The Girl on a Motorcycle

The film is set in France and Germany.

Newly married Rebecca leaves her husband Raymond's bed on her prized motorbike—her symbol of freedom and escape. During her ride to visit Daniel, her lover in Heidelberg, she indulges in psychedelic and erotic reveries as she relives her changing relationship with the two men. Her flashback scenes reveal the background story. Rebecca met Daniel while working at her father's bookshop a few weeks before her marriage to Raymond, a school teacher. Daniel gives Rebecca motorcycle driving lessons on a Norton motorbike. They quickly become lovers. Daniel gives Rebecca a Harley Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle as a wedding present, delivering it to the bookshop. Given a sense of freedom she drives from France to Gernany. In a small village bar she drinks too much kirsch and decides to go back to Daniel rather than Raymond. Her driving style is fast and reckless. Although she wears leathers she has no helmet.

Her ride to Daniel ends when a truck swerves in front of her and she hits it with a glancing blow, throwing her into the windscreen of an oncoming car, a fairly horrific death.

• Alain Delon as Daniel
• Marianne Faithfull as Rebecca
• Roger Mutton as Raymond
• Marius Goring as Rebecca's Father
• Catherine Jourdan as Catherine
• Jean Leduc as Jean
• Jacques Marin as Pump Attendant
• André Maranne as French Superintendent
• Bari Jonson as First French Customs Officer
• Arnold Diamond as Second French Customs Officer
• John G. Heller as German Customs Officer
• Marika Rivera as German Waitress
• Richard Blake as 1st Student
• Chris Williams as 2nd Student
• Colin West as 3rd Student

The film was made on locations in France (including Haguenau), Germany (including Neulauterburg), Switzerland (including Geneva), and Belgium. The bookshop scenes were filmed at a bookshop in Geneva. In many of the scenes where Marianne Faithfull is seen driving the Harley Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle at high speeds, she was seated on the motorcycle which was attached to a platform that was being pulled by a vehicle in front of it. Many of the scenes were filmed in the English language and then again in the French language. Cardiff received extensive cooperation from the police in blocking the roads; that allowed so many scenes to have no other vehicular traffic in them except for the lone motorcycle. The final crash scene was staged on an abandoned airstrip in England. The "psychedelic" color effects were achieved by solarizing the film during post-production.

The film was the sixth most popular movie in general release in Britain during 1968.[6]

The Girl on a Motorcycle was released on VHS in 1998 and DVD in 1999 by Starz/Anchor Bay. A remastered edition on DVD and Blu-ray Disc was released in 2012 by Jezebel. Both versions contain the same film material, commentary by director Jack Cardiff, and original theatrical trailer. However, the earlier version is approximately 91 minutes long, while the later, remastered version, is approximately 88 minutes long. This time discrepancy is due to the earlier version being played back at a slightly slower speed.

• The Girl on a Motorcycle at IMDb