The Hitchhikers is a tale of two halves. The first half (which constitutes up until Maggie joins Benson's gang) is actually really well put together. The movie does a good job at making us care about Maggie and even has a somewhat professional feel to it. I mean, here they setup scene changes (most Weird Wednesday films can't claim this, so this does mean something) and actually frame the shots in a realistic manner. At this point I'm actually enjoying the movie since it's pretty well done. There's even a corny but lovable folk soundtrack that is used to advance the plot. No sound from the scene is used but through the music we're told what's happening and I think the reason for this is to limit the acting of the individuals as much as possible.

One point on the acting: it's not terrible. The main people of Rowe, Klar, and Avery aren't Oscar worthy by any means, but they do a respectable job. There's some smaller roles where it's obvious the people are just ad-libbing and this shows. But the main group of people seem to have chemistry and everything usually works in a believable manner.

Where The Hitchhikers falls apart is in the second half. Once Maggie joins Benson, the plot switches over to being a love triangle between Diana and Maggie over Benson. But then there's the plot point where Maggie is pregnant and still wants to get to Los Angeles. Anyway, there's no plot development, regardless of what the intention was here. Everything completely falls apart. To me, the best option would have been to make the plot switch to being all about Maggie against Diana with the winner riding off to Los Angeles with Benson. Instead, the movie throws together some other story where Maggie, Benson and one of the random other girls all leave and go to Los Angeles. It just doesn't work, especially after the well developed first half of the movie.

Overall, I gave this film a 3/10. The Hitchhikers breaks down into two halves and when you weight and average them, this is the score at which I arrive.