The Touchables (1968) User Reviews

The Touchables 1968. A good year for UK cinema

[digi-6 · 4/10 · 31 March 2005]

It is true to say that this movie is not good, to say the least. But it does capture some of the craziness of the time.1968 was a very good time to be young & living in London, as I was. I also worked on the dubbing of this movie at Shepperton Film Studios. It still brings back good memories of the time & I wouldn't be without a copy, which took me a long time to find. The girls in the movie were quite well known at the time, one of them became the late Peter Cook's second wife, & all of them were attractive. David Anthony The mail lead was also an icon of the time, with many girls pinning his picture to their bedroom wall. The Dome in the film was built at Frencham Ponds in Surrey & there is nothing of it left.

In many ways the movie depicts the beginnings of women asserting themselves & being seen to be in control of their lives in a much more controlled way than the previous generation. The plot is simple; four girls capture a pop star & have their wicked way with him. There are other influences in the movie with gangsters & a well known wrestler of the time. What is immediately striking is that all the girls speak good English with educated accents, something that is sadly lacking in English movies of this type today. This movie is not an icon, as in "Wonderwall" for example, but it does have something.

very pretty....pretty bad!

[nickrogers1969 · 6/10 · 15 December 2009]

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?

Groupie grope goes ga-ga in untouchable, unctious sixties silliness

[dvox · 6/10 · 29 June 1999]

Long ago in the swingin', free-love sixties, before the onset of interpretive sexual harassment, you could abduct your favorite pop idol, strip them nearly naked, tie them to a rotating table under a transparent dome, and force yourself upon them, and lo and behold: THEY LOVE IT!!! Rigggghhhhhhhht!

For late 60's clothing and makeup tips....

[UNOhwen · 28 October 2009]

You can't spoil giving anything away. The plot's thinner than a paper towel. From the opening, pre-credit scene, you quickly realise that whoever directed this..'film' was using his 'direction' as a chick-magnet. Well, the women who...'star,' can't act. But they're really good at applying eye makeup and posing (well, the posing's a little bit tired) The male star- Christian- the 'rock' boy is a really good looking, pouty-lipped, (but with an annoying adenoidal lower class voice/accent, that's grating even if that turns you on) late 60's quintessential pop star (though this one, David Anthony- didn't have any songs out, or at least any hits, or...well, he's very cute (and does seem a bit 'light in the loafers).

This movie's one of those you can watch in fast forward. You won't miss any plot (it's just a lot of bad pop art in the background, like Faux - Warhollian type stuff, Jimi Hendrix psychedelic posters- and Jimi WAS alive at this time),Chiquita bananas, with the girls cavorting for the camera. The best set is the AWESOME gigantic bubble where half the movie takes place in. I WANT THIS BUBBLE (and David Anthony)!

I'm gonna agree with John Seal, and what he said in 1999. This movie's...BAD. Just watch it in fast forward, look at the pretty boy, pretty girls, and then you're done.

Remember this was an X rated flick back then, so it's really like a bad Benny Hill, in terms of the TITillations-wink wink.

Valley of the Bubbles.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 15 August 2022]

This is a film that has to be seen to be believed. It's about a popular Beatles like rockstar who's groupie fans get together and kidnap him, keeping him for sexual pleasure in their little bubble of a hideaway in the middle of British nowhere. This mop-topped darling of the day (David Anthony) has no desire to be rescued, lying tied up on a rotating bed in nothing but tight black briefs. Tell that though to his very loyal friends which includes a very masculine openly gay black wrestler (Harry Baird) who has a crush on Anthony and had gone out of his way to meet.

The quiet, introspective Anthony remains under the bird cage like canopy, being visited sporadically by these three silly love birds who greet each other with cereal commercial jingles each morning and play with toys when they're not playing with Anthony. There are four young women for Anthony to play around with so he is definitely getting a colorful variety of dolls. It's not quite "Three in the Attic", bit close.

A very surrealistic production, this has to be seen at least once to be believed, and it's as weird a psychedelic film as ever was made. Any film that starts off with a bunch of lifelike celebrity dummies (including Hitchcock and Michael Caine) at a bizarre party of drugged out swinging singles will certainly be an eye raising experience. Baird, the Guyanese born black actor, was certainly very daring to take on the non-stereotypical gay role of "Lillywhite", and is quite memorable. Worth seeing just for the transparent bubble house and the variety of other weird sets and costumes.

Sometimes films are best left unseen

[JohnSeal · 2/10 · 31 July 1999]

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.

Not very good

[rebob60 · 2/10 · 9 January 2011]

In 1978, I was living in Lincoln, NE where the cable system there would play B rated movies scheduling them to play twice a day for a week. I watched The Touchables six times that week. It hardly made any sense at all, though I did like the Pink Floyd Interstellar Overdrive during the boat on the lake scene. I still remember how cool it was to see everybody pile out of the car that had the front door on the entire front of the car. The movie was actually quite awful as they were holding the boxer hostage at the glass dome house. I was lost during that part of the movie. I kept watching the movie for a glimpse of something that never materialized. Yet, I still want to watch it today to see if I had missed anything.

very much of 1967

[christopher-underwood · 7/10 · 11 June 2023]

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.

Well, if would have been Kubrick... or Tarkovski... or...

[RodrigAndrisan · 1/10 · 24 May 2017]

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!

Watched it for the wrestling

[malcolmgsw · 4/10 · 10 November 2023]

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.

If ever there was a movie that couldn't be made today this is it !

[jfryleach · 8/10 · 12 August 2019]

This film I found very amusing. Four 1960's women model types kidnap a stuffy young pop star and steal him away to their pop art lair to take advantage of him in a very 60's manor whilst his manager and several other interested parties search for him. The female cast is very attractive, boasting society girl Judy Huxtable (A future Mrs Peter Cook ) Kathy Simmonds (Rod Stewarts ex and future girlfriend of George Harrison) Monika Ringwald (Confessions of a window cleaner) directed by experienced lensman and graphic designer Robert Freeman who photographed several Beatles album covers It is visually impressive as you'd expect and overloaded with suggestive imagery complimented With a witty, yet off the wall script by the great Ian Le Frenais (Likely Lads, Porridge) It wanders and becomes a little self-indulgent in the middle section but the music provided by the likes of Nirvana, Ferris Wheel and Pink Floyd brightens up the slower sections. Totally un pc with it's approach it is one of the forgotten groovy films of the late 60's that deserves a dvd release - As it is it's a very hard film to find which for me adds to it's appeal when investigating the cinematic culture of the UK in the sixties. Sh*gadelic baby yeh!!

Only in the 1960s could this have been made!

[preppy-3 · 8/10 · 31 July 2010]

This film begins with four girls stealing a wax figure of Michael Caine from a wax museum! Then it gets strange... Totally bizarre movie about four girls who live in a large see-through plastic done (!!!) in the countryside outside England. They kidnap singer Christian (David Anthony), strip him down to his underpants, tie him to the bed and start having fun. After a while they untie him and he joyfully starts playing games with them and having sex (!!!!) Also there's the truly terrible fashions on the 1960s; some truly horrendous music; drugged out visuals and some wrestling matches (with a gay black wrestler named Mr. Lillywhite)!!! That should tell you everything you need to know about this.

It is truly terrible movie but you can't stop watching. There's always something strange happening and had dialogue that had me rolling my eyes or staring at the TV screen in disbelief. It leads to an ending that made no sense whatsoever! Only in the 1960s could an incomprehensible mishmash like this be made AND released. So, as I said, it's terrible but VERY entertaining if you're into movies that are so bad they're good. I give it an 8.