Following the success of If… and Easy Rider, young, relatively inexperienced filmmakers with a jones for representing their generation onscreen suddenly found themselves en vogue with an industry that only a couple of years earlier would have probably crossed the street to avoid them. Two twentysomethings who benefited from this turn of events were filmmaking buddies Tony Klinger and Michael Lytton. Armed with equipment ‘borrowed’ from Lytton’s day job working on ITC shows, and with financing coming from exploitation film distributor Barry Jacobs of Eagle Films, the pair did a deep dive into the world of sex n’ drugs n’ rock and roll, and came back with the ‘shockumentary’ Extremes. Jacobs, who’d already displayed a keen eye for youth-oriented exploitation films with Groupie Girl and Bread, reportedly toyed with the idea of putting the film out under the title ‘Out-Bloody-Rageous’, a title presumably meant to anticipate any straight-laced cinemagoer’s reaction to the film itself. Jacobs eventually went with an ad campaign that emphasized the ‘X’ in the film’s title, simultaneously drawing audiences’ attention to its X certificate, in a manner that recalled Hammer’s publicity for The Quatermass Xperiment in the 1950s.
Whatever pennies Jacobs was throwing in Klinger and Lytton’s direction, proved to be money well spent. In exploitation terms, Extremes is a heavy number for 1971, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable on British screens what with its female and male full frontal nudity, unsimulated intravenous drug use, gay sex scene and uncensored language. Entirely unfaked and shot guerilla style, Extremes certainly lives up to its title, documenting the lives of the most extreme characters the period had to offer. Hell’s Angels, hippies, homosexuals and heroin addicts are all part of the parade here.
Extremes is the type of film that could have only been made by people who were themselves young, had a devil may care streak and a taste for life in the fast lane. Shared characteristics with their subject matter that allowed Klinger and Lytton access to worlds that would have been strictly off limits to the older generation. Klinger and Lytton could boast greater authenticity than the trashy paperback books and fictional exploitation films that tried to cash in on the youth of the day. Those tended to be made by people who only observed the counter-culture from the sidelines, or read about it in the Sunday papers, Klinger and Lytton on the other hand actually befriended these people and rode on the crazy train with them. The irony is that the reality that unfolds in Extremes, actually far exceeds even the most lurid and sensationalist fiction of the era. Although it’s a product of the hippie era, there is a proto-punk mentality to many of Extremes subjects, who seize the chance to be as revolting, indecent and threatening on camera as possible, and clearly have their hearts set on grossing out society. Never more so than the Hell’s Angels who are initially the main focus of attention, and are introduced belching and fighting their way through a pop concert. Attempts to engage them in an intelligent conversation about the legalization of drugs is met with the put down “you sound like you’ve been poking your dick in the wrong place” and the equally blunt observation “if they legalize it, the cunts pay taxes, so what’s the point, I mean they get it now, so why bother, fuck em”.
It’s difficult not to admire the ballsiness of Klinger and Lytton, who spent the entire film in the company of volatile, violence prone personalities who could easily snap and turn on them at any moment. “We can’t be angels till we’ve proved ourselves, which is fucking difficult” explains one of the gang, with wannabe angels expected to “drink pints of piss…eat lumps of shit” in order to gain acceptance. Naturally, following around a bunch of not very bright, shit-faced Hell’s Angels at some ungodly hour in the morning buys the filmmakers a ticket to sex, violence and the odd provocative punk-ish comment “I think they should turn the House of Commons into a fucking sewerage farm”. Scenes with the Hell’s Angels carry such a thick sense of danger that they leave you feeling slightly guilty about being able to experience them without being on the front line yourself. The Boris Karloff and Catherine Lacey characters in The Sorcerers would have loved Extremes. Not so fortunate are our men in the field Klinger and Lytton, who are forced into the position of being helpless bystanders, and would be in no position to intervene were things to get out of hand…which of course they do. The angels go all Psychomania on two girls, whose flash car gets surrounded by the gang. The girls are taunted with “want a dent in your car”, “is it daddy’s” and are ordered to turn the car radio down. Just as Extremes threatens to become insightful, with one of the Hell’s Angels espousing his thoughts on race relations, rival gangs and hippie culture, his chain of thought is interrupted by another of the gang drunkenly falling off his bike. Soon after everything descends into chaos, an aged city businessman finds himself being accosted by two skanks who pin him up against a wall and flash their tits at the mortified old sod. A fight breaks out amongst the angels, someone ends up partly stripped and thrown in a canal, the soundtrack is dominated by the agitated voice of a nearby homeowner berating the filmmakers for shooting without permits, only to themselves be shouted down by one of the angels “I still recon you’re a virgin”.
