The Runaway

I really like these kind of movies from the lost period early 70's era. They don't have the annoying, rose-colored Baby Boomer nostalgia of some of the earlier 60's films (in fact, they all kind of have the dark pall the Manson family hanging over them), but neither are they the typical reactionary crap we've been spoon-fed by corporate Hollywood since the Reagan era. Biker movie-vet William Smith plays a detective who is looking for a runaway teenage girl who is trying to "find herself" in a Southern California commune. He plays kind of parental/authority figure to the girl (which doesn't stop him from sleeping with her, of course, this being the early 70's and all). There is a lot of groovy music, an extended acid freak-out scene, and the general lack of a coherent plot that tended to characterize these kind of films.

This is the kind of film that makes me strangely nostalgic for an era I barely remember. I would have liked to have dropped acid and grooved on the beach to hippy-dippy music with a bunch bra-less chicks from "The Brady Bunch" era, but being only two years old at the time I never really got the chance. Oh well. They seem to be resurrecting a lot of these type of movies recently ("The Van", "The Pick-Up", "Girls on the Road"). Maybe they'll get around to this one soon. Check it out if you get a chance.