Category Archives: College Life

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

Posted on November 29, 2014 | 1 comment

the heartbreak kid 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Newlywed cheats during honeymoon.

Lenny (Charles Grodin) meets Lila (Jeannie Berlin) at a bar and after a brief courtship decides to take the plunge. However, while traveling to Florida for their honeymoon he becomes aware of all of her annoying habits and quickly realizes he’s made a terrible mistake especially after coming into contact with Kelly (Cybill Shepherd) a statuesque blonde college girl who appears to have the hots for him.

It’s hard to tell what the moral of the story is supposed to be whether its date someone for an extended period of time before jumping into marriage or the idea that being with someone for ’40 or 50 years’ as the Lila character says constantly throughout is just not a sexy or romantic notion for some. Either way it’s a funny concept and the Lenny character with his self-serving needs is highly relatable. Grodin is perfect for the part and one of the main reasons the film succeeds. His facial expressions are great and his running excuse about visiting an ‘old army buddy’ every time he wants to see Kelly is hilarious.

Shepherd is good as well playing a snarky character that seems to closely resemble her persona. However, the motivations of her character seem all wrong. Had Lenny initially approached her I might have bought into it, but instead she is the one who makes the first move, which seemed hard to believe that this beautiful young woman would be attracted to such an average looking guy or why he even caught her attention out of the hundreds of other men already on the beach. Her character also comes off as a bona fide cocktease, someone who enjoys leading a guy on for the attention it gets her, but will quickly bail once it gets serious, which makes their eventual dreamy relationship seem all the more farfetched.

Eddie Albert gets one of his best latter career roles here and was even nominated for the Academy Award in the part as Kelly’s stubborn father who takes an intense dislike to Lenny. However, I wished their confrontations had been played up a bit more and felt cheated when Albert tells Grodin he will never agree to him marrying his daughter only to have the film immediately cut to showing him giving Kelly away to him at their wedding, but what exactly did Grodin do to win Albert over? We are never shown what it is and this in the process makes the viewer feel frustrated and confused and the film seem incomplete.

This same story was remade in 2007 by the Farrelly brothers with Ben Stiller playing the Grodin role and although that movie was overlong, poorly paced and filled with a lot of running jokes that weren’t funny it at least was a little more plausible especially with the way Stiller meets the other woman.

the heartbreak kid 1

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Elaine May

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, College Life, Comedy, Movies Based on Short Stories, Obscure Movies, Romance

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Foolin’ Around (1980)

Posted on November 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

foolin around 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Redneck falls for hottie.

Wes (Gary Busey) is a college student who has moved from Oklahoma to Minnesota to attend the university. Desperate for some extra cash he takes part in a program run by the student science department where he gets strapped to a chair and given an electrical shock every time he gives a ‘right’ answer. The procedure is facilitated by Susan (Annette O’Toole) who’s an attractive coed there. Wes is immediately smitten, but finds himself in an uphill battle as she is already engaged to Whitley (John Calvin) an obnoxious stuck-up social climbing man whose equally arrogant mother (Cloris Leachman) wants her to have nothing to do with Wes and tries to completely shut him out of her life.

Although far from a critic darling this obscurity still manages to have a few funny scenes. The best are Wes’s encounters with Whitley particularly when Whitley tries parking his car in wet cement or trying to subdue an out-of-control carpet cleaner in his office. Wes’s conversation with Susan’s grandfather (Eddie Albert) high up on the edge of a skyscraper under construction is nerve-wracking particularly when Albert walks out to the end of a beam hundreds of feet up and then challenges Busey to do the same. The film also has a unique car chase that features an automobile made to look like a giant hot dog as well as a hang gliding segment through the Minneapolis skyline that is downright exhilarating.

Busey does well as an amiable doofus in a part that seems best suited for his acting ability. O’Toole is at the peak of her beauty and Leachman manages to get a few choice moments as the meddling mother. Tony Randall is fun as a snooty butler with a French accent and it’s great to see William H. Macy in an early, but brief part near the beginning.

