Incoming Freshmen

I know several people who worked on Incoming Freshman and recently had an opportunity to view a black and white work print of the original edit. Not only was the film re-edited, but additional scenes were shot by the distributor which accounts for the much of gratuitous sex and nudity. This was done, obviously, to make the film more marketable. The original film was intelligent, well conceived and and not at all badly done considering the production budget was less than $50,000. It many ways, it was a much better film than Animal House which is often credited with being THE ground breaking film that started a new genre of movies. It was never intended to be a "soft porn" film, an unfortunate and undeserved characterization. The film was shot on location in Knoxville Tennessee by two University of Tennessee Graduate students. Many of the scenes were shot on and around campus and on the Cumberland Avenue strip. It would be worthwhile to somehow release a "restored" version of this film. If I'm not mistaken one or both of the directors did go on to have careers in Hollywood. My good friend Tommy Gibbons worked on Incoming Freshman as an assistant camera operator and is a great source of information on the film.

I saw this film before it was sold for distribution and it was a very good film. I saw it after distribution at the theater and it was a completely different film. The film had been totally re-cut. A number of new scenes (the awful "southern" professor and the T and A) were added and the original film was pretty much lost. The storyline had no continuity due to the re-editing.

Though as one other reviewer mentioned, it is somewhat like Animal House (1978), but for a low-budget film, with "no-name" actors, the original (before re-edit) film was as good.

Been a while seen I've seen it -- saw it on videotape in the 80s -- but I recall it wasn't too bad and had some cute girls. I can still recall the opening scene where the professor is imagining one of his students nude, so I have to say the movie is at least more memorable than a lot of the others of the same type.

Actually, I typed this title just to see how thorough this database is. I was a bit surprised to see it here, but not that it hadn't been commented on. It played here in the early eighties with the far superior GAS PUMP GIRLS. It was a T'n'A ANIMAL HOUSE type of deal with a particularly cheap look. Stuff like this just doesn't make it into theatres anymore. There was a party scene where everybody wore goat masks. That's about all I remember. If I had seen this film by itself, I would have felt ripped off, but its companion film made the trip worthwhile.

No, the acting won't be Oscar caliber. The film was shot on the cheap, and appears to have used many local actors. There is no real plot. The movie is very funny at times, and very, and I mean very dated at others. Yet, it's a really great throw back to an era of film making that's gone, and sadly, doesn't seem to be coming back. Rebecca Franklin, ALice Barrett, and Ashley Vaughn are genuine beautiful women who should have been given a shot to do other things. Barrett had the more of a career then the others. The saddest thing about the film is that Leslie Blalock died in a car accident before the film came out. Blalock was a calender girl come to life, live on film.

What needs to happen is the 70's drive in flicks need to find their way to DVD, via a box set, or on their own. Incoming Freshman is a drive in classic. A true gem of film-making that has been lost to history.