The Sweet Ride *** (1968, Tony Franciosa, Michael Sarrazin, Jacqueline Bisset, Bob Denver) – Classic Movie Review 8738

Director Harvey Hart’s appealing 1968 The Sweet Ride features some of the aimless late-Swinging Sixties beach boys and girls of California’s sun-soaked Malibu coast, who don’t want to grow up, though events conspire to teach them about life.

They include aging tennis bum hustler champ Collie Ransom (Tony Franciosa), his young protégé surfer-hunk Denny McGuire (Michael Sarrazin), beatnik piano-playing draft dodger musician Choo-Choo Burns (Bob Denver) and TV actress starlet Vickie Cartwright (Jacqueline Bisset), who meets her nemesis in her possessive Hollywood producer lover and her fate at the hands of some particularly unpleasant Hell’s Angels and their motorcycle gang leader. Ransom and McGuire seek revenge.

The Sweet Ride catches the eye by featuring pretty people and places, while the story, based on William Murray’s novel, is as intriguing and involving, if apparently empty-headed as the characters it portrays. There is a talented, attractive, hard-working cast and a capable director to make it work. And there is an irresistible flavour of the era. Sunset Strip locations include nightclub Gazzarri’s and Scandia, plus location filming in Malibu.

Also in the cast are Michael Wilding as Bill Cartwright, Michele Carey as Thumper Stevens, Warren Stevens, Lara Lindsay, Norma Crane, Percy Rodriguez, Pat Buttram, Michael Forrest and Lloyd Gough.

Jacqueline Bisset and Michael Sarrazin in The Sweet Ride (1968).

It is written by Tom Mankiewicz, based on the 1967 novel by New Yorker William Murray, who moved to southern California in 1966. Mankiewicz felt the film mistakenly ‘tried to touch all the bases at once: drama, comedy, porn, dropouts, surfing, true love, a touch of perversion, and the general malaise of 1960s young people.’

Surfers Mickey Dora and David Nuuhiwa stand in for Franciosa and Sarrazin.

Dusty Springfield sings The Sweet Ride (Words and Music by Lee Hazlewood) over the film’s opening credits and San Francisco rock and roll band Moby Grape appear on screen to sing Never Again (Words and Music by Moby Grape) in a Sunset Strip nightclub called the Tarantula. The score is composed, arranged and conducted by Pete Rugolo.

It was nominated for two Golden Globes: Most Promising Newcomer – Female (Bisset) and Most Promising Newcomer – Male (Sarrazin). They are an astonishingly handsome pair. Having met while making The Sweet Ride, they became a couple in real life for seven years (1967–1974).

Canadian film-maker Harvey Hart moved back to Toronto in 1970 where he directed several feature films, including Fortune and Men’s Eyes (1971), The Pyx (1973), Shoot (1976) and Goldenrod (1976).

RIP Michael Sarrazin, who died of mesothelioma on 17 April 2011, aged 70.

RIP Michele Carey, actress in El Dorado and Live a Little, Love a Little, who died on 21 November 21 2018, aged 75.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8738

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com