Didn't You Hear?

What a great movie. It has everything you can wish for. A great electronic soundtrack (composed by Mort Garson), lots of swimming, some beautiful girls, actors with interesting faces... It's mostly about a dream Kevin (Dennis Christopher), a scrawny and sullen undergraduate who is taking a geology class, has. In the dream he is the captain of a pirate ship with eight of his university pals and they all go to different islands looking for non-fishy food and girls and freedom. Sometimes it doesn't make too much sense (as is usually the case with dreams) but it doesn't matter because everything is so right, the atmosphere is just perfect. Seems like originally it was finished in 1974 and only released nine years later.

The film was theatrically released in December of 1970, but may have only played Seattle. The filmmakers were young professional filmmakers based in Seattle. They "four-walled" a local theater, the Rainier Cinema in Columbia City, to launch the premiere engagement. Unfortunately, there was an atypical Seattle snowstorm that kept most patrons away. I drove through the snow to attend, and I think that there were maybe two other people in the entire theater.

The first ten or fifteen minutes were projected without sound, ironic given the film's title. The movie was so experimental that we weren't initially certain if there was supposed to be sound, or not.

There was a soundtrack album released on a very small label, but local stores didn't stock it. You pretty much "had to know someone" in order to acquire a copy of the LP. The score was promoted as being the first film score to be completely composed on a Moog Synthesizer. There was one vocal song, entitled "Didn't You Hear?", that was played once or twice during the film.

Gary Busey and Dennis Christopher went on to bigger things, as did female lead Cheryl Waters, who starred in MACON COUNTY LINE (1974). She acted as recently as 1998.

Mort Garson was without a doubt an outstanding composer, arranger, songwriter, and pioneer of electronic music. But, he didn't sing a lick. That's Tommy Muncrief, formerly of The Beckett Quintet (a garage band from Portales,New Mexico) on lead vocals. They had a single "No Correspondence" on Gemcor Records in the mid-1960s, produced by Nick Venet. The Beckett Quintet played the Sunset Strip scene and they were in the process of recording an album on A & M (to be produced by Herb Albert and Tommy LiPuma) when the draft derailed the band. Tommy Muncrief was also the lyricist on the title track "Didn't You Hear" with Mort Garson composing the music. This is one of those rare instances where the soundtrack is easier to find than the movie itself.

Dennis Christopher is a clement college boy whose dreamworld plays out in sequence, where he finds himself and his friends as the crew of a large sailing vessel, their sole ambition being an undisciplined, exotic adventure of debauch piracy. These illusory goings-on bear little relevance to much of anything, keeping true to the universe of dreams...oh, there might be some vague, equidistant piffle somewhere in the folds, but don't bother to mull over it...just let yourself roll with the languid randomness of it all.

DIDN'T YOU HEAR is a relaxing, peculiar, and echt-70s odyssey of youthful spirit and wandering nihil ad rems...like a dream of finding a million bucks, then waking with clenched empty hands.

5.5/10

4 out of 10

A strange film dealing with a detached college student (played by a young Christopher sporting a very big mop top) who is out of sync with his environment. He escapes by imagining that he and some of his friends are a couple of modern day pirates. They sail to an island that is inhabited by an adult population that eventually prove to be quite hostile.

This certainly does rank as an interesting curio. The story and pace are eccentric and yet still manages to work. It does have a tendency to meander and some may find the whole thing boring and meaningless. Yet it remains strangely compelling and outside of a few corny songs has a good music score that works well with the action. The low budget is a problem and could explain why the fantasy segments really aren't very fantastical. Yet the filmmakers do a good job at filming everything with a wide variety of camera shots and angles. It gives the illusion that everything is new and different and keeps an otherwise limp story flowing.

The message itself isn't bad, but it tends to work more on the emotional side. It taps into the need for individuality and independence. The need to live life on ones own terms versus the responsibilities one has when living in a society. It specifically analyzes the college age when one isn't a child, but not quite ready (or willing) to embrace the adult world. They certainly do have an engaging free spirit and the film seems to take this on with it's very free form style. It may all just revert back to the whole 'hippie vs establishment' thing that permeated the era when this was filmed, which was actually 1970. Yet the film still seems very fresh and some of the philosophical discussions are interesting. The aloof ending though pretty much ruins everything.

Christopher scores in his first film appearance. He seems to get more into it as the film progresses. His role is insightful as it shows how on the outside he seems to be very rule bound, but on the inside he is actually quite free thinking. Busey is also fun in one of his early roles.

The weird title is actually in reference to a line that is said throughout the picture. It bears a special significance at the very end.