The Sweet Ride
| The Sweet Ride | |
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| File:The Sweet Ride FilmPoster.jpeg
Film poster
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| Directed by | Harvey Hart |
| Produced by | Joe Pasternak |
| Screenplay by | Tom Mankiewicz |
| Based on | The Sweet Ride by William Murray |
| Starring | Tony Franciosa Michael Sarrazin Jacqueline Bisset Bob Denver Michael Wilding Michele Carey Lara Lindsay Norma Crane Percy Rodriguez Warren Stevens Pat Buttram |
| Music by | Pete Rugolo |
| Cinematography | Robert B. Hauser |
| Edited by | Philip W. Anderson |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
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Release dates
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Running time
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110 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1,935,000[1] |
| Box office | $1.5 million (US/ Canada)[2][3] |
The Sweet Ride is an 1968 American counter-culture drama with a few surfer/biker exploitation film elements. It stars Tony Franciosa, Michael Sarrazin and Jacqueline Bisset in an early starring role. The film also features Bob Denver in the role of Choo-Choo, a Beatnik piano-playing draft dodger. Sarrazin and Bisset were nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer, Male and Female respectively.
The Sweet Ride was directed by Harvey Hart and written by Tom Mankiewicz, based on a 1967 novel of the same name by William Murray (d. March 2005), a native of New York City, who had moved to southern California in 1966.
Contents
Plot
The story, told in flashbacks, concerns a middle-aged tennis bum (Franciosa) who shares a beach house with Sarrazin and Denver. Their carefree life becomes complicated, and later turns tragic, after they become involved with a mysterious young woman (Bisset) and a biker gang.
The San Francisco rock and roll band Moby Grape contributed to the soundtrack, and appeared, credited, in the film, performing the song "Never Again" in a Sunset Strip nightclub called the Tarantula. Other famous Sunset Strip locations include Gazzarri's and Scandia, as well as location filming in Malibu, according to reviews of the film.
Dusty Springfield sings "Sweet Ride" over the film's opening credits.
Cast
- Tony Franciosa as Collie Ransom
- Michael Sarrazin as Denny McGuire
- Jacqueline Bisset as Vickie Cartwright
- Bob Denver as Choo-Choo Burns
- Michael Wilding as Mr. Cartwright
- Michele Carey as Thumper Stevens
- Lara Lindsay as Martha
- Norma Crane as Mrs. Cartwright
- Percy Rodriguez as Lieutenant Harvey Atkins
- Warren Stevens as Brady Caswell
- Pat Buttram as Texan
- Michael Forest as Barry Green
- Lloyd Gough as Parker
- Stacy King as Big Jane
- Corinna Tsopei as Tennis Girl
- Charles Dierkop as Mr. Clean
- Arthur Franz as Psychiatrist
- Paul Condylis as Sergeant Soloman (uncredited)
- Lou Procopio as Diablo (uncredited)
- Ralph Lee as Scratch (uncredited)
Production
Jacqueline Bisset was cast on the basis of her short appearance in Two for the Road starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. By the time The Sweet Ride was released she had been cast in The Detective starring Frank Sinatra and Bullitt starring Steve McQueen.
Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote the screenplay, later said the problem with the film was "it 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. Frankie and Annette it definitely wasn't."[4]
Mankiewicz also says producer Joe Pasternak had suffered a stroke shortly before filming which impacted his effectiveness.[5]
References
- ↑ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p255
- ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1968", Variety, 8 January 1969 p 15. Please note this figure is a rental accruing to distributors.
- ↑ Tom Lisanti, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969, McFarland 2005, p343
- ↑ Tom Mankiewicz and Robert Crane, My Life as a Mankiewicz, University Press of Kentucky 2012 p 94
- ↑ Mankiewicz p 95
External links
- Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). The Sweet Ride at IMDb
- The Sweet Ride at the TCM Movie Database
- The Sweet Ride at AllMovie
- The Video Beat!
- Cinema Sirens
- The Sweet Ride tribute video on YouTube
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