Cool it, Carol!

This was one nifty little gem. Went on a Robin Askwith bender and found it.

Synopsis SPOILERS: Carol and Joe are small town teens wanting to get out of the sticks and into the bright lights of the big city. The boiling point is when Joe's friend cuts his finger off at his job and Carol is tired of working at the gas station. Joe lies and tells her he is going to London and can get a job there, and after convincing her father she can make it as a model after winning a local competition and that her maidenhead was already gone he lets her go. The ride there on the train is certainly filled with Askwith ass.

When they get there Joe and Carol quickly run out of money. They get consumed in the swinging lifestyle of the 1970s, having random sex with strangers for money and Carol actually doing quite well as a model in the porn side of things. A series of starvation points, frustration for lack of employment, and a shift in their dynamic causes Joe to pimp Carol out, with both having enough regrets to hang it up and go back home.

Not your typical Askwith bare ass comedy. This is more of a cautionary coming of age tale for the time that, considering the subject matter, was done okay with somewhat of a happier ending.

Not a favourite. Bit bleak and dark for my liking.

Carol Thatcher?!

Yep!

Quote: Aaron @ 30th January 2018, 9:17 PM

Not a favourite. Bit bleak and dark for my liking.

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It was bleak and dark but I think that's what I loved the most about it. Two kids trying to make a go and being over their head about it and swallowed up in the street. I didn't necessarily like the happy ending that they went back to the typical life in the sticks. Should have been something more deeper, like Carol's suicide or something just to keep it more on the real side.

I don't think that was a happy ending at all: their dream, their relationship, it'd all been crushed by reality.

It was on TV a couple of months ago. It wasn't very good. I'd agree with Aaron that it was too bleak.

Quote: Aaron @ 31st January 2018, 11:18 AM

I don't think that was a happy ending at all: their dream, their relationship, it'd all been crushed by reality.

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I thought it was. They wound up being successful in porn financially but not emotionally, and they walked away from it all to go back to their menial but safe lives in their little quaint town with the memories of their "adventure". The look Askwith gives her when he stops for gas makes it seem like he still is in love with her, and they are now back "safe" so to speak. Considering all they had been through, that is a happy ending. They made it and now they are back in their boring mundane lives after their "sowing the wild oats" phase. The ending should have been darker, more grimier, with more consequences to their actions and no one none the wiser. By and large they got off with a hand slap.

Quote: Will Cam @ 31st January 2018, 12:31 PM

It was on TV a couple of months ago. It wasn't very good. I'd agree with Aaron that it was too bleak.

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I'd say it was okay - not the best and certainly not the worst Askwith has done. I just wish the ending was more darker. Like Carol or Joe overdosing, catching a venereal disease, maybe even Carol getting killed by a sadistic "fan" or a john obsessed with her. A lot of elements of Carol reminded me of Jane Fonda in Klute. I just think they went too teenish on the consequences. Carol should have been far more f**ked up in the head. It would have been nice to see Joe turn into a brutish type of character that lost his heart completely. And the ending of "Are you happy?" and going back to the life they left just was a horribly bad and sappy happy ending.

Well, fair enough. Different expectations. For me the ending was very bleak indeed.

Wassa matter with you miserable lot? CIC's a little belter from the scrag end of the swinging 60s showing London at its hippest. Soho in all its glory as it was, London still just about buzzing and people jumping on and off Routemasters and I don't mean the crumpet which was quite hot.

Its little message at the end was quite uplifting I thought in a naïve way but a bit bonkers and unreal - there's more to life than bonking and rolling in money. Eh? Did the real Robin Askwith go back home to his dull life in a little backwater village with nothing to do, then? No, he filled his boots and his pockets shagging fit birds in soft porn movies. Good man.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 31st January 2018, 10:43 PM

Wassa matter with you miserable lot? CIC's a little belter from the scrag end of the swinging 60s showing London at its hippest. Soho in all its glory as it was, London still just about buzzing and people jumping on and off Routemasters and I don't mean the crumpet which was quite hot.

Its little message at the end was quite uplifting I thought in a naïve way but a bit bonkers and unreal - there's more to life than bonking and rolling in money. Eh? Did the real Robin Askwith go back home to his dull life in a little backwater village with nothing to do, then? No, he filled his boots and his pockets shagging fit birds in soft porn movies. Good man.

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Okay, I'm slightly hip to some of what you said in the first paragraph, but I need a translation about "people jumping on and off Routemasters and I don't mean the crumpet which was quite hot."

I do agree with your point about the message, but I think the point they were trying to make is that those skills were all they were good for in the street. It's not like they would have been good drug dealers, robbers, or other types of street people. And to be honest, Joe wasn't really good at being a pimp, he became more so Carol's secretary. I kind of wished that the dude that turned him on to being Carol's pimp would have turned him out - that would have added a very scary real dynamic people would have been blown away with.

