I'm rather surprised I'm the first person to review this one ever, but I'm quite happy to do so! "Les Poneyttes" is one of those films that anyone who's into European ultramod style films of this time period (like say, one of my all-time favourites "Modesty Blaise" to name but one) will absolutely be ALL over. Every scene will have kitschy vintage aesthetic lovers literally drooling. The hypercolor-painted Ferrari featured in it alone is something people would probably fight over to own, as is a lot of the fashion in it as well (I'd totally rock the side-buttoned velvet purple-then-orange suit donned by Hubert Wayaffe on any special occasion).
It's a tough film to peg down as far as categorizing. It's irreverently semi-humorous in its overall approach but it's not a "comedy". It's not completely heavy handed or quite serious enough to really be considered a "drama" though that probably is the best tag for it in the end. It's got a lot of that "French arty" film touch to it but much more pop art than like Truffaut or so, though it does play around a lot with existential philosophy in its own way. I'd say it's much more a "societal commentary" film with a bend towards the music and fashion industries as well as the struggle of financing such things. The plot is also rather tricky to describe/decipher, basically it's about the main character Max Torp (Hubert Wayaffe), who's a kind a "jack of all hip trades" kinda guy, running a fashionable magazine amongst a couple of other side hustles such as a pirate radio station and a club. He's somewhat confusingly involved with this rich old school bourgeois American lady played by Arlene Dahl (who speaks decent enough French with an American accent actually) who bankrolls his endeavors but eventually gets into a heated fight with him and cuts off the money supply. His big client/buddy is Johnny Hallyday, who was really hugely famous in the French speaking world as a singer (he's basically like the French Elvis and was one of the best selling artists in the world). Johnny shows up a few times and most noteworthily croons a quasi-psychedelic tune whilst being entirely done up like a bronze statue.
In the end it's a pretty entertaining bit of business despite losing some steam as it wraps up (the ending is real "meh" honestly). Primarily laudable for its aesthetics above the plot and whatever message it may have wanted to convey other than "life can often not work out like you'd hoped it would". At least it looks good while attempting to do so!
