Sogno americano

There's really not much better than the high concept films of the '80s, and this one has it all. Ever notice how in these films, everyone in the ENTIRE TOWN seems centered around whatever miraculous achievement the star is involved in?

In this case, it's a whole group of friends, a whole family and a WHOLE TOWN focused on gymnastics! This movie made me want to rush out and become a gymnast, though I think that may be tempered by the fact that my teeny-bopper mind wanted to fall into the awaiting arms of Mitch Gaylord.

Granted, Mystic Pizza made me want to work in a restaurant and North Shore made me want to...uh...go to Hawaii and make fun of people, but as a film rooted in its conception of gymnasts, nothing's better than the would-be star who fails and fails until he finally gets it right.

Hoo-yeah.

I have to give it a 10. I had a life size poster of Mitch Gaylord on the back of my door from 85-92! There was no crush that could match my crush on Mitch. I would have seen any movie that he was in, gymnastics or not. Shoot, he was the reason I watched the Olympics back then. American Anthem is a great movie. It had good characters and you were really pulling for them. Granted, I was a kid when I saw it... but as far as 80s movies go... this one belongs in the ranks of Dirty Dancing, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. I borrowed the video from a friend and remember keeping it for years. She came and got it a few days before I left for college!! I haven't seen since, but I'd buy the DVD if there were one!

I didn't get to see this film until a year after it was in the theaters, one of my first experiences of seeing a movie on VHS (my parents didn't have cable or a VHS player). I was working as a camp counselor at a summer camp for the mentally disabled with a few weeks of youth summer camp in a small town east of Seattle the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. It was an important formative experience of my youth. I watched this movie so many times in the decade following, and I had the theme song on cassette, (I can still hear it in my head "Two hearts beat as one together" 25 years later). It it is viewed in the cultural light of 1986, and you are still young at heart, are a fan of competitive gymnastics, and can remember what young passionate love is like, you should enjoy this movie. Makes me want to watch it again!

I remember that Mitch Gaylord and Janet Jones were two of the prettiest people in the whole bloody world when this flick came out. And their sex scene, while tame, was pretty darn hot just because they were in it.

Mitch did his best world-weary, troubled teen bit. Janet was dead-on as the one-dimensional beauty with the "I know you want me" grin plastered on her adorable mug.

More nudity, less gymnastics, and this film might have worked.

A dull film that tried to capitalize on the craze the U.S. had with the Summer Olympics of 1984 in Los Angeles, but came way too late to make any impression with movie audiences. "American Anthem"'s stars are much more interesting than the film itself which is a dud to put it mildly. The movie focuses on a young man (Mitch Gaylord) who gets the itch to compete in gymnastics again after meeting the new girl in town (Janet Jones). She is training for the Olympic trials and of course he starts to compete once again just basically to be with her more. A corny production that has no real pep at all. Gaylord, a former Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, proved to be a bust as a leading man. He would later appear in a few soft-core direct-to-video adult productions and become a stunt man for several other films (most notably "Batman Forever"). Janet Jones would later marry all-world hockey star Wayne Gretzky after this film. That is her claim to fame, not "American Anthem". Turkey (0 stars out of 5)