Out of It

This black and white film about a summer in the life of Long Island teenagers is slow, and very much a period piece. It's not great as a movie but is interesting as a relic, one of the first movies of a genre, the teen-movie. It's got many of the scenes that have now become cliché but were much fresher in its day; a scene at the beach where the non-too- bright jock kicks sand at the introspective bookish boy, a scene of underage drinking, a fumbling attempt at making out in a car and finally the scene where the meek one stands up to the bully.

While film students with a historical bent should see this, it's probably too dated and slow moving for the casual viewer.

It's a hot Long Island summer in the 1960s. The kids from the local suburban high school spend most of the summer frolicking at the beach before heading back for their senior year. Nerdy bookworm Paul (Barry Gordon) and tough jock Russ (Jon Voight) compete fiercely for the beautiful, popular Christine (played by ex-"Hullabaloo" dancer Lada Edmund Jr.) Over the course of the summer, the intellectual, fantasy-prone Paul discovers that life and love can't be learned through books but must be experienced first-hand.

The acting by Voight and Gordon is quite good, considering the relative inexperience of both actors at the time. Gretchen Corbett, who plays Paul's on-again/off-again love interest Barbara, also does a fine job. But the real treat here is the first-rate performance of Edmund, who is absolutely gorgeous and who shows surprising talent and depth.

While a cinematic classic this ain't, "Out of It" is fun nonetheless. The music and script clearly are dated (teen-agers drink beer in public, and one character actually says "Let's make it" as a prelude to passion!), and the story jumps around a bit. But the camera work is good, and people who root for the underdog will absolutely love Paul, who learns lessons any of us folks who think too much would find useful. The shots of real-looking people on the beach (complete with cellulite and beer bellies) make this flick all the more enjoyable.

The fun in this picture is in the period '60 details: The clothes, the Corvair convertible, the teased hair. Voight plays a teenaged jock/bully almost too well, no mean feat considering he was 30 at the time. This is the ancestor to all the recent teens-discovering-sex pictures.

This is a nearly forgotten youth-oriented flick from the late sixties, done in a style reminiscent of John Cassavetes, with lots of closeups and long takes. It's not a great film, but it captures the bittersweet problems of teenage dating in non-stereotypical fashion.

I actually saw some of the scenes filmed in this movie. they were filmed in Hewlett NY at a small movie theater and in a parking lot under a bowling alley neither of which exist anymore. It was wild because I was the age of the characters in the movie living a similar life as they were.

I was in a few scenes but i think they ended up on the cutting room floor. At the time I didn't even know who John Voight was. I remember the labor that went into a few scenes and having to wait quite a long time for it to show in the theater so we could finally find out what it was really about. Pretty cool!