A reoccurring problem with Extremes is the lack of clarification over just what is happening onscreen. Klinger and Lytton tending to favour a hands off approach to documentary making, employing the bare minimum of voiceover narration and unspooling the footage pretty much as filmed. An approach that often leaves you having to grab your deerstalker hat to try and piece together what is being put before you, frequently without success. Were those two wild gals who flashed at the old man hanging around with the angels, or were they just in the vicinity and caught Klinger and Lytton’s attention, it’s never made clear. A further excursion into London similarly leaves the audience deep within the West End Jungle without a map. There is footage of what appears to be a student protest, under heavy police guard, but it’s unclear what they are protesting for or against. At this point Extremes becomes the cinematic equivalent of listening in on the tail end of heated arguments, without fully understanding the context. Bad vibes are everywhere as filming rolls on into the night. Klinger and Lytton’s nose for danger is all present and correct, everyone they meet appears drunk or confrontational, often both. A bearded, intense, wildman appears to be blowing his top over race relations, but as the film only captures him mid-rant, it is hard to say for sure. “There’s no race thing, it only appears to be a race thing in the papers” he tells an elderly black guy, before laying into the police and black MP David Pitt, echoing Enoch Powell be prophesying “blood will flow in the streets”. Suddenly there are police sirens. As the Extremes crew rush towards the crowded scene a young man breaks free of the crowd, bolting past them. An eye-witness fills in some of the missing details for the Extremes crew “blood all over his face…he used a knife on him, stabbed him in the neck and that”.
After the explosive violence of nighttime London, the film cuts to the comparatively peaceful, hippie bliss of the second Isle of Wight pop festival. Early morning shots of festival goers waking up, setting up tents, wandering around picturesque fields and coastlines. It’s not long though before Extremes reverts to cynical type, and starts tearing down the illusion of this being any kind of hippie utopia. Everything shitty about pop festivals is focused in on by Klinger and Lytton’s lens. Extremes must be fairly unique for being a documentary covering a pop music festival, that couldn’t give a flying fuck about the musicians. There isn’t a second of footage of the bands that actually played the Isle of Wight festival in the film. Instead Lytton and Klinger take in shots of hippies being hustled through a turnstile, iron fences, barbed wire, tons and tons of garbage on the floor, people in boiling hot cars caught in a traffic jam on the way to the festival. A sign reads “urinals – don’t piss in the cubicals”. As you might expect from a film made by a pair of jack the lads, who were on the payroll of an exploitation film distributor, any shots of hippie chicks walking around with their tops off are considered holy here. Ariel views of hundreds of tents make the pop festival look as unsanitary and uninviting as a refugee camp. Since no live acts were caught on camera, the actual music in Extremes was put together after the fact, including tracks purchased from a down on their luck, pre-fame Supertramp, and contributions by ace movie soundtrack composer Roy Budd, who’d just scored ‘Get Carter’, a film produced by Klinger’s father Michael.
No one emerges from Extremes smelling of roses, including Klinger and Lytton themselves. Their vox pop interviews represent the most worthless, waste of film, moments that Extremes has to offer. No one seems to want to give Michael and Tony the time of day, many decline to be interviewed or turn away from the camera, at best people regard the pair with polite irritation. Hanging out with Hell’s Angels seems to have rubbed off on Michael and Tony, who get their kicks by bugging one of the Queen’s guards, knowing full well that the poor bastard isn’t allowed to respond to the public. “I’m not supposed to speak, mate” is his monotone response to their questions. An American businessman initially plays along, giving not very interesting sound bites “I like to talk to young people, but I don’t enjoy young people…don’t put me on the spot” before losing patience with these jokers “you just keep talking to me”. Most of the pairs’ attention seems to be focused on chatting up and/or shocking a pair of American girls “what about the young people, the drugs, the sex, and everything…and the depravity, would you participate in both…freely” sniggers Klinger.
In nighttime Piccadilly Circus though, the action is anything but heterosexual. A pair of shameless gays smooch, as a straight guy looks on, pulling pained expressions of disapproval. A hysterically funny, handbags at dawn, bitchfest kicks off between two queens. “What would I wanna screw you for…a fucking bitch” shrieks one, for all of Piccadilly Circus to hear. Evidentially size does matter, especially in the after dark Piccadilly Circus of 1971. “Fucking great queen, you ain’t even got fucking six inches down there” protests one, prompting the other to unzip his trousers in order to prove the mouthy bitch wrong. Tempers calmed, and with libidos needing to be satisfied, the pair retreat to the safety of a nearby park, where they end up putting on a live show for the Extremes crew. “These are two queens, homosexuals, fairies, AC/DC, anything you want to call them” explains Klinger “they’re here, it’s a good enough reason for us to be here”.