Askwith actually matured a bit. He did go home, but he matured. Turned in his bare ass to do Shakespeare stuff and more mature themed films where he wasn't the super shagger. I think he fit a mold - I wouldn't say he was much of a looker but if he were say 20 today he wouldn't be a leading man, good tight ass or not.

Quote: ArticulateMadness @ 1st February 2018, 3:03 AM

Okay, I'm slightly hip to some of what you said in the first paragraph, but I need a translation about "people jumping on and off Routemasters and I don't mean the crumpet which was quite hot."

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I'll try - er...it's a double meaning thing, you know a Routemaster was the classic red London bus seen in the film with them hopping off while still moving, now banned by the PC regulators because it was too much fun. A Routemaster is also a slang term for er, a woman of less than film star looks. Jumping - bonking, Crumpet - a sweet doughy thing with holes in, also a slang term for a sweet doughy thing with holes in. This help?

Quote: ArticulateMadness @ 1st February 2018, 3:03 AM

Askwith actually matured a bit. He did go home, but he matured. Turned in his bare ass to do Shakespeare stuff and more mature themed films where he wasn't the super shagger. I think he fit a mold - I wouldn't say he was much of a looker but if he were say 20 today he wouldn't be a leading man, good tight ass or not.

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Er, after he spent the 70s doing soft porn comedies. And I expect the only Shakespeare role he had was as Bottom.

Quote: ArticulateMadness @ 31st January 2018, 7:15 PM

I just wish the ending was more darker. Like Carol or Joe overdosing, catching a venereal disease, maybe even Carol getting killed by a sadistic "fan" or a john obsessed with her. A lot of elements of Carol reminded me of Jane Fonda in Klute. I just think they went too teenish on the consequences. Carol should have been far more f**ked up in the head. It would have been nice to see Joe turn into a brutish type of character that lost his heart completely. And the ending of "Are you happy?" and going back to the life they left just was a horribly bad and sappy happy ending.

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No that would've been an entirely different film. The cautionary tale thing was only a light thread given to it as justification for what is a basically frivolous light soft porn movie but on a common London theme, young adults rushing to London because they thought the streets were paved with gold. He found out they weren't but she found out they were if you have what it takes, and together they made a lot of money, so in a way it was a modern soft porn version of Dick Wittington, complete with pussy.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 2nd February 2018, 5:54 AM

I'll try - er...it's a double meaning thing, you know a Routemaster was the classic red London bus seen in the film with them hopping off while still moving, now banned by the PC regulators because it was too much fun. A Routemaster is also a slang term for er, a woman of less than film star looks. Jumping - bonking, Crumpet - a sweet doughy thing with holes in, also a slang term for a sweet doughy thing with holes in. This help?

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Oh ok. I dig it, lol. I knew the literal on the crumpet thing but not the slang. They banned the Routemasters (always thought they were called double deckers up until today)? That seemed to be the best transit idea. America has a spinoff version so to speak with MegaBus, but they get into massive amounts of accidents from the lack of qualified but cheap drivers. If not for the roaches they would probably be fun.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 2nd February 2018, 5:54 AM

Er, after he spent the 70s doing soft porn comedies. And I expect the only Shakespeare role he had was as Bottom.

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He actually did a Hamlet or two, and a Midsummer Nights Dream thing. His bare ass went into semi-retirement. LMAO.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 2nd February 2018, 6:13 AM

No that would've been an entirely different film. The cautionary tale thing was only a light thread given to it as justification for what is a basically frivolous light soft porn movie but on a common London theme, young adults rushing to London because they thought the streets were paved with gold. He found out they weren't but she found out they were if you have what it takes, and together they made a lot of money, so in a way it was a modern soft porn version of Dick Wittington, complete with pussy.

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You really think it was a soft core porn? Outside of the train scene, there weren't that many sex scenes after that. Maybe two. Emanuelle had far more happening than COC (funny how the initial of the movie are Cock, lol).
Honestly, it reminded me a bit of Urban Cowboy (Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight film). A country buck from the sticks making his way to NYC to live the life, just to become a epic failure as a giggalo and gets his ass handed to him by street slick punks while bonding with one of them. Lots of similarities between the two films, with the latter being definitely darker. I guess America's penchant for the darker ending makes me bias. I'll work on that.

Interesting that even back then London was a tough city to make a go in. At least in the 70s, you could move to any major city and find work this side of the ocean. Housing too. Factories were a flourishing then. Not these days though - these days its looking like Cool it Carol.

Quote: ArticulateMadness @ 2nd February 2018, 6:32 AM

Routemasters (always thought they were called double deckers up until today)?

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Routemaster is the actual formal name for the specific design of buses used in London. Double decker is a colloquial term for any bus of two floors.