Bummer

Bummer (1973)

* (out of 4)

Three female friends (Diane Lee Hart, Carol Speed, Connie Strickland) decide to hook up with a local rock group and before long the sex, drugs and rock 'n roll turns to something much darker and deadlier.

BUMMER was produced by the notorious David F. Friedman and I'm going to guess it was meant as a way for him to do a more mainstream picture. If you're familiar with the various exploitation films that he was behind then you're really going to be disappointed by this movie on a number of levels. For starters, it's downright boring. Secondly, well, there's just nothing interesting that happens here.

I'm going to guess that the film was meant to be a view into the life of rock stars and their groupies but the film is a complete disaster if that was the case. It certainly doesn't help that all of the characters are rather boring and you just don't care what happens to any of them. The film never seems to know what it wants to do and it certainly doesn't know what story it wants to tell as the film is just constantly dragged out with scenes that add up to nothing. Just take a look at the scene with the pimp. What was the point of it?

There are a couple decent things here. If you want some nudity then there are some beautiful naked ladies for you to enjoy. Fans of William Girdler's ABBY will be happy to see Speed here and one wishes her character had a bit more to do. Dennis Burkley plays the psycho band member and he's the most interesting thing in the picture. Just take a look at the scene where he forces two of the groupies to shower together!

When it's all said and done, BUMMER really lives up to its title and it a major disappointment.

Very dated (to say the least) movie about groupies. Movie focuses on a rock band called--most imaginatively--The Group. It involves three women--black Janyce, blond Barbara and red head Dolly--getting involved sexually with various members. However everybody ignores fat, ugly, alcoholic Butts (Dennis Burkley) who slowly begins to go insane....

Boy was this BAD! Not good-bad just bad! Women are treated horribly in this film--in one particularly ugly sequence Barbara and Dolly are forced to strip and shower with each other while being verbally humiliated! Seriously...could anyone be turned on by something that sick? Also there is a long and totally pointless sequence in a strip club. Why is it in here? To pad the running time and shove more nudity in our face. Hilariously this film tries to show us that groupies are real, ordinary people deserving respect while shoving their nude bodies in our face! There's even an uproariously bad romantic monologue showing the three couples frolicking in the woods while a lousy song plays in the background.

All the songs by The Group are lousy too--very bad 70s music. The acting across the board is terrible--only Carol Speed shows any ability at all. I was mostly bored by this and couldn't wait for it to get over. I do have to admit I didn't see the tragic ending coming--that provided a jolt but it was too little too late.

A bad 70s film. Skip it.

The multi talented Dave Friedman produced this "groupie" based trash classic.

It has the look of "The Blast off Girls" but it altogether nastier and more brutal, with a line in the trailer "You dont have to Rape a Groupie, You just have to Ask" (this was turned to Assault for ad's) you can get the picture of what your going to get.

I'm not going to get into detail, but if you love Friedman then get this movie and if your just dipping your toes it the water this is a good place to start

Director William A. Castleman brings us this hard bitten tale of a 70's Club band ("The Group" as "The Band" was taken) trying to make it in L. A. The Group is managed by (Morie) the beautiful Leslie Mcray. The undisputed leader of The Group is the singer (Duke) played quite well by Kipp Whitman. Duke is frustrated with The Groups status as a Club Band and Morie tells him he will have to hit the road to make money. The other band members are kind of nondescript with the exception of the emotionally troubled bass player (Butts) in Dennis Burkley's first movie roll. The Group has their groupies including rich girl Barbara (Connie Strickland) who incidentally has a great body and (Dolly) Diane Lee Hart who shares a flop house room with the third groupie (Janyce) Carol Speed.

The girls have some real adventures including a tryout at a topless bar and being recruited by, (Sid Rosen) played with a lot of glee by Jay Adler, to be call girls. The girls stick to being groupies and plan to follow the fellas around. The Group heads out to a gig in Bakersfield but dumb ass Butts attempts to rape a girl in The Groups van which gets them fired from the gig so they return to LA and reunite with the girls. It's unfortunate that The Group as a band was terrible. It would have helped the film if they would have had at least one tune that was good.

Bummer really tries to explore the relationship between the girls who all want to have serious relationships with the members of The Group and the guy's sincere reaction to them. The film becomes quite gritty and is indeed a Bummer with Duke rebuffing the pleas of manager Morry to fire Butts because Duke as the leader is loyal to his psychopathic band mate. There are some quite uncomfortable scenes with Butts forcing the Girls to strip and some weird S&M stuff involving Butts. Bummer pulled me in, and I actually cared about stressed out Duke and especially the Girls. I have been a bit melancholy since watching it yesterday.

Bummer is a Jack Starrett type film that is a weird and brutal slice of life which I recommend as long as you know what your getting yourself into.

Good Lord was this bad! I came across an '85 VHS copy in the box for a buck so it has some collectors value -but the title says it all--billed as "the ultimate rock and roll trip" -which we can assume must naturally end in a "Bummer"--this piece of dreck wasn't lacking in sound or picture quality like a lot of these 70's soft porn one-shots--but nothing else is even worth mentioning--not even for camp value. The blond was hot in the strip club scene but I honestly can't say I made it much farther..just too, god awful BAD! I guess you gotta be really, really drunk or worse to make it through something like this. Makes you wonder what the winners we're like who actually stayed all the way through this thing at the Drive-in or on Times Square went it was released. And the music--yikes! Too terrible to describe. All in all, the most you can say is that "Bummer" is a movie that truly, truly lives up to it's title.