Extremes then cuts to the man with the worst job in London, patrolling the underground toilets after dark. Crouching down on a piss soaked floor, he peeks under the occupied cubicles. Since this is intercut with the drama taking place above ground in Piccadilly Circus, you automatically assume that Dan, Dan, the Lavatory man is trying to catch guys cottaging, but it is actually the area’s junkies he is on the lookout for. Extremes’ camera once again spares you no sordid detail, whether it is blood splattered on the cubicle door as a result of people shooting up in there, or the hole in the backside of Dan, Dan’s trousers that allows him to contribute some unwanted bare flesh to the film. An old, cadaverous junkie finds himself cornered in the cubicle by Dan, Dan, making his last stand by feebly complaining “fucking cunts….fuck off”. Outside, a younger junkie stumbles around outside of the London Pavilion, eventually flaking out against the cinema’s marquee for ‘Goodbye Gemini’ a horror film about a pair of young people who come to London and get fucked up….art mirrors life, eh?
It’s all building up to Extremes’ strongest moment, an unflinching look at the tail end of heroin addiction. The sequence opens with Klinger’s voiceover admitting that he felt sick filming it. “Here you see the living dead, evidence of hard drugs and their effects, look closely before thinking of joining in”. Bill, an older junkie with glasses has taken in a youthful ward, who does all the talking. “They used to call me the abscess king in this house” admits the younger guy, who recalls getting into hard drugs while working as a male nurse. On the sly he’d steal morphine from his day job and shoot up on a daily basis, but short sleeve nurses outfits and his track mark collection eventually brought the good times to an end. He and Bill have a mutually beneficial relationship. Since Bill’s eyesight is shot to hell he needs a younger pair of eyes around to shoot him up, in return the younger guy got a rundown roof over his head. The younger guy prides himself on being an expert worksman, as he shoots up Bill with a filthy old needle that he’d just pulled out of his own shoulder. “It’s just a knack I’ve got for hitting people” he admits, but his own fucked up body has a different tale to tell, what with his open sours, abscesses and collapsed veins. He confesses to nearly having lost a leg at Christmas time “at the hospital I never met such cunts…because I wouldn’t take a suppository, the sister came up and said either you take the suppository or we don’t give you any gear…so naturally I took the suppository”. Extremes then gives you the grand tour around their living conditions, a dirty mattress on the floor, pornography on the walls, carpets long since stripped from the bare floor, doors bashed in as a result of an earlier police raid…you’re left with the impression that both men will likely die in that room, probably with a needle sticking out of their arm. In terms of shock value, this sequence has more power than any anti-drugs film doing the rounds in schools during the 1970s and 80s.
Extremes winds down with a return to the Isle of Wight pop festival, where the film’s subjects finally turn on the men behind the camera. It’s filming naked pop fans that turns out to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Klinger and Lytton excitedly grabbed their camera when they spotted hundreds of festival goers heading to the beach and stripping off en masse. Only it seems, some of the crowd objected to being filmed in the nude, and began pelting the Extremes crew with rocks… footage of which remains in the film. Licking their wounds, Klinger and Lytton came up with the ingenious solution of stripping off themselves, allowing them to slip back among the naked masses incognito, and resume filming. Extremes ends with hundreds of naked people grooving around in the sea, while a police helicopter hovers above, futilely trying to get them all to put their clothes back on. The kind of big budget, action movie spectacle that would have been beyond the film’s budget to stage. Barry Jacobs, who measured a film’s quality by the amount of boobs that were in it, and was known for impatiently asking filmmakers “what reel has the tits on it”, must have been in his element. Hundreds of people taking their clothes off in his movie…and for free as well. The end credits thank Jacobs and ‘the police sometimes’.
Extremes doesn’t so much document its era, rather sticks its fingers into the era’s wounds and watches the puss flow out. It’s one for those with a strong stomach for the squalid, an obnoxious, dirty, pimple faced punk of a movie that frequently spits in the audience’s faces, don’t be surprised if you occasionally want to spit back. Extremes is a reminder that while the past was a different country, it was every bit as fucked up as where we are now.
Extremes is meant to have had a VHS release in the early eighties on the ultra-obscure Knockout video label, a tape so rare that not even the most ardent pre-cert video collectors have ever managed to unearth a copy. After remaining dormant for decades, the film eventually resurfaced in 2017, when a combi-pack containing the film on DVD and a copy of the soundtrack on CD was released. Incongruous photos of John Sebastian and The Who’s Pete Townshend, taken at Woodstock, appear on the cover. The good times and flower power optimism of those images being a far cry from the early 1970s comedown nature of Extremes itself. Extremes doesn’t embody the idealism of the 1960s, it serves that decade’s severed head to you on a plate.
