Cindy and Donna (1970)

Cindy and Donna is a 1970 drive-in movie released by Crown International and it’s a melodrama with a bit of humour and lots of T&A.

The opening sequence shows us a young guy and a young girl walking hand-in-hand along a beach. It’s all very romantic and G-rated and soft focus. You’d think this was going to be a sentimental romance. Once the opening credits are over we get a couple of blatant gratuitous panty shots and we breathe a sigh of relief. This is going to be a sleazy exploitation movie after all. Soon afterwards we get our first glimpse of boobs. Something we’ll be seeing plenty of as the movie progresses.

Cindy (Debbie Osborne) is a teenager who is starting to become uncomfortably aware of her awakening sexuality. She lives with her older sister Donna (Nancy Ison) and her parents Harriet and Ted. Actually Cindy is their daughter while Donna is Harriet’s daughter by a previous marriage.

The family lives the American Dream. By the time Ted arrives home Harriet is as drunk as a lord. When Ted does come home he only stays a few minutes, then he’s off to meet Alice (Alice Friedland). Alice is his latest whore. He spends most of his free time with a succession of whores. Alice combines prostitution with dancing in a sleazy bar and posing for nudie magazines. She thinks that posing for the magazines makes her a creative person. Donna is sleeping with her drug dealer boyfriend Greg. Cindy watches Donna having sex with Greg then runs to her bedroom for a bit of self-pleasuring. Harriet tries to persuade Ted’s two sleazy drinking buddies to take her to a motel for a bit of fun. And Ted and Donna are getting very close. Very close indeed. Maybe a bit too close if you get my drift. This is family life for the Weeks family.

Cindy is still a virgin. She has a boyfriend, Bob, but he’s moved away. They never did anything bad. They just held hands and gazed into each other’s eyes. Cindy thinks that’s how love should be. Not all that sweating and grunting that Donna and Greg get up to. Cindy thinks that sort of thing is nasty and dirty and the worst thing is that watching it excites her.

Donna gets manipulated into nude modelling and gets gang-banged in order to pay her drug debts to Greg but the little minx thoroughly enjoys it all. Cindy continues to obsess about sex and her best friend Karen introduces her to the joys of sapphic loving. Karen advises her that if she enjoyed this she’ll enjoy having sex with men even more so she should try it as soon as possible. Cindy explains that she doesn’t know any boys that she’s interested in but Karen assures her that it doesn’t matter - any man will do. Cindy does find a man but her choice is an unfortunate one.

And then we get the ending. Every other review on the internet spoils the ending but I’m not going to. Everybody hates the ending and I can see why. I can’t help feeling that it was inserted as a square-up. This was a common practice in exploitation movie from the 30s to the 50s and you see it occasionally in 1960s sexploitation movies. A square-up is an attempt to convince any authorities who might be considering banning the movie or prosecuting the distributors that really the movie is performing a public service by exposing wickedness and vice. The reasoning was that you could show naughty sex stuff as long as you made it clear that anyone who even thinks about having sex will have really really bad things happen to them. The ending certainly does come from nowhere and isn’t really consistent with the overall one of the movie.

Debbie Osborne is pretty good as Cindy. She captures the right blend of innocence and precociousness and she’s likeable. In fact the acting on the whole is surprisingly good.

This is another 70s movie that probably couldn’t get made today. Its attitude towards sex would be considered much too grown-up and honest.

This is a relatively tame movie by later 1970s standards. There’s plenty of sex and plenty of nudity but it’s all just T&A apart from the very occasional partial glimpse of pubic hair. By this time sexploitation movies aimed at the grindhouse circuit were getting way with a lot more but this is about as raunchy as you could get away with in 1970 if you were aiming at the drive-in market.

It has to be said that the young ladies are very attractive and they manage to be attractive without any silicon enhancement.

If you ignore the ending then this is actually not a bad coming-of-age movie and not a bad exploration of dysfunctional relationships. It is an exploitation movie but it’s quite well-crafted.

Cindy and Donna is included in Mill Creek's Drive-In Cult Classics 32 Movie Collection. This was one of the best-value DVD sets ever released. The quality of the movies is of course variable and there are a few clunkers but most of the movies are entertaining example of the drive-in movie and there are a few gems. Most of the transfers are quite acceptable (some are very good) and surprisingly most of the movies are in their correct aspect ratios and 126:9 enhanced. The set is can still be found if you’re prepared to dig around.

Cindy and Donna gets a 16:9 enhanced transfer. Image quality is by no means pristine but it’s quite OK. The colours look fine (the movie was shot widescreen and in colour).

I’ve reviewed a stack of movies from this set - The Babysitter (1969), Blue Money (1972), Hot Target (1985), Malibu High (1979), The Pom Pom Girls (1976), Van Nuys Blvd. (1979), Pick-up (1975) and Trip with the Teacher (1975).

Cindy and Donna is rather enjoyable with a very 1970 feel to it so if you dig that sort of trip it’s pretty groovy. Recommended.