Fanchoa

It's really a peculiar film, very engaging even if there is no real intrigue in it but I can watch it endlessly because it makes you feel happy.Why ? Well the city (New York looks superb in early summer) and the relationships between all the characters are shown with great simplicity and love. Director Peter Bogdanovich being a native born New Yorker, it's no surprise that the town is in fact the main character. Here the "Big apple" is very welcoming , very beautiful with the sun shining everywhere.It's like a nest in which are evolving all these characters. It gives the film a peculiar charm , because as i've said the plot here has no importance.Beside New York the other big attraction are the actors. Ben Gazzara, Dorothy Stratten, Patti Hansen, John Ritter... they are all perfect. I mean you have to see Patti Hansen's face as she drives a cab. That's cinema at his best , it's simple but so beautiful because it gives you an emotion. I won't talk much about Dorothy Stratten( it's so sad) but here she appears to be a very promising actress. Needless to say that her beauty illuminates the film .

Really Peter Bogdanovich knew how to find and reveal such beautiful and talented girls: Cybill Shephed, Dorothy Stratten, Patti Hansen.

What means "Bellflower" ? It's just a street in Ventura (Cal) were was shot this movie. In fact the action is principally around this place. Two guys, two friends, meet in a bar two girls. This film is about their complicated relationship but not the way usually shown. It looks like a home made movie with dirty , saturated images but that's not disturbing as all the characters themselves are completely out of control types.

In others words you take a shaker ,you fill it with love, hate, fun ,sadness, booze, boobs, desire, revenge, a muscle car, the apocalypse, pretty girls , pretty boys, you add a lot of energy, you mix it and what you have is this film : a guilty pleasure that's not for everybody.

Special dedication to Jessie Wiseman (Milly) who is so beautiful and moving in the last sequence added at the very end of the picture. Just for that a film worth seeing.

It's about cars but miles away from films like "Fast & furious". Here it's more like "slow & cool". The heroes (sort of) don't do much as they drive across the USA. Even when they meet a young wandering girl (Laurie Bird), they hardly talk to her. It seems boring but it isn't. First of all Monte Hellman knows how to film cars (a 1955 Chevy and a 1970 Pontiac )and he does it with great respect. After all they are as much important as the two main characters (Denis Wilson & James Taylor). Secondly like for books what makes a work valuable or at least interesting is the style. Although we can say that it's a "road movie" , which is typically American, the general atmosphere given by the director Monte Hellman is more European.I mean action here is not the point. That's the style of this picture.A great film, beautifully shot that didn't have the success it deserved, perhaps due to the huge triumph of "Easy Rider" released just two years earlier.