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Reviews
Love on a Rooftop (1966)
A Creature of Its Time
Courtesy of YouTube, I've just re-watched the premiere episode for the first time in 50 years, and found it ... not so bad. There's a joke about unwed pregnancy, which was pretty forward-thinking for 1966, and they had the couple sleeping in the same tent on the rooftop during their honeymoon, which was -- you're just going to have to believe me on this -- also pretty forward- thinking. The shots of vintage San Francisco are very nice.
The show lasted only one season. Interestingly, YouTube has a video of Judy Carne promoting the second-season premiere of the series; she's there with Elizabeth "Bewitched" Montgomery and Marlo "That Girl" Thomas promoting ABC's Thursday night programming for the 1967-68 season. At the time, ABC had a bad habit of renewing a series and then rescinding the renewal a short while later, and "Love on a Rooftop" got the belated ax. ABC wound up moving "Bewitched" and "That Girl" half an hour earlier, and didn't even bother to program the 10:30-11 p.m. ET slot that opened with the cancellation of "Love on a Rooftop."
Saturday Morning (1971)
A Creature of Its Time
I saw this film at what was billed as the First Buffalo (New York) International Film Festival, held at Canisius College in 1971. It likely hasn't been shown anywhere in decades. The filmmaker, who'd really be the only one to champion this film, died in 1980.
This was a short documentary about what they used to call an "encounter weekend." It showed a small group of young people sitting around somewhere in the woods and discussing their problems and shortcomings. I remember a guy crying toward the end, the result of some sort of breakthrough. At no point was I or anyone else in the festival audience moved to care about any of the participants in the film.
There's really no reason to revisit this poor little orphaned film. It is a creature of its time, and it should stay there.
A Small Circle of Friends (1980)
A Very Good Film
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.)