Today's Hippie Hotties film brings us an international fair as we look at a British-French film about a young couple in love who run away from their homes in Paris to live off the land: it's Friends!
This 1971 film features very early 70s tunes from Elton John who records the opening credits' film "Friends". The song was a hit back in the day, but the movie is basically forgotten. This Paramount film was essentially coming off the coattails of Love Story's success. Suddenly everyone wanted to see heart-wrenching love stories about young, free-spirited people who are probably star-crossed lovers. This one has a sexy twist in that there is a French leading lady, it is set in France, and there is nudity. Let's take a look.
Anicée Alvina plays Michelle La Tour where she makes her nude debut. This was only the young woman's second film role, but she took advantage of it by going wonderfully naked. The movie opens on Michelle, wearing a black beret over her braided hair and looking much younger than she actually is, arriving at a swingin' party at her cousin's house where a foxy older French woman wearing a tye-dye blouse her in French to all of her French-speaking friends.
Her father has recently died, so she goes to Paris to live with her cousin, but her cousin's boyfriend makes her very uneasy. So she goes to the zoo where she meets an English guy her age named Paul who lives in Paris. She asks him if he knows anyone in Paris and he says that he knows "hundreds of people and he hates them all." But then he tells her to meet him there tomorrow, so it looks like there is one person whom he does not hate.
It's not hard to see why he would like Michelle - she is a gorgeous young lady. She makes her nude debut in the movie shortly after this meeting when her cousin's boyfriend walks in on her changing clothes in front of her mirror. He makes a pass at her which serves to set up the fact that Michelle does not like living with her cousin.
Soon enough Michelle and Paul, both of whom hate their home lives, are spending every day together. Their friendship develops despite their language and cultural differences and they become very close even though Paul is a bit of a criminal who steals cars. He steals his dad's car and goes for a joy ride with Michelle where he crashes the car into a lake. Whoops! Instead of facing his father, the pair decide to run away! They literally run on foot out of Paris and start rolling around in the grass together. That's not a euphemism, they literally do that.
They run away to a secluded cabin in the countryside where they play house. There is a wonderful scene in which she strips naked for a bath. This moment brings them closer together and we see a montage of them simply being together that culminates in the two of them eventually having sex and professing their love for one another.
Eventually, Paul wants to go back to Paris, but Michelle does not want to go back. They fight, they make up, and then they make love and Michelle reveals that she is pregnant. Wow, that was fast. They have a baby and become a perfect nuclear family, but eventually Paul has to leave to deal with the police that his family sought on him. He promises to come back and the film ends on him waving goodbye to his brand new family as he goes to deal with his old one. Le Fin.
Okay, so that was a lot. Anicee Alvina is enchanting in her role and it helps that she goes nude. After this film, Alvina would go on to be even more delightfully nude. Since the French are so good at nudity on camera, Alvina showed off a lot more for the French flick Le jeu avec le feu.
What does this have to do with hippies? Besides, the obvious amount of tye-dye and daisy printed clothing, there is definitely a spirit of peace and love that permeates through the young people who develop their titular friendship. The film is all about the power of love as the answer to everyone's problems. Peace and love, man.
More than anything, the film promotes living off the land which was being promoted by hippie communes around the country at the time. Paul was previously a spoiled, rich brat who had only lived in London and Paris. Suddenly, he is catching fish and foraging mushrooms. The movie even ends on Paul cart-wheeling in a field, reminding savvy audience members of the end of Harold Maude. In fact, I see a lot of similarities in the stories of these angsty, upper-class teen boys who learn to be free because of a loving woman who doesn't care what anyone else thinks.
You could argue that the women in these kinds of movies serve as the prototypes for the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. Michelle has a lot more depth than other MPDs because we learn very early on the kinds of trauma that she has recently gone through. However, she immediately becomes resilient and those problems never come up again. Instead, she takes off her clothes and lives a little! Something that the actress would wind up doing often.
Roger Ebert did not love this film. Like at all. He gave it a one-star rating and called the sex "just plain dirty". A lot of critics complained that the film felt voyeuristic since we are just watching these two live in a house together and eventually figure out each other's bodies. Which...yeah, okay. I can see that. But is anyone really complaining about the opportunity to check out Anicee Alvina nude? I didn't think so.
