Naked Under Leather (AKA "Girl on a Motorcycle," 1968) in the PNW

Details: Written by: Mortado; Category: The 1970s in Northwest Cinemas

This is a collection of media from the initial runs of "Naked Under Leather" (AKA "Girl on a Motorcycle," 1968) in the Pacific Northwest.

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Naked Under Leather (AKA "Girl on a Motorcycle," 1968)
"Naked Under Leather" moves like a fever dream of liberation dressed up as a road movie, but underneath the chrome and leather, it’s really a portrait of a woman clawing her way out of the suffocating expectations that everyone around her insists are normal. The film treats freedom less as a destination and more as a kind of reckless momentum, the sort that leaves skid marks across whatever polite society thinks a woman should be. Marianne Faithfull’s presence gives the whole thing a brittle glamour, as if she’s already halfway broken before the story even begins, and the camera just follows her as she decides she’s done pretending otherwise.

The film’s world is a place where men mistake possession for affection, and rebellion is tolerated only when it’s decorative. Faithfull’s character refuses to play along, and the movie doesn’t romanticize her refusal. It shows the cost of it, the loneliness of it, the way the open road can feel like salvation one minute and a void the next. The motorcycle becomes less a machine and more a blunt instrument of escape, a way to outrun the roles she’s been assigned. The film’s visual style leans into this tension, using stark landscapes and long stretches of silence to underline how little the world cares about a woman’s inner life unless it can be packaged neatly.

There’s a certain cruelty in how the film frames her journey, as if it’s daring the audience to decide whether she’s brave or foolish for refusing to stay in her designated box. It’s not interested in tidy answers. Instead, it exposes the rot beneath the surface of supposedly stable relationships and the way desire can curdle into control. The movie’s cynicism is earned; it understands that freedom is rarely granted and almost always taken, and that taking it means burning bridges you can’t rebuild.

Director: Jack Cardiff
Writers: André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Ronald Duncan, Jack Cardiff
Stars: Marianne Faithfull, Alain Delon, Roger Mutton
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May 19, 1970 ad (Portland) - Note that the Portland papers censored the title, where the Seattle papers did not.