Stranded

For a low-cal Jules Et Jim knockoff, this moment-in-time romp about a free spirited gal with a superstraight d-bag dude and their (mostly) gay third wheel friend on a (mostly) planned trip around the Greek Islands has a lot of naive charm. Juleen Compton (as an actor) is capable enough (she has plenty of gamine charisma to center herself in the story effectively), and even with a slightly chaotic atmosphere and actors speaking three different languages, the story is coherent and fun, which I reckon was what she was aiming for as her first feature. She has a sweet naivete that counterbalances the wooden delivery of her main beau (future talk show host Gary Collins) and the assorted Greek & French locals, who mostly fall into stereotypes of one kind or another. Juleen Compton (the director), on the other hand, knew what she was doing. This was her first feature film, but she'd already had an extensive career on stage, and the choices she makes throughout are clear. The footage on the boat especially is consistently unique. This was a film that was exactly of its time: if it was shot even a few years earlier, there's no way they could have gotten away with some of the libertinism they engage in (Gay characters? A nude scene?), and a couple of years later, the hippie movement and the Second Wave of feminism would have channeled a film like this into being too reckon-y and message-y to be any fun. Compton made this and The Plastic Dome Of Norma Jean (which is much weirder, if no less glorious), both completely on her own dime, and that's pretty much it, which sucks. She was really on to something.