Purple Haze

Very good little character study about a young man who drops out of college in the late 60's, at the height of political and emotional turmoil. Problems arise in the young man's home life, and subsequently he is drafted to Vietnam. The film follows his journey from college life to home life, highlighting in a trip to the army base aboard a bus. The ending is simply unforgettable! Excellent use of period music.

This movie is very hard to find, Netflix.com doesn't even have it. The music sound track was one thing, but the thing I liked most was the father/son relationship. Main character gets kicked out of college for smoking (while Johnson announces he won't run again, and they all clap and cheer), comes home (hitch-hikes) with long hair, and has a conversation with his father. Late 60's, the father just couldn't understand why his son would want dress like that and have hair like a G.D. girl. You hate the father, but at the same time, you love him and understand what his frustration must be like. I grew up in the 80's this movie really shows what it must have been like in the 60's to cause so many people to just drop out (and tune in & turn on).