The on-location shooting done in the state of Minnesota adds some verve particularly the segment done on the sidelines of an actual Vikings-Rams football game. Unfortunately the script is threadbare with certain gags that become labored and lame and a romantic angle that is sappy and contrived. It is also hard to believe that Susan would for even a remote second consider marrying the Whitley character who is a one-dimensional arrogant asshole to the extreme. It is even more absurd that she would fall in-love with Wes as she is clearly out of his league both physically and intellectually and it’s about as farfetched as Busey ever one day winning the Academy Award.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 17, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Richard T. Heffron

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies for the Whole Family, Obscure Movies, Romance, Slapstick

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The Midnight Man (1974)

Posted on November 22, 2014 | 1 comment

the midnight man 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Security guard solves case.

Jim Slade is a 60-year-old out on parole after serving time for killing his wife’s lover. He finds a ho-hum job as a security guard at a local university and soon gets swept up in a murder mystery when a coed (Catherine Bach) is found dead. The local cops nab the town pervert (Charles Tyner) and take him into custody, but Slade is convinced they have the wrong man and goes on a crusade to find the right one only to realize that there are far more suspects than he initially expected and no one no matter who they are is quite innocent.

Many critics at the time and some viewers complained that the mystery was too involved and a bit confusing however I was able to follow it and it manages to remain intriguing enough to be entertaining, but it’s still no better than an average episode of Columbo. The film also doesn’t have enough action although the part where Lancaster finds himself trapped in a rural barn and must use whatever implement he can find to fight off a trio of rednecks and their ferocious dog is nifty.

On the technical end the film is a bore and looks unsuitable for the big screen. Writer Roland Kibbee in his only directorial effort shows no flair for visual style filming scenes in places with dull and ordinary backdrops and fails to capitalize on its South Carolina location where it was shot. The soundtrack though by Dave Grusin is distinctive and the one thing that shows verve, energy and I wished it had been played more, particularly the part at the beginning.

Lancaster, who also co-produced and co-wrote the script, walks through his part in an almost comatose state and the fact that his character seems so very on-top of his game in this investigation leaves little doubt in the viewer’s mind that he will ultimately solve the case, which isn’t as interesting. For a character that is so savvy he does make one glaring error when he finds a dead body in his car and fearing that he will be fingered for it decides to put the body inside a nearby hotel room, which seems foolish. For one thing to check into the room he would have to have faced a hotel clerk who could’ve easily recognized him for the police later and he also doesn’t wear any gloves leaving his fingerprints all over the room when simply dumping the body in a wooded area would have made much more sense.

Out of the entire cast Cameron Mitchell shows the most energy and it certainly is fun to see Bach in her film debut and years before she became Daisy Duke playing a foul-mouthed, snippy college student. Although she has no nude scenes there is a painting of her naked likeness shown at one point, which may be good enough for some viewers.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 14, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 54Minutes

Rated R

Director: Roland Kibbee

Studio: Universal

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Gay/Lesbian, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the South, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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Terror Train (1980)

Posted on October 13, 2014 | 1 comment

terror train 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer wears different disguises.

Some frat boys decide to play a nasty prank on a vulnerable student named Kenny Hampson (Derek McKinnon) which causes him to have a mental breakdown and be sent away. Now, three years later the same group of college kids gets together on a train for a raucous New Year’s Eve costume party. The problem is so does a mysterious killer who after killing each of his victims puts on the disguise that they were wearing making it impossible to track him.

Supposedly the idea for the film is the brainstorm of executive producer Daniel Grodnik who after seeing both Halloween and Silver Streak woke up one night with the inspiration of combining the two films and making a slasher movie aboard a train.  I admit when I first saw this film many years ago I thought it was pretty cool, but now upon second viewing it seems formulaic and predictable. It takes too long to get going with the first hour spent focusing on the doings of stereotypically jaded college kids who aren’t very appealing. The scares are few with the only real intense part coming at the end when the Jaimie Lee Curtis character locks herself in a cage and the killer tries desperately to get into it. The gore is also sparse and not impressive including a decapitated head that doesn’t look anything like the victim’s.

