Ich - Ein Groupie

Ich - Ein Groupie (1970)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Vicky (Ingrid Steeger) has parties and has sex with a rock star but the next morning he is gone. That doesn't meant that Vicky's feelings go away so she gets her friend Rolf (Rolf Eden) to travel with her across Europe in hopes of finding him but their journey leads to one party after another and soon the side effects start to show.

ICH - EIN GROUPIE, also known as HIGHER AND HIGHER, comes from director Erwin C. Dietrich and it turned out to be a rather large hit and it made a star out of Steeger who would go onto appear in countless sexploitation pictures. The movie had a pretty rough start though as it was originally going to be co-produced by Roger Corman and directed by Jack Hill but, depending on who you talk to, issues arose and soon Dietrich was in the director's chair and Hill was on his way back to America.

As far as the film goes, there's no question that it falls well short of being a good movie but at the same time there's some very good stuff scattered throughout the picture. There's no question that the main reason to watch the film is for the performance of Steeger who is quite good here. The character she's playing is a free and loose woman and I thought Steeger did a very good job with it. Of course, the greatest thing is the fact that she's a very beautiful woman and there's no question that this helps sell the film. The non-stop nudity and sex scenes are certainly what makes the film so memorable.

There's really nothing fresh or original done with the movie, although it does try to be a bit more than just a skin flick. Dietrich adds some real drama and a downbeat ending, which isn't something you'd normally expect. The film has some rather slow moments throughout the running time but, again, there's no doubt that the reason to watch the film is for Steeger and that alone makes it recommended.

I enjoyed this much more than I expected after the adverse comments of others. A 1970 film from Mr Dietrich about a groupie travelling across Europe with rock bands and hippies was never going to be high art and instead I certainly got what I hoped for. Splendidly lurid sexploitation featuring a lovely Ingrid Steeger who wears sexy clothes now and again but not too often. A surprisingly large amount of time is spent over the preparation and administration of various drugs and the music and musicians authentic enough. I don't know how terrible the dialogue is in the original but certainly the English dub is pretty bad and made worse because it seems to be spoken by a couple of ex public school types with no interest whatsoever in the project. The movie moves along nicely enough, doesn't outstay it's welcome and has one or too extraordinary moments. I was particularly surprised at first with the vigour of the Hell's Angels attack in the water and then astonished to see the naked girls riding off on the backs of two of the bikes. Real roads, in traffic, seemingly at speed. Don't think health & safety requirements would permit that today! Perhaps most surprising of all is that we actually get to see the DVD box cover scene with Ingrid nude upon the snowy mountain. Irresistible trash.

Damn! I knew I should have been a bad European rock musician in the early 1970's! German actress Ingrid Steeger plays a sweet young thing in a mouth-watering micro-mini and knee socks (although she's often not even wearing that). She falls in love with a scuzball rock musician in London after getting good and shagged and decides to follow him to Germany. For some reason, this involves hooking up with another sultry, wood-inducing groupie and going to Amsterdam to get pot (trading sex for it with more scuzzy rock musicians), and then taking the pot to Zurich to sell. (This makes no sense actually, but it makes for an interesting travelogue of 70's Europe). The girls have many more misadventures involving the Zurich Hell's Angel, a band very appropriately named "Birth Control", and a LSD-fueled satanic orgy! Of course, there's a lot more more hot sex and rampant drug use and the kind of ridiculous cautionary ending you'd expect from something like "Go Ask Alice".

I've seen pretty much all of these 60's and 70's groupie movies (except for some of the documentaries, but I'm afraid I'll catch VD by proxy watching too many of those). This is better than the British film "Groupie Girl" and the American film "Bummer" (although that's not much of an accomplishment). It's not quite as good as the "The Touchables", but it definitely has the best-looking girls of any of these. This is also certainly Swiss director Irwin Dietrich's best effort, and Steeger's best film not-also-starring-Christina Lindberg. I'm not sure the point of the scenes of a naked Steeger running through the woods or sitting on a snowy mountaintop (perhaps they were trying to rehabilitate the old Leni Reifenstahl German "mountain films" from the pre-Hitler era?), but I'm not complaining either. Recommended.

This movie has it all: Groupies, psych-rock, drug use, drug smuggling, gratious nudity, camp value, bikers, satanic mess, gore, drug overdose, hippies. Very very entertaining film that was published in various forms. My review/opinion is based on the German video release under the title DAS MÄDCHEN MIT DEM EINWEGTICKET. I saw it in the cinema as well under that title and the cinema print did feature some additional scenes (like main actress Ingrid Steeger walking around London at the opening scenes for example). Now Erwin C.Dietrich has prepared a DVD in the original version ICH EIN GROUPIE. I'm anxious to see this version in comparison to the MÄDCHEN MIT DEM EINWEGTICKET version. - As far as I know, this film did not get a video release elsewhere in the world, which is a shame, as this film beats most US exploitation films by far. Very very entertaining!