Big Boy

I wrote the novel upon which this film was based, I worked on the various scripts with Francis, and I was present throughout the filming in New York. An amazing experience. Coppola had been working for a year with MGM writing scripts for them (he had got this job as a result of winning a nationwide literary competition) and had scripted Is Paris Burning? and Patton Lust For Glory, both of which Gore Vidal was supposed to be writing but Coppola travelled to Paris to help get scripts out of him. He had also written the screenplay of This Property Is Condemned, based on a Tennessee Williams short story, and (apart from the magnificent helicopter shot which starts the film) thought very little of it.

For full details of the filming of this first real Coppola movie see my memoirs Dropping Names which is available from my website www.davidbenedictus.com Oh and by the way clips of Dementia 13 which Coppola filmed in a couple of weeks in Ireland (he mentioned to me some nudie films which he may or may not have directed but Dementia 13 is probably his first acknowledged work) are used several times throughout You're A Big Boy Now (I imagine he didn't have to pay copyright on them!) and they look powerful to me.

A sad memory is that Elizabeth Hartman who plays the sexy man-hater with great precision and style was to have a serious nervous breakdown after the end of her marriage and threw herself out of a window to her death. She was some actress and you may have seen her in The group and A Patch Of Blue (opposite Sydney Poitier)

Despite being directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "You're a Big Boy Now" has pretty much been forgotten in the fifty years that have passed since it first played in theaters. After watching it, I think I have a grasp on a possible answer for why it's drifted into obscurity. I'm not saying it's a bad movie. The movie does capture the era quite well; those wanting to learn about styles and other period details will find the movie handy. Also, Coppola directs the movie with great energy throughout, from bizarre camera angles to offbeat performances.

But while the movie is directed with gusto, it doesn't manage to mask a big problem with the movie. The first half of the movie is really slow going with the story. Sure, the direction hides this thin story for a while, but eventually you realize that not much of substance is actually happening. Things do start moving after the halfway point or so, but it's kind of hard to get involved with what's happening because none of the characters are really all that sympathetic. Even the hero fails to arouse sympathy, because he is for the most part a real spineless wimp. The fact that all the performers give really broad performances doesn't help. In the end, the movie can only be recommended to people with real special interest in Hollywood filmmaking from this period, and even they might find it tough going at times.

The most famous movie to look at the younger generation's disillusionment with the American way of life is "The Graduate", but Francis Ford Coppola's "You're a Big Boy Now" also offers some insight. The young protagonist is a character very much like Ben Braddock: born into an affluent family that plans for him to be a big success. But this young man actively seeks out a new life, and he befriends a go-go dancer...but that's not all.

A lot of the humor is cutaway humor. In the end the movie isn't a masterpiece but has some funny stuff. It's sort of a cross between the zany comedies that dominated the '60s and a Woody Allen movie. One of the most interesting things is the soundtrack. The Lovin' Spoonful did the music, and it includes some songs - among them "Amy's Theme" - that I had heard but never knew whence they came.

I recommend the movie. It's a perceptive look at the youth culture, and also at mid-'60s New York. We even get shots of movie theaters running noted movies of the era! It's really a movie that you gotta love. I bet that when "The Godfather" debuted, people were shocked that it was directed by the same man who directed "You're a Big Boy Now".

And remember, wooden legs and aggressive chickens.

The movie's mainly a matter of taste. There's no real narrative or exchanges of dialog, while the characters are more humorous caricatures than real people. Still, the cinematography is dazzling, probably too much so since FFC appears obsessed with the spiraling effects. These, however, do lend the film a free-spirited sense of freedom that young Bernard (Kastner) is confused by, having been kept on a tight parental leash. So, the theme, as much as there is one, is very much a 60's one— how to break free of stifling convention. In Bernard's case, it's more like simply understanding what it is that's stifling him.

The biggest mystery to me is how FFC assembled such an outstanding Broadway cast—Harris, Paige, Torn—for a Master's Thesis. And who's inspired touch is that "attack chicken" that bedevils the girls, or the Neanderthal cop who's never off duty. Anyway, if you're not insisting on a conventional style and are willing to put up with some pretty self-indulgent passages, the movie may have genuine appeal, especially for those either nostalgic or curious about the free-wheeling 60's.

About 15 minutes into this quirky film I was ready to proclaim it a must see and to bill it as the best movie no one has seen or even heard about. After all it was Coppola's masters thesis for film school. It has Elizabeth Hartman successfully playing against type as a sexy (somewhat psycho) Greenwich Village ingénue. It has Peter Kastner, Rip Torn, Geraldine Page and Julie Harris playing characters more bizarre than anything in "Harold and Maude" (it reminds you a lot of that film and may have inspired it). It has Karen Black doing a toned down version of the Rayette Dipesto character she would play in "Five Easy Pieces". It has a lively sound track by the Lovin' Spoonful. It even has Coppola cutting in extensive gruesome footage from his first film "Dementia 13".

Unfortunately by the halfway point of "You're a Big Boy Now" it totally runs out of steam and you begin to understand that its obscurity is well-deserved. Coppola's script is the problem because the cast are generally excellent and you can tell they had a lot of fun making the film. Even minor cast members like Dolph Sweet do a good job and there are great little sequences like Kastner's after dark explorations of the New York City streets. But unlike "Herald and Maude", Coppola says nothing with this film; consequently it ends up as a classic case of the whole being considerably less than the sum of its parts.

I am not in love with Coppola as a director, but even those who are will acknowledge the incredible distance between his good stuff and the vast majority of his films. This is not his good stuff but is worth checking out if you like Hartman, Harris, and Page.