Les années fantastiques

Students are demonstrating at an university. Jonathan Kingsley (David Niven) is a psychology professor who practices what he preaches. He has a comfortable life with two teen daughters and then his oldest gets arrested for demonstrating with a free speech sign. Something on the other side is too shocking to say out loud. His teaching assistant Richard Merrick has been pushing him on his work and suggests "The Impossible Years" for his next book.

The girl is too flighty. It feels like a parent's vision of a bratty teenager. The dad is a 50's liberal. This movie is basically the adults unable to understand their crazy, crazy kids. The play was apparently shown in 1965. So I can excuse the writing which seems to be the 50's trying to come to terms with the 60's. Nevertheless, this movie cannot help but look backwards rather than forwards. It may still work as social commentary but it's not going to work as a comedy. As for the forbidden word, it shouldn't be one word. It becomes a distraction as the audience becomes preoccupied with guessing the word. This is done from the point of view of the professor and that's not that compelling or funny. When it comes to sex, it gets even more awkward although awkward can at least approach some fun. The problem here is that nobody is actually funny. It gets desperate as it even tries slapstick.

Corny swingin' 60s sex comedy has uptight psychology professor David Niven trying to control his liberated free-spirit 17-year old daughter, Cristina Ferrare. It's really a generational comedy with the square adults having a hard time understanding 1960's youth culture. The main problems with this film isn't the premise, but that the comedy is not all that funny. Both the square adults and the hip kids are presented in broad exaggerated versions of themselves, which could work, but does not here. I did laugh at one of-the-moment line when Niven's character is angry at a doctor friend and yells, "I'm glad they passed Medicare!" but outside of that there was not much that made me laugh.

If you're looking for a film which aspires to be "high art" or convey "deep meaning", forget it..."The Impossible Years" is a lightweight romp with David Niven, Lola Albright, Chad Everett, etc. that will make you laugh, giggle, and smile. It's an hour and 45 minutes of escapist fare that will make you forget about your troubles for a while. Not everyone will appreciate the slapstick humor here, but I sure did! Much in the same vain as the Beach Blanket and Gidget films of the time. This movie won't win any Academy Awards for high-brow acting or directing, but then, I don't think it was ever intended to be a deep message film. Just pure fun!!!

If memory is a testament to value then this is a really valued and fun movie for me. It was 1968 and I was 9 years old and I remember this movie well. Me and my friends went to the movies every Saturday and I saw this movie 5 times and enjoyed it every time. I loved Christina Ferrare (what a sweetheart),and her little sister Abby reading "Fanny Hill" I had no idea who that was but it sure upset the parents and lets face it, kids challenging old ideas with with free speech issues is what helps keep freedom alive. This movie may have seemed like a superficial romp yet it actually touched upon some very relevant issues and was a beautiful vignette of those times. It had spirit. It had heart and it was a lot of fun. It also brought out the humorous side to some tough issues, something that was needed in those days, and lets face it who couldn't love "smuts".

While the film is greatly dated in viewing it today, as for someone that lived during the 60's, it was quite ground breaking in dealing with current trends in our society. Since themes such as this were something relatively new, they sort of skimmed around the issues, and weren't as hard hitting as they are today.

Alond with this film, David Niven starred in another film of this genre also in 1968, "Prudence and the Pill". Even by 1968 standards this film was very silly and disappointing.

It is ironic how Hollywood, tried to deal with society's changes by making them seem humorous and inconsequential.