Lindsay Shonteff may be better known for his James Bond homages than the rest of the films he’s made, but this 1970 groupie saga shouldn’t be passed by. Made in the year after his kinda sorta British giallo Night After Night After Night, this film tells the story of Suzy and Fiona, groupies for the band Forever More*.

With a director like Shonteff at the helm and a title like Permissive, you’d expect this to be a fun sex comedy about just how awesome it is to sleep wth bands. But no, it’s nothing of the sort, just a long dark crawl through boredom and addiction to anything, like moving up the ladder of sleeping with a band.

If anything, I learned in this movie that being a groupie pretty much means driving your best friend to suicide.

As for the director, he pretty much remade this movie as his next film, The Yes Girls, without the music angle.

*Forever More was a real band. Their members appear in the film in other roles and not as themselves, which is strange enough. One of their members, Alan Gorrie, was also in Average White Band. You can also hear other bands of this era like Titus Groan and Comus.