millard-27694 I first saw this film on HBO in, I guess, 1981, and it has always stayed with me. I didn't see it again until this week (I'm writing this in late August 2016) and found that it holds up very well. If the filmmakers were aiming to preserve a snapshot of turbulent campus life circa 1970, I think they pulled it off. Those were my times, too, and I was there and I saw this as it was going on. I think this film may have been the first feature to address the era as historical -- as opposed to, say, The Strawberry Statement, a film with many of the same themes as this one, but which was made in 1970.In the wraparound, in "the present," it's been about ten years since Jessie and Nick finished college. I guess my only disagreement with the film is that, given the split between Nick and Jessie after Leo's death -- she's not even aware that Nick returned to Boston, went to Harvard Med and became a psychiatrist -- there's a possibility at the end that they'll get back together. That's a nice ending, but I don't think it reflects real life. In real life, Jessie's cab pulls away, Nick doesn't run after it, and one never phones the other, ever. They are different people now.It also struck me that, here in 2016, it's been almost 50 years since Nick, Leo and Jessie first arrived on campus, and I suddenly felt pretty old when I realized that. Those days are now about as far in the past as the First World War was to the college kids of 1970 -- which is to say, pretty darn far back.(Okay, okay. Maybe Nick and Jessie did get back together. I'd like to think so, anyway.)

talicea In spite of the new (2005) terrible film STEALTH directed by the same director of this film....I give this film TWO THUMBS UP.This movie rang a bell during the military draft lottery scene; my number was 316, NOT ELIGIBLE for military service. A guy I knew then got #1: Sept 14.The very last scene is great when two good old friends find themselves years after college, each with a profession and one with a divorce already under her belt and they decide to "see what happens" now.Very rational and smart decision.

podium1 This film, and the principal people involved with it, have long held a special place in my life as I was an extra during the riot scene at "Harvard"(nee Bridgewater State College). While I don't have a truly memorable role in the finished film(although many close friends of mine do and were featured on two of the lobby cards from the film), I am part of the cluster of people on the main building's upper balcony(a most unsafe act as that creaky and once condemned balcony held about 15 of us at one point). Shooting went from 6 PM until 6 AM on a very rainy evening. All the rioters, with the exception of the principal actors, were student extras who raided their older sibling's closet to get the historical costumes. Real Boston MDC riot police were used, some of whom had been at the riots in the 60's. First take was particularly chaotic and bloody as students fought with the police who, acting upon instinct, violently did the same. Being part of the student press covering the event(with a story which, based on our notes, was picked up by AP), I got the opportunity to meet and greet the stars shortly before nationwide opening of the film. Filmed opened on a Wednesday and closed the following Tuesday. A great financial disappointment which truly hurt a burgeoning career for Cohen. Other brief notes: there are two familiar Steinman thematics running throughout the film. The first did become TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART while the second became a #1 hit for Air Supply, MAKING LOVE OUT OF NOTHING AT ALL. The reason that the film ended up at BSC did have to do with Harvard's exam schedule. As it turned out, this was the final scene in the film to be shot, leading studio execs to frantically find a suitable location in order to stay on shooting schedule and budget. Also, the "paddy wagon" seen rocking during the sequence(and featured prominently on one of the lobby cards) was actually rolled over onto it's roof during the first take. The student riding the vehicle is William Hoffman. Truly looking forward to seeing the DVD(first time the film, long out of print on VHS, will be in widescreen) and hearing Cohen's commentary on the while experience.

petershelleyau The most resonant element of director Rob Cohen's film is the music score by Jim Steinman, which includes the melody that was later recorded as Total Eclipse of the Heart. Otherwise this tale of a supposed menage-a-tois between Harvard university students Brad Davis, Karen Allen and Jameson Parker is as dramatic as the cartoon opening and closing sketches. The screenplay by Ezra Sacks attempts coverage of the Vietnam era from 1967 to 1971 from a student activist point of view, but the tri-romance hardly seems from the same era since it isn't until towards the end that there is any suggestion of bigamy. There is also even less suggestion of homosexuality interest between Davis and Parker. When the 3 finally go into the same bedroom, the camera is left outside and the door closed. Their lack of involvement in activism is paralled with the radicalisation of a Texan boy scout who comes to Harvard at the same time and ends up a terrorist, and highlighted by a campus riot that comes out of nowhere. Even the Vietnam connection as a comment on the relationship and vice versa doesn't work. Sacks opens with Parker reuniting with Allen in "the present"before we start flashbacking to 1967, with Davis' absence pre-empting the outcome, and Cohen supplies matching love scene montages. Davis' has steam so apparently is more erotic and ends abruptly, whilst Parker's is set to Chances Are and ends more positively. Sacks has 2 lines I liked - a technique of breaking into a glass window "I saw it on I Spy or was it The Untouchables", though Cohen repeats it, and "Only men would come up with a draft lottery using balls". Utilising period TV and photographic images - the assassinations of the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King - and a series of bad wigs, the only sense of reality and truth comes in a moment when someone sings the Star Spangled Banner to TV closure. Davis has the impossible charming/wild man role, not helped by his looking older than the others, and the best he can do is stare child-like for vulnerability. Allen doesn't have a strong screen persona so it's easy to think one is watching Amy Irving or Janet Margolin or Brooke Adams. Of the 3, Parker probably comes off best even when saddled with a Colonel Sanders look. His character's basic dullness is probably the reason he needs to be reunited with Allen. Even when the competition is Davis, anyone that prefers to experiment with rats rather than go to an Ingmar Bergman film is definitely worth reconsidering as a partner. Watch for Shelley Long as a photographer, and Daniel Stern, billed as Dan.