Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker

This is one of my favourite made-for-tv movies from the '70s! It starred Charlene Tilton of "Dallas" fame, and Dominique Dunne. It was made during a time when tv movies were trying to teach a moral message. I haven't seen this movie since the early '80s, but the images it showed are memorable. It was about a girl (Charlene Tilton) that works down at the beach. She is saving for a car, and the only way for her to get to this area is by hitchhiking. There are news reports on the radio warning against hitching because there have been a rash of young girls in the area that have been murdered by hitching a ride & never making it to their destination. This movie is not graphically violent, it's actually funny in parts. You never see the guy that's committing these murders. Instead, you see the car with it's chromed exhaust, and super-tinted windows from every angle possible before he traps his victims. The victims, of course, are only clad in bikinis or halter tops & jeans, you see them get in, laughing & thanking the guy for picking them up, then the next scene is the victims clothes on the ground, and the murderer driving over them. It's a pretty strong message, and makes a point without being graphic. It would be nice to see this movie again, and have it available on DVD or VHS because it's a movie that has left an impression with me.

Apparently, Charlene Tilton's turn on DALLAS had garnered her enough attention that somebody felt it permissible to give her a starring vehicle of her own, this luridly titled teleflick about teenagers who flirt with danger by accepting rides from strangers. Charlene is a teen with artistic ambitions who doesn't have her own wheels. Neither do most of her girlfriends. In order to get around, they all resort to hitching. Unfortunately for them, there's a sicko roaming the highways, picking up young girls and raping them. Guess who picks Miss Charlene up in the last reel . . . Not really a suspense movie, just a little melodrama that wraps the hitchhiking theme around the usual psychodrama and character development that usually fills these movies. The acting isn't bad, but the movie wasn't intended as anything more than a movie of the week.

Here's a cautionary TV movie about a social problem that doesn't really exist anymore: From the time I started driving more than twenty years ago now, I have NEVER seen a woman hitchhiking by herself, yet this movie would have you believe it was out-of-control epidemic. The titular teenage hitchhiker "Julie" (played by Charlene Hilton) is the kind of girl who has her name emblazoned on her shirt, presumably so she won't forget it. She's actually a terrible hitchhiker, kind of putting a slightly extended thumb just under her chin and wriggling it. She continues thumbing rides in this manner even after one friend is beaten and raped while hitchhiking and another is killed in a high-speed chase doing the same. She doesn't do this, however, because she's rebellious or self-destructive, but because she's an insufferable goody-two-shoes who wants to get to her job, but won't let her concerned parents buy her a frickin' car.

The sexy female hitchhiker movie was practically its own genre in the 1970's (.e. "The Hitchikers", "Thumb Tripping","Girls on the Road"), but obviously, since this was a TV movie, it's a lot less exploitative--and a lot less entertaining--than most. There's obviously no sex (aside from some scanty cladding), and potentially scary scenes involving an ominous black Mercedes are pretty ham-handedly executed. Which leaves character development--lots and lots of character development. "Julie" meets a wealthy, older architect who is so incredibly nice that he doesn't mind that she won't put out, or that she dresses and acts like the the most matronly 17 year old ever witnessed in the 1970s. You see he genuinely believes she's a talented sculptress and wants to encourage her "artistic talent"--none of which exactly advances the plot too much. The movie has an ending that is nice and ominous, but doesn't really fit the rest of the movie, which alternates between meandering and cloying.

Besides Charleen "Dallas" Tilton, this movie features any number of 70's TV actors like Dick "Eight is Enough" Van Patten, Katherine "Soap" Helmond, Christoper "Peter Brady" Knight, and even the guy who played "Les Nessman" on "WKRP in Cincinatti". The actor who really stands out though and showed the most promise for a real career outside of network television is Dominique Dunne, who plays a pregnant, ill-fated friend of "Julie's". Tragically, this actress (who was later in "Poltergeist") was actually murdered in real-life, not by a stranger in a black Mercedes, but by her former boyfriend. It's hard to not think about that now watching this ridiculous, alarmist TV movie.