There is also a lot of glaring loopholes including having the killer murder someone inside one of the train’s cramped bathrooms and then managing to clean up all the blood, which would have taken a lot of time seeing how much there was of it, and then carting off the dead body without anyone noticing. During the climactic sequence Curtis’s character stabs the psycho in his eye, but later when the killer gets unmasked his eye and face look fine without any indication of scratches or cuts.

Curtis is a fine actress, but her presence did nothing but remind me of Halloween and they would have been better off casting someone else. Ben Johnson, who is technically listed as the star, adds some much needed stature and it is nice having a middle-aged character not portrayed as a clueless out-of-touch drip like they usually are in these types of films. Hart Bochner looks and acts like the perfect caricature of a smart-ass frat boy and its fun seeing him turn from cocky and arrogant at the beginning to desperate and frightened at the end. Magician David Copperfield is on hand essentially playing himself and some of his magic tricks are the most interesting part of the movie.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Rated R

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, College Life, Horror, Movies with a train setting, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Slasher/Gore

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The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975)

Posted on October 12, 2014 | 1 comment

the reincarnation of peter proud

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reliving a past life.

College professor Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin) starts having reoccurring dreams where he sees himself living a past life somewhere in a small New England town and killed by a woman (Margot Kidder) while out on a lake. The dreams become so strong that they interfere with his job and even his relationship with his girlfriend Nora (Cornelia Sharpe). He travels to Massachusetts in search of the place and finally finds it and even starts a relationship with Ann (Jennifer O’Neill) who may be his daughter from the previous incarnation. He also meets her mother Marcia who is the same woman who he sees killing him in a past life during his dreams. As the three get to know each other tensions and dark secrets eventually begin to surface.

The idea has some potential, but director J. Lee Thompson gives the material a very standard treatment making it seem almost like a pedestrian drama. The dialogue is dull and corny, the characters cardboard and the storyline is predictable and formulaic. For what is supposed to be a horror movie/mystery it is not very compelling or intense. The visions that Peter sees in his dream are quite ordinary and generic and eventually become redundant. In fact the film’s only twisted moment, which is when Peter makes love to Ann, who is technically his daughter from a past life, gets treated like a sweet romantic scene instead of the underlying perverse act that it really is.

The story also gets farfetched including having Peter drives through every town in Massachusetts until he finds the one he is looking for. The character of the dream researcher, which is played by actor Paul Hecht, gets overly enthusiastic about Peter’s statements regarding experiencing reincarnation and becomes almost wide-eyed at the idea of writing a book about it and making millions even though a true researcher would be much more reserved about what Peter was saying and realize it would entail much more years of study before it could even be termed a reality. I also thought it was strange that when they put Peter into a sleep study the machine is unable to read the dreams that Peter is having about his past life. Supposedly this is because they are not dreams, but ‘visions’ of some sort, but wouldn’t that still create brain activity in order for Peter to see them and thus still get recorded on the machine?

Jennifer O’Neill is always great to watch simply because of her beautiful face and Cornelia Sharpe has a few choice nude scenes as Peter’s sarcastic girlfriend, but Margot Kidder is miscast as O’Neill’s mother. For one thing she is the same age as O’Neill and although they try to make her look older by putting some gray streaks in her hair her skin is still quite smooth and in need of some age lines in order to look more authentic. However, the scene where she masturbates while naked in a tub isn’t bad.

The ending is terrible and makes having to sit through this thing a complete waste of time.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 25, 1975

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated R

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Studio: American International Pictures (AIP)

Available: VHS

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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September 30, 1955 (1977)

Posted on September 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

september 30 1955

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Death of a legend.

The title represents the date that the legendary actor James Dean died in a car crash and his death has an adverse effect on a group of teens in a small southern town.

