One of the things I find most interesting about the very fertile 1970's period of exploitation cinema was all these subgenres (or sub-subgenres) that existed back then. For instance, you had disaster movies, satanist movies, rape-revenge movies, bigfoot movies, sexy cheerleader movies, nature-gone-amok movies, "hicksploitation" movies, killer kid movies, "roughie" porn movies, Manson Family exploitation movies, ad infinitum. A small but interesting subgenre that not much has ever been written about, however, is the sexy female hitchhiker movies. These are sometimes thrown in with the much larger "road movie" genre, but they're very different in many ways. It is admittedly kind of loose subgenre that varies from cautionary TV movies like "Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker" to cult oddities like "The Pick Up" and "Hitchhike to Hell" to softcore/sexploitation flicks like "Pets" (there were also no doubt some hardcore entries I'm unaware of). This movie is about two teenage friends who leave their depressing lives (one of them is pregnant) to seek their fortunes in Los Angeles. They're hit on by about every guy they meet including a motel night clerk, a skeevy traveling salesman played by Les "Uncle Leo" Lesser, and a grossly overweight, small-town crime boss played by the director himself. The main conflict begins after they steal and go "joyriding" in the crime boss' car, not knowing that the trunk contains the proceeds of armored car heist.
This movie is kind of a mixed bag, but generally I liked it. The two girls do have some inane conversations as the other reviewers said (they spend an inordinate amount of time discussing toothpaste), but they're likable, especially the confident, larcenous brunette (Leslie Ackerman), who actually has some pretty good lines: "I'm not about to stay around here and make the bedsprings squeak with Jellyroll" (referring to the fat, lecherous gangster/director). The girls are both attractive (if pretty unconvincing as high school students) and the lack of anything resembling nudity is pretty regrettable (the TV movie "Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker" with an underdressed, pre-"Dallas" Charlene Tilton was a lot more sexy frankly), but it didn't bother me THAT much. It is refreshingly politically incorrect, and the ending is kind of sappy, but also kind of cynical in that 70's way.
The director Mel Welles was not exactly an auteur, but he had an interest career starting out as an actor for Roger Corman and directing no-budget minor cult items like "Lady Frankenstein" and "The Maneater of Hydra" in Europe. He gets the most out of a low-budget and keeps things movie despite the occasional clunky dialogue scene(and he bravely casts himself in a pretty unflattering role). And if you like this, you might also want to check out "Girls on the Road", which is very similar but made earlier in the 70's.
