Joyride to Nowhere, Grade C Exploitation

What happens when low budget is even more low budget...a C movie is born. The good thing about C grade exploitation films...they are like pizza. Pizza, hot and juicy, or cold and soggy...its all good. Forget the budget, two pretty young ladies, car chases, fast cars, car crashes, explosions, and damsels in much peril, hence we have 1977's "Joyride to Nowhere."

Pretty high school student Cindy (Sandy Alan) has a problem. The clean cut blonde had a one night affair with a soldier. Now she's pregnant. She bumps into her pretty friend, the wild Leah (Leslie Ackerman). The wild child is running away to Los Angeles. Leah is escaping abusive parents. Cindy fears telling her dad about her pregnancy, so she joins Leah in running away. Cindy steals her dad's car and the gals take off with hardly any money. The car dies and the gals turn to hitchhiking. A pervert picks them up and gropes them. Cindy is naïve, but Leah is smart beyond her years. Leah's cunning gets them out of jams and usually enables the gals to abscond with wallets of the men who try to beset them.

After more hitchhiking they arrive at a dinner club. Local crime-lord Tank (Mel Welles) sees them and has to have them. He takes the girls home and only Cindy's cunning prevents him from soiling them. Now they trick Tank, steal his fat wallet, and car. Uh oh...Tank's car has $2 million in stolen loot in it. Now the vicious Tank and all his minions are after Cindy and Leah. No rest for the weary as anyplace they seek refuge has perverts seeking to engage in sex with them. Leah remains positive but Leah's pregnancy is producing sickness and complications. Tank and his army, along with cops are close behind. With Cindy and Leah out front, car chases and  explosions fill up the last third of the film. Cars will crash. Cars will fly into boats. Cars will explode.

Warning...this will have quite the controversial ending. If this film had a bigger budget and wider release, it may have been banned. The ending is not going to make everyone happy, though the intention of the filmmakers (Mel Welles and Ronald C. Ross) probably wasn't to make any social statements. Gritty, exciting, and heartbreaking, "Joyride to Nowhere" is a film that needed Claudia Jennings and a bigger budget...but the C grade nature of it is endearing.