Richard Thomas is the main character who, along with his girlfriend Billie Jean (Lisa Blount), seems to get the most upset. Although some of his actions may seem fanatical it is really not as extreme as you may think or could’ve been and at no time does he ever lose sight of reality. For the most part the story is more a look at lost young souls searching for an identity than it is on celebrity worship.

The plot itself is slow with scenes that become unnecessarily drawn out with heavy-handed drama. The ending is unsatisfying as it doesn’t even give us a hint as to whatever became of these characters that are all left hanging in unfinished scenarios making the whole thing seem like just another sappy 70’s teen romance/ tragedy.

Beyond the poor structure there are some good points. One is the chance of seeing budding young talents like Tom Hulce, Dennis Quaid and Dennis Christopher working together and carrying a film. The other is director James Bridges who shows strong insight into Dean’s mystic and why he made such a powerful connection with the youth giving one the feeling that Bridges himself was a big Dean fan at the time as well. He also makes an effective statement about how many lost, lonely souls there are out there and the stifling nature of small town life. His recreation of the period is excellent and the interactions between the characters seem real and authentic. The assessment of the era is honest without being condescending and you feel like you are a part of the 50’s experience, which is interesting and fun.

Unfortunately it becomes too labored and trapped by the sensibilities of a bygone era while also being completely humorless and too talky.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 6, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 41Minutes

Rated PG

Director: James Bridges

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD (Universal Vault), Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, College Life, Drama, Movies that take place in the South

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Dogs (1976)

Posted on August 30, 2014 | 2 comments

dogs

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The Dogs go crazy.

In a small California town the dogs begin to act strangely as these lovable pets are now turning on their owners and going on the attack while acquiring a pack mentality that puts fear into everyone. Harlan (David McCallum) is a professor at a nearby college who along with Michael (George Wyner) who is an expert in animal behavior search for answers while also fighting for their own lives from the onslaught of the attacks.

The film has some potential as actor-turned-director Burt Brinkerhoff adds shades of playfulness to the proceedings. I liked the segment where children bring their pet dogs to a formal showing only to be chased away by the suddenly evil mutts. The mob scenes are somewhat impressive as Brinkerhoff holds a handheld camera right in the middle of the group, which helps accentuate the chaos and fear. The extras who can usually be pretty poor actors in most movies actually seem scared here and give off genuine screams of terror. The scene where the college students become trapped in a library with the vicious dogs staring at them through a glass wall is kind of creepy as is the sound of their howling.

The special effects aren’t quite as successful. The shots of all the human carnage looks very much like people lying perfectly still with spots of food coloring thrown on their clothes.  The shot of a mutilated steer’s head is equally fake looking and it stays on it for too long although the dog attacks themselves are okay. My favorite is when a sweet old lady, which is played by Elizabeth Kerr who later went on to co-star in the ‘Mork and Mindy’ TV-series gets ambushed and eaten by a group of dogs, which includes her own cute little pooch and then dragged away.

McCallum, who is best known for starring in the 60’s spy show ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E’ as well as ‘NCIS’, is weak in the lead role and whose presence almost seems transparent. He’s made to look like he is a part of the counter-culture with a beard and long hair, but instead comes off looking like some homeless guy that was dragged in off the streets. Sandra McCabe as his female counterpart is pretty pathetic and seems good for having a perpetually frightened look etched on her face, but not much else. Linda Gray who makes her official film debut and is cast in a smaller role should have been given the lead over McCabe as she shows much more flair.

The film’s biggest transgression though it that it never bothers to explain the reason for the dog’s strange behavior there is a brief conversation about some ‘secret experiments’ going on, but nothing that ever gets detailed or exposed. The lack of any true resolution or explanation is not only frustrating, but also makes watching this a rather pointless experience. The film also runs only 82 minutes despite the DVD cover stating that it is 91.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 29, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 22Minutes

Rated R

Director: Burt Brinkerhoff

Studio: American Cinema Releasing

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Low Budget, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Posted on July 30, 2014 | 4 comments

splendor in the grass 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Learning to move on.

