The Hitchhikers

Two summers after the Manson Family murders, a nonconformist dude enjoys his own li'l harem in the Southwest desert, but they have to make money somehow and so prey upon men stopping for the alluring girls as they pretend to be hitchhikers.

"The Hitchhikers" (1972) belongs to the counterculture genre that ran from the late 60s to early 70s. While the outlaw biker flicks from that same period were a separate genre, there was some crossover. For instance, there's a biker dude here that visits the hippies in the ghost town. Or take "Angels Hard as They Come" from the year prior, which likewise features nonconformists living in a SoCal ghost town. Thankfully, this is superior.

It only cost $223,200, which would be equal $1.6 million today. By Comparison, "Vanishing Point" from the previous year had 6.5 times as much money with which to work. The best part is the three main females and how their beauty is effectively captured on camera without getting too sleazy (although there's a little tame nudity).

My favorite is the redhead, Karen, whom I'm assuming is Tammy Gibbs (it's hard to tell because the credits ambiguously list three of the girls simply as 'hitchhiker'). Meanwhile blonde Misty Rowe plays protagonist Maggie and brunette Linda Avery plays her rival Diane. All three are physically stunning. But how long can their outward beauty last living in such conditions? What will they look like in a mere ten years?

"Easy Rider" was easily the best of the counterculture flicks, although "Billy Jack" was a worthy Indie contender, whereas "The Wild Angels" was arguably the best of the outlaw biker movies. All three contained great depth beneath the surface entertainment. "The Hitchhikers" is playful fluff by comparison, but works as a snapshot in time of the 'free love' counterculture movement and what happened after their 'peace and love' ideal was destroyed overnight with the 1969 Manson Family murders, followed by the Altamont Free Concert fiasco four months later.

"The Wild Angels," "Easy Rider," "Vanishing Point" and "Dirty Mary Crazy Larry" showed the inevitable consequences of counterculture folly, but this one uniquely keeps a playful spirit. However, you could say that what the group is forced to do in order to make a living is their own perdition, not to mention their primitive, drug-addled living conditions in the ghost town. Down the road, I'm pretty sure they're going to realize that holding up men with guns is evil; it's a form of abuse at least and torture at worst. Maybe they justify their actions on the grounds that their victims were lustful males, but what about the minister, who seemed to stop simply to do a good deed by giving a pedestrian a ride?

The soundtrack is of the Woodstock variety, upbeat folk rock, except by no-names. There's zero hard rock, let alone heavy metal, the latter of which had only existed for about a year when this was made in 1971.

It runs 1 hour, 32 minutes, and was shot in Thousand Oaks, California, which is 35 miles west of Hollywood and 20 miles northwest of Malibu.

GRADE: B-

Although the Woodstock musical festival was a three (3) day event back in 1969, I think this cult leader named Benson (Nick Klar) and his band of Charlie Manson like hot looking female followers who agreed to tease unsuspecting motorists then rob them, assumed that the Woodstock festival was continuing three (3) years later since this film was released in 1972.

The 1969 Woodstock music festival was all about peace, love and good music. In the 1972 film the Hitchhikers, there certainly is an abundance of love and good music, but the peace of the historical 1969 Woodstock music festival was replaced by a Charles Manson like inspired male hippie cult leader named Benson who took in a bunch of scantily clad hot looking women who were trained by Benson to pretend to be hitchhiking and then when the horny male motorists would stop to get a much closer look at the hottie hitchhikers, out from behind a tree Benson would appear gun in hand to rob his unsuspecting victims whose erections in their pants would quickly deflate when Benson's gun was pointed at their head and the motorists were told to get out of their car to be robbed at gunpoint.

Maggie (Misty Rowe) arrives at Benson's compound, broke, hungry and pregnant so when Benson sees Maggie's youth and beauty he quickly brings her into his harum of hitchhikers and trains her how to look sexy and enticing so the motorists will stop. Catfights between Misty and another of Benson's followers named Diana (Linda Avery) erupt for Benson's affections. I must say although the movie is a classic B movie genre, it appealed to me more like a first rate release that just did not get the respect it deserved probably because it did not have any A-lister film star in it, nor was it produced by one of the major film studios.

In my humble opinion the acting was good, the story line simple, and the film was interspersed with great music in a timely manner. If you watch the film on a DVD release stick around to hear the motivation of the writers/directors husband and wife team Ferd and Beverly Sebastian, as their personal messages are worth listening to.

I give this simple B-movie crime/drama film a more than decent 7 out of 10 rating.

I remember seeing this movie at the drive-in in the early seventies. We saw it packaged with a white trash biker film called 'Bummer' and another racy nudie flick. That was the 70s, man.

Anyhow, the main character in Hitchhikers is a young, unwed girl who gets pregnant by her boyfriend and then to avoid shame (remember this was a different era), she runs away from home to join a hippie commune. The commune leader, Benson, is a conniver like Manson who runs everything and ends up arranging an illegal abortion for the girl by blackmailing an unscrupulous doctor. (We get to see the shocking illegal abortion scene). Then we find out that the commune members support themselves by having the females hitchhike and flash motorists with nudity, then robbing those who stop for them. Imagine a stark naked or nearly naked girl in the road in front of you as you're driving down the road and you'll know why this ruse works.

The Hitchhikers pull their flash and rob scheme on mostly older men. Sometimes Benson, the commune leader, will pop out of the bushes with a gun and rob the guy or the girls will simply hop into the unsuspecting man's car near a busy intersection and cry rape ("you dirty old man !" or "now how about another $20 for that blouse you tore ! I'll scream !") to blackmail the guy into forking over all his green, lest he suffer extreme embarrassment in front of a crowd.

The girls in this movie are some pretty good eye candy and sometimes you're reminded of 'Girls Gone Wild' except these chics get paid by robbing you !

About the only funny line came when the crew robbed a Reverend on a rural road and left his car keys about a half mile down the road stuck to a bush, forcing him to crawl on hands and knees to retrieve the keys. He utters "Praise the Lord ! I almost got my ass blown off back there..."

There is little redeeming social value to this flick, but if you remember the seventies, hitchhiking was very big and some of this stuff like this actually went on in real life. I remember being warned about not picking up hitchhikers because of this 'cry rape' ruse.

If you want to be nostalgic, rent this flick, along with 'Bummer' some night and toke up. Or even better, find a white trash hippie/biker marathon at one of the few drive-in movies left in the country !

I found this movie to be very entertaining. It's light hearted and it rolls along at a good pace. Perfect for an afternoon viewing. Maybe not for the younger viewer though as there is quite a lot of partial nudity and teasing camera work. The characters are likeable even though they are crooks and the acting, although not challenging is more than adequate.It's very much a 70's road movie and a good example at that.

OK, this movie isn't very good--but it IS the early 1970's. It has the hippies, the free love, the short-shorts, and not a bra in sight. It has the groovy, pleasantly awful early 70's folk-rock music. It is meandering, amoral, and ultimately completely pointless. It's a road movie that doesn't really go anywhere. Like many movies of the time it tried to exploit the infamy of the Manson family, but its anti-hero "Benson" is not nearly as crazy or vicious as the real-life Manson, and his "family" consists of only a few under-dressed women whom he uses to hold up horny male motorists, all to finance his evil master plan of buying a broken-down school bus. Misty Rowe stars as a teenage runaway and "Benson's" main squeeze, and she demonstrates all the raw talent that would later lead to her unforgettable work on "Hee Haw". There's some (mostly Misty-related) nudity, but there's very little sex for this kind of flick and even less violence. But if you have a soft spot in your heart for early 70's drive-in Americana, you could do worse I guess.