The Touchables

I have had my FOH film still of this that showed what looked like a roundabout but inside a large bed and a guy almost naked but tied spreadeagled and with four girls in short skirts and the outside that looked like a large bubble. I had never seen the film and never thought about it but then the other day when I was reading Mick Brown's book, Performance and it mentions Donald Cammell having helped the story of The Touchables after taking some idea from the 1971 Jagger film. Looking around on my shelves I found a copy of this 1967 film and decided to watch it. Of course, it turns out that is very strange but rather splendid. It doesn't make much sense but rather lovely and psychedelic with some decent music of Nirvana, Ferris Wheel and some of it from Pink Floyd. There is not much of a story but there is some wrestling and a kidnap of a mannikin of a film star and of a pop star really, but not really one and there is some gangsters and the director worked with the Beatles. Did I mention that this was very much of the sixties and very much of 1968.

The Touchables had intrigued me for a decade or more before I had the opportunity (thanks to FXM) to actually see it. It would have been for the best if they hadn't programmed it. The ONLY reasons to watch The Touchables are if you a)have an insatiable appetite for plotless 60s fashion shows masquerading as films, or b)you want to hear the terrific theme song by the (English) Nirvana. There's also a snippet of The Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive used inexplicably as background music during a boat ride, but it's precious little consolation for sitting through this piece of ripe tripe.

All my life I've been mad about 60's mod films. I just love movies from the 60's with loads of cool clothes and style. I thought I knew about most of them until I just recently found out about "The Touchables", which is just all mod style. So much so, that there's almost no plot at all. The clothes and the visuals are fantastic but it all just seems to be a bunch advertisements strung together, one after the other.

After a while I almost lost interest since it was almost too much style. The girls are very pretty but, apart from the dark one, all of them are very uninteresting (and quite bad actors to boot!). The prettyboy pop star is almost better than them combined!

The real star of the film is the absolutely AMAZING gigantic bubble house they reside in. That knocked me out and makes this film worth watching again! The set design should have won awards!!!!

How come this film is so unknown? I gather that this film was not a hit at the time but to be so forgotten is strange... Does anyone know?

Anyone can make a movie, it's enough to have a camera and a few actors. It doesn't matter if they are good or bad. The script doesn't really matter, does it? It can goes even without one, especially if you have a few pairs of panties on some sexy asses, plus a few locations, some cars, a motorboat, a transparent dome in Frensham Ponds... Not bad, right? We gonna have a movie! I came across this and said to myself, English, 1968, a title that takes me to the American series "The Untouchables... It's got to be something of it, let's check! Now, I would like to say something good about this movie but it's rather difficult, I can not, my dignity does not let me... OK OK, let's give it a chance and think that it's a surrealist artwork... No, it doesn't work, it's too... moronic. Oh, maybe it's the pure British replica of Antonioni's "Blow-up" and "Zabriskie Point" in only one film... Who wouldn't like to be kidnapped by four young beautiful girls, taken to a hiding place somewhere and gently softly raped? No, I'm afraid it's just an hour and a half of pure boredom!

I was a great fan of British wrestling and often went to venues on North and Central London. It was great fun. I well remember Ricki Starr who wrestled in ballet shoes and was a predecessor of Adrian Street. I had virtually given up on this film when up pops another bout which is refereed by the unforgettable Max Ward. He of the gravel voice who could make a count last an eternity.

As for the rest of the film it is instantly forgettable. How could Ian Le Frenais write this.

The problem was that after the success of British films in the States in the early sixties,the American film companies decided to invest heavily in British films and came a cropper. Who in their right mind could think that the script was worth filming.