The year is 1928 and Wilma (Natalie Wood) is a high school girl living in a small Kansas town and madly in love with Bud (Warren Beatty). The two share a strong even obsessive relationship and Bud wants to marry her, but his domineering father (Pat Hingle) wants him to wait and go to college for 4 years first. Because Wilma is a ‘nice girl’ he cannot have intimate relations with her before marriage, so in order to alleviate his sexual tensions his father advises that he have sex with a ‘loose woman’ and thus has a fling with Juanita (Jan Norris) who is also one of Wilma’s classmates. When Wilma finds out about this she is devastated and it sends her into a mental breakdown and eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Despite being set in a bygone period the film is hardly dated at all. The characters are real and going through much of the same dilemmas people today have including dealing with parents who push their children to go into fields of study that they aren’t interested in. The film is amazingly frank for its era and director Elia Kazan wisely pulls back by having long takes which allows his eclectic cast to propel the film forward with their performances alone.

Although the setting is Kansas it unfortunately wasn’t filmed there and thus fails to capture the majestic beauty of the plains like Picnic did which was based on another William Inge story. The intention was to shoot it there, but due to a drought it was instead done in northern New York near the Catskills, which has a far different climate and topography. The only exterior shot of the town is that of Wilma’s house, which doesn’t allow the viewer to get any idea of the town’s layout or atmosphere.

All around there are some great performances, but Hingle is a standout in what is quite possibly the best role of his career as he owns every scene that he is in. The only unfortunate thing is that it is never explained what caused the character’s very obvious limp.

Barbara Loden who later went on to marry Kazan in real-life is a scene-stealer as well playing Hingle’s rebellious, flapper daughter Ginny. Her meltdown at a New Year’s Eve party is memorable, but the character then disappears midway through and is never seen again. There is an eventual brief explanation of her whereabouts, but I felt a scene with her at the end was definitely needed.

Wood looks quite possibly at her most beautiful here both with long hair during the first half and then with a short cut during the second part. Beatty makes an outstanding film debut. Usually he is best playing detached characters, but here he plays an emotional one and does it surprisingly well.

The film features a high amount of first time performances from actors who all look very, very young. Phyllis Diller can be seen briefly as a nightclub comedienne. Ivor Francis makes his film debut as Wood’s psychiatrist and Sandy Dennis can be spotted as Wood’s classmate while Martine Bartlett makes her debut as an exasperated English teacher. There is also Zohra Lampert as a waitress explaining to Beatty what pizza is while he tells her about Kansas and you can very briefly spot Eugene Roche and even Godfrey Cambridge.

The film makes some great statements about learning to adjust to life’s twists and turns and living in situations that are not the most fulfilling. Inge, who based many of these characters on people he knew growing up, shows a keen understanding for human nature and his script won a much deserved Oscar.

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My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 10, 1961

Runtime: 2Hours 4Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Elia Kazan

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

4 Comments

Posted in 60's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Screenplay, Adolescence/High School, College Life, Drama, Movies with a Hospital setting, Romance

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The Sure Thing (1985)

Posted on May 12, 2014 | 2 comments

the sure thing 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Love blossoms between opposites.

Walter Gibson (John Cusack) becomes smitten with Alison (Daphne Zuniga). He is a slacker while she is a very studious student. Both attend the same college English class and he uses the ruse of needing help with his studies as a ploy to get closer to her, but it doesn’t work and she ends up hating him. Then his friend Lance (Anthony Edwards) invites him out to California where he has a really hot girl (Nicollette Sheridan) waiting for him and promises that she is a ‘sure thing’. So Walter takes a ride with a couple (Tim Robbins, Mary Jane Persky) that is also going out there only to find that Alison is riding with them as she wants to visit her boyfriend.  Needless to say it is a rocky ride, but after several misadventures love finally begins to blossom between the two.

On a purely romantic level this film scores big time. It nicely recaptures the period in one’s life where everything is still new and exciting and before such things as marital discord, ugly divorces, child custody battles and all that other crap. Instead it emphasizes the rush one feels at being in the presence of someone they are really crazy about and learning to know them through layers. It’s the magical innocence of young love that makes it so endearing and engaging.

Zuniga is beautiful but fortunately not in an overdone, glamorous type of way. My favorite scene with her is when she tries to drink a beer for the first time ‘shotgun style’ and becomes a bit overwhelmed by it. Cusack shows his usual charm, but his social graces seem severely lacking at points near the beginning and I wouldn’t have been surprised if every girl would have found him to be an annoying geek.

In support Edwards is good as his friend and I especially liked his room that is lined with empty bottles of every different brand of beer that he has drunk. Viveca Lindfors is sexy and appealing in her own way as the English teacher and George Memmoli in his last film role has an engaging bit as an overweight man that Walter meets and befriends at a bar in a scene that I wished had been more extended.

The film though does have a few problems. One scene has Walter accusing Alison of being ‘repressed’ and so to prove him wrong she strips off her shirt and bra and then flashes some other cars that they are passing, which to me seemed like too much of an extreme shift in behavior and not realist for that type of character. There is another scene where the two are stranded in the middle of nowhere during a rainstorm and with no money since Alison forgot it at their last hotel stop only to find out that she has a credit card. The film then cuts to showing them eating at a fancy restaurant, which was too much of a jump as a credit card isn’t going to get them from an empty field by itself and the scene needed to show more of a connection on how or who got them out of there.

The biggest problem though is that we have this stunning beautiful, bikini clad blonde in the form of Nicollette Sheridan who apparently can’t get a guy on her own and needs to be ‘set-up’ on a date, which makes no sense. The scenes showing her walking around all alone at a party are absurd because in reality just about every guy in the room would be showing her some attention and she would have no reason to waiting around for an average guy like Cusack to come by to date here. This is the one segment in the movie were it goes dangerously close from being this pleasing slice-of-life romance to a crazy 80’s teen fantasy.

Despite the issues listed above I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It should appeal to the romantic in all of us and nicely balances the old-fashioned love story formula with modern day sensibilities.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 1, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Rob Reiner

Studio: Embassy Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray

2 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Comedy, Road Movies, Romance

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End of the Road (1970)

Posted on March 13, 2014 | 2 comments

end of the road

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review:  Too weird for words.

A bizarre adaptation of John Barth’s already bizarre novel detailing the story of a man (Stacy Keach) who goes into a catatonic state at a train station and is then sent to a strange mental hospital run by a weirdo named Doctor D (James Earl Jones). After he is considered to be ‘cured’ he takes a job as a college professor and proceeds to have an affair with the wife (Dorothy Tristan) of one of his colleagues (Harris Yulin).

It has been noted that author Barth disliked this film version of his novel and it is easy to see why. It gives only a basic outline of the story while leaving out all of the deeper meanings. It also tried to tie the story to the chaos and rebellion of the 60’s even though the book was written in 1955. The final result is a confusing mess that never comes together. The characters behave strangely and with no understanding to their motivations it becomes impossible to relate to them or anything else that goes on. Most viewers, especially those that are not familiar with the book, will easily become confused after the first five minutes if not sooner.

On the positive end the filmmaking style is refreshingly audacious in a way that is rarely seen anymore. Everything is thrown out there no matter how outrageous with little regard to mainstream acceptance. The kinetic imagery and music has a certain hypnotic effect that keeps you connected to it even if you don’t understand what is going on. The film culminates with a very intense, grizzly, and tasteless abortion sequence that will not be soon forgotten by anyone who sees it. Jones gives one of the most bizarre and over-the-top performances that you will ever see anywhere and anyone who is a fan of his or has an interest in acting MUST see him in this film.

It’s a misfired experiment that manages to be enough of a period artifact to make it interesting as a curio. It definitely has the ability to stay with you after it is over.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: February 10, 1970

Runtime: 1Hour 50Minutes

Rated X

Director: Aram Avakian

Studio: Allie Artists Pictures

Available: DVD 

2 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, College Life, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hospital setting, Offbeat, Psychological

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