At 17, the cute and comely village gas station attendant Carol (Janet Lynn, In the Devil’s Garden) is desperate to move to London to parlay her recent beauty contest victory into a modeling career. Her bored friend, the butcher’s assistant Joe (Robin Askwith, Queen Kong) seizes the moment, lies about having a big job lined up there, invites her and off they go!
I forgot to mention Carol’s also an exhibitionist. They fuck on the train.
Livin’ it up in London, they quickly run out of cash and begin to starve — nothing a quick dip into sex work can’t fix! Joe becomes her de facto pimp as “just this once” soon snowballs into a not 100% consensual train ride of another kind: five guys, some with unruly eyebrows thicker than my thumb. Luckily offscreen, the encounter is icky … and then possibly worse when the depressed, defeated Carol makes Joe the caboose after he professes his love to her minutes later. Dude, read the room.
As odd as this sounds — and as nude as Lynn often is — the sexploitation aspect of Pete Walker’s film seemed secondary to me. I got really invested in these two crazy kids. Both are likable, even with every stupid step they take.
Cool It Carol! captures Askwith just before he became a huge UK box-office draw with the four-flick Confessions series of sex comedies. This is the first time I’ve seen him in action. I was prepared to hate him based on his atrocious haircut alone, but I gotta admit, he had something. His face suggests Mick Jagger shagged Matt Damon. No telling from whom he inherited the hairy ass. —Rod Lott