text: This is a terrible film, and not one scene has an ounce of truthful emotion. The characters are uninflected, obviously drawn, predictable and the story line is obvious and typical Hollywood wish fulfillment.<br /><br />William Holden (so sad to see him in this role) was 55 when this film was made, but he's playing someone in his early 40s and looks like he's in his 60s. Kay Lenz was 20 and was scripted to find him irresistibly attractive. I think the dog they found by the side of the road was sexier and had more life than their erotic connection.<br /><br />Holden's character--the same age as Clint Eastwood when he directed this film, (not) coincidentally--is placed with obvious trappings of 60s pre-hippie cool: the bachelor pad, the swinging hi-fi, the lunches at Yamashiro. But the film is ridiculously uncool, a clanging claptrap of old fogies desperately wishing that the free spirits they saw on Sunset and in Laurel Canyon would find them and their big honkin' cars sexy.<br /><br />Ugh. Youth culture was never that desperate. And I shudder to think that Bill Holden was so desperate for youth that he took this embarrassing part.