The Hard Road (1970)

A cautionary tale. At 17, Sherman Oaks high schooler Pam Banner has a baby out of wedlock. The baby is adopted, but Pam's too embarrassed to go back to school, so her dad gets her a job as the receptionist for a talent agent. A rock star takes her to a party, seduces and abandons her; that starts a spiral of partying, free love, and drug use. Pam becomes friends with Jeannie, a hooker who supports Jimmy, a useless druggie. Soon the three of them are living together, and Jimmy seems appealing to Pam. She's missing work more and more often, Jeannie wants out of the life, Jimmy is going through withdrawal, and Pam is in the middle of a maelstrom. Is there any exit for Pam?

The film begins with a pregnant 17 year-old (Pam) in the back seat of her parents' car. She is driven to a hospital or health clinic and they begin talking to her about her plans for the baby. At this point, a guy dressed like a doctor (but who obviously isn't as he mispronounces some of the words) talks--giving a dry lecture about pregnancy. This is NOT integrated into plot--just an interruption in the movie. Then, once the guy is finished, it returns back to the story and you see Pam about to give birth. Then, the baby pops out and she smiles. The narrator then tells us that that's the last she ever saw of the baby--it was soon adopted by strangers.


Now, after the baby has gone, the girl's parents are concerned about her and how people might treat her. And, in her new job as a receptionist for an agent, she proves that she is exactly that sort of girl by getting into drugs, quickies, STDs, prostitution and the like. Then, from out of no where, the narrator once again begins droning. Then, we are treated to a montage of all the sexual encounters Pam engages in--though they really don't show anything. Pam goes from a little girl to burned out skank in no time at all. The narrator seems to think this is all due to her missing her baby. I just think Pam is simply a moron.

This morality tale is never comprehensible because its narrative is jumbled. This isn't just because the narrator keeps interrupting or because the film has little mini-lectures built into it, but because for long extended portions the film just wanders--showing somewhat irrelevant scenes that last and last with no apparent attempt to tell a story or edit out what isn't needed. Instead of staying focused on Pam, the story goes off on tangents such as the guy beating some poor schmo to death for kicks or the guy running (ad nauseum) through the tunnel (ooh, Freud would have loved that), her boyfriend going to jail (this seemed to last a third of the movie), long psychedelic drug trips and transvestites. It's actually interesting how the film manages to lecture about so many topics--yet it manages to be not one bit interesting--no small feat.

By the way, I should warn you that the mini-lectures are pretty hard-core--filled with tons of very, very gross pictures. None of this is unrealistic but it's darn hard to watch and was obviously inserted for its shock value more than its educational value--plus it made darn nice padding for the thread-bare plot. In many ways, these were the BEST parts of the film, though, because at least they seemed to have some purpose--the rest of the film, I'm afraid, did not.

Overall, the idea wasn't bad but the execution was so amateurish and sloppy that it's hard to fathom a film worse-made or stupider than this one. Ed Wood would have been ashamed to put his name on this turkey.