"In becoming mainstream, porn has stepped out from the back room of men's smokers and into the light of day."
--Carmine Sarracino and Kevin M. Scott, The Porning of America
"I really like these kind of movies from the lost period early 70's era. They don't have the annoying, rose-colored Baby Boomer nostalgia of some of the earlier 60's films (in fact, they all kind of have the dark pall of the Manson family hanging over them)..."
--"lazarillo," imdb review.
This 1970 drive-in sexploitation flick concerns two twenty-something teenage half-sisters who live with their alcoholic mother and womanizing father/stepfather in suburbia and yearn to break out. Donna smokes weed and sleeps around. Cindy wants to be a good girl, but she's curious. Basically, we have a porn film without visible genitalia (the nude scenes go to often hilarious lengths to avoid that), combined with a "ripped-from-the headlines" teensploitation plotline, insincere Made-for-TV-Movie moralizing, and a shock ending.
Debbie Osborne and Nancy Ison weren't hired for their acting ability. They fare considerably better, however, than much of the cast. Sue Allen, who plays their mother, apparently survives on a diet of booze and scenery.
The soundtrack has developed its own separate cult following. Robert O. Ragland was tasked with recreating the range of 1970 radio, from bogus Bacharach to psychedelic bubblegum, served with a side order of cheese.
Cindy and Donna embodies one subgenre of drive-in exploitation from a particular era, and may be less offensive than similar offerings. It also became the basis of a legal case after the sheriff and DA of Pulaski County, Kentucky seized a copy.
Should you see this film? Unless you're obsessed with the era or trash cinema, probably not. What the filmmakers intended as revealing and lurid in 1970 frequently plays as boring and misogynistic now.
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