Groupie Girl is a 1970 British drama film directed by Derek Ford and starring Esme Johns, Donald Sumpter and the band Opal Butterfly.[2] The film was written by Ford and former groupie Suzanne Mercer.[3] The film was released in America in December 1970 by American International Pictures as I am a Groupie and in France in 1973, with additional sex scenes, as Les demi-sels de la perversion (The Pimps of Perversion). It was later re-released in France in 1974 as Les affamées du mâle (Man-Hungry Women) this time with hardcore inserts credited to "Derek Fred".[citation needed]
Plot
Sally runs away to London from her strict upbringing, and falls into a life of sleeping with men from pop groups.
Ford complained to Cinema X magazine: "We were shooting in a discotheque one Saturday night and my ears rang right through to Monday morning. I was sick – physically sick – on Sunday from the noise level we suffered".[citation needed]
Soundtrack
A soundtrack album was released in 1970 (UK: Polydor 2384 021).[4] English Rose were Lynton Guest, Jimmy Edwards and Paul Wolloff, who also have minor roles in the film.
"Groupie Girl, It Doesn’t Matter What You Do" (Virgin Stigma)
Critical reception
Monthly Film Bulletin said "Tedious cautionary tale whose blend of sex, loose life and pop music has obviously been compounded for a specific market which will care little if the story becomes increasingly contrived as it proceeds and will probably remain unmoved by the moralising coda and quite touching fade-out. Elsewhere the tone is, if anything, amoral and the sexploitation blatant."[5]
Variety said "This is obviously a quick attempt to cash-in on a facet of the pop group scene and, tawdry though it is, it may catch the interest of youngsters, intrigued by title and theme. ... Dialog and situations are sterotyped and Ford's direction is conventional and uninspired. It's not helped either by minimal thesping and diction of a cast, the femmes of which, at least, seem mainly to be intro’d for a number of strip scenes. Lensing and editing are reasonably okay and the two groups, named in the pic as "The Sweaty Betty" and "Orange Butterfly" put over some pop numbers pretty well and some may well click on the Polydor label."[6]
Releases
The film was released on UK DVD in January 2007 on the Slam Dunk Media Label as part of the "Saucy Seventies" series. The earlier US DVD release on the Jeff films label is an unauthorized bootleg.[citation needed]
References
^ abSimon Sheridan, Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, Titan Books 2011 p 70-71
^"Groupie Girl". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
