Before Donald Cammell blew minds with Nicolas Roeg on Performance, he cooked up the story for this quintessential piece of late-60s Swinging London psych-pop fluff. Directed by Robert Freeman—the legendary photographer behind the album covers for The Beatles’ With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles for Sale, Help! and Rubber Soul—The Touchables plays out like a glossy, hyper-stylized fashion shoot that somehow gained sentience and became a feature film.
Four fab London ladies—Sadie (Judy Huxtable, Scream and Scream Again), Melanie (Esther Anderson, Theatre of Death), Busbee (Marilyn Rickard) and Samson (Kathy Simmonds)—decide they want the ultimate pop accessory. So, what do they do? Naturally, they kidnap their favorite pop idol, Christian (David Anthony, fashion photographer and one-time singer as Charles Dickens), and hold him hostage inside a giant inflatable plastic dome out in the English countryside.
While Christian’s desperate manager, a wrestler (Ricki Starr) and an upper-class London gangster go on a wild wild-goose chase across the city to hunt him down, there’s just one small problem: Christian doesn’t actually want to be saved. Why would he leave a countryside bubble filled with mini-skirts, pop-art trinkets, psychedelic table tennis and four gorgeous women catering to his every whim?
The Touchables (also distributed as Love Generation) is the ultimate time capsule of late 60saesthetic overload. Contemporary critics hated it—Renata Adler in The New York Times dismissed it as “fidgety mod pornography,” and Variety called it a “puerile effort.” But viewed today through a lens of pure retro-cool, it’s an incredible visual relic.
Beyond Freeman’s Beatles link, keep your eyes peeled for a mannequin of Diana Dors—it’s the exact same model used on the iconic cover montage of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band! And true to Freeman’s background as a fashion photographer (The World of Fashion), the film drips with De Luxe Color, op-art styling, trampolines, pinball machines and wild fashion. Also: Everyone in this is incredibly gorgeous.
As for the wrestling, Starr plays a flamboyantly campy, ballet-dancing wrestler hired by Christian’s manager (Kasher, played by John Ronane) to hunt down and rescue the star after the girls kidnap him. He really did that ballet-dancing gimmick in real life.
