Permissive (film)

Permissive
Permissive
	Film Poster
Directed by	Lindsay Shonteff
Written by	Jeremy Craig Dryden
Produced by	Jack Shulton
Starring	Maggie Stride; Gay Singleton; Gilbert Wynne; Forever More
Cinematography	John C. Taylor
Edited by	Jackson Bowdell
Music by	Forever More; Comus
Production; company	Shonteff Films
Distributed by	Tigon Films
Release date	1970;
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Permissive is a 1970 British exploitation drama film directed by Lindsay Shonteff and starring Maggie Stride, Gay Singleton and Gilbert Wynne.^[1] It was written by Jeremy Craig Dryden, and depicts a young girl's progress through the rock music groupie subculture of the time.

Plot

Suzy arrives in London with nowhere to stay. She meets a friend, Fiona, a groupie who has settled into a relationship with Lee, bass player and singer with the band Forever More. At first Suzy is just one of many girls who follow the groups and make themselves sexually available to musicians and their hangers-on (a type represented by Forever More's road manager Jimmy). When the band go on tour she is left behind. For some time she lives on the streets with Pogo, a gentle hippie drifter who is eventually killed in a road accident.

After the accident Suzy meets Fiona again. She becomes accepted as part of Forever More's entourage, and develops the glamorous style and hard attitude of an experienced groupie. She makes a play for Lee and ousts Fiona from her status as his 'old lady.' In the final scene, the band are about to leave their hotel when Suzy finds Fiona in the bathroom with her wrists slashed, barely alive. They lock eyes before Suzy walks out, abandoning her former friend.

Cast

Maggie Stride as Suzy
Gay Singleton as Fiona
Gilbert Wynne as Jimmy
Alan Gorrie as Lee, Forever More
Stuart Francis as Kip, Forever More
Mick Travis as Mick, Forever More
Onnie Mair as Onnie, Forever More
Debbie Bowen as Lacy
Robert D'Aubigny as Pogo
Titus Groan as themselves
Stuart Cowell as Nick, Titus Groan
Nicola Austine as Coral
Nicole Yearne as groupie
Suzy Randall as groupie
Juliet Adams as groupie
Linda Dean as groupie
Greta Nelson as groupie
Maria Vasilou as groupie
Sussana East as groupie
Cathy Howard as groupie
Samantha Bond as groupie
Maria Frost as groupie
Louisa Livingstone as groupie
Madeleine Collinson as groupie
Mary Collins as groupie
John Allen as roadie
Eric Simpson as roadie
Joyce Crossley as woman
C. Reeves as technician
Bill Hibbert as policeman
N. Tathan as policeman

Production

Forever More were a genuine performing band, although the band members play characters other than themselves in the film. Songs from the soundtrack appear on their 1970 album Yours – Forever More. Alan Gorrie went on to commercial success as a member of the Average White Band.

The cult folk band Comus provided the film's opening title theme and other incidental music and songs.

Release

Critical reception

In a contemporary review The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This curiously elliptical account of a groupie's life involves a dispirited road manager, a singularly uninspiring group, an endless succession of anaemic groupies, and a drop-out who announces that "the world is my scene, man" before being arbitrarily knocked down by a truck. The actors do what they can with a thin script, while director Lindsay Shonteff resorts to a frantic series of flashbacks and flashes forward – one shot is repeated at least six times. But his pyrotechnics merely succeed in emphasising the inordinate foolishness of the whole enterprise."^[2]

Home media

Permissive was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK as part of the BFI's Flipside series on 25 January 2010.^[3] The disc also includes the feature film Bread (Stanley Long, 1971) and the short 'Ave You Got a Male Assistant Please Miss? (Graham Jones, Jon Astley, 1973).

References

^ "Permissive". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
^ "Permissive". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 38 (444): 28. 1 January 1971 – via ProQuest.
^ "BFI Flipside in January | News | Film @ the Digital Fix". Archived from the original on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2009.