release, Kowalski picks up a mysterious hitchhiker (Charlotte Rampling) toward the end of the film. Kowalski accepts marijuana from her, despite refusing marijuana in several previous scenes. He stops the car when he starts feeling stoned. She says she has been "waiting for him, everywhere and since forever." When he awakens the next morning, she is gone without a trace. According to interviews with Barry Newman and commentary from the director, the hitchhiker was meant to be an allegorical figure representing death. This scene was removed from the final US version, reducing the film from 105 minutes to 98 minutes. Newman felt that the scene gave the film "an allegorical lift" but the studio was afraid that the audience would not understand. Soundtrack Sarafian wanted to score the majority of the film from an album called Motel Shot by Delaney, Bonnie & Friends. Lionel Newman, head of Fox's music department at the time, denied Sarafian's request because the studio did not want to spend a substantial amount of money obtaining rights to the tracks. The director then suggested that musician Randy Newman score the film, but Fox refused this request as well. After watching the film, musical supervisor Jimmy Bowen wrote three original songs. Delaney, Bonnie & Friends ended up performing a musical number in the film. A soundtrack of the film was released in the United States by Amos Records. The original vinyl album is long out of print. There have been reissues of the soundtrack compact disc in the United States by various record companies including A&M Records and in Europe by Amos Records. Track listing "Nobody Knows" is the first ever recording by Kim Carnes, credited on the soundtrack as "Kim & Dave" (with husband Dave Ellingson). Carnes also wrote the song performed by Big Mama Thornton. The pop music group Delaney, Bonnie & Friends had a small role as a Christian music band, which included singer Rita Coolidge and singer/songwriter David Gates at the piano. The baby held by one of the singers is Bekka Bramlett, who later replaced Stevie Nicks in Fleetwood Mac. Reception Vanishing Point premiered in January 1971 and did not receive positive notices. In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Charles Champlin wrote, "Vanishing Point might have had a point, but it ... ah ... got lost. What's left is sophisticated craft and fashionably hokey cynicism". Variety magazine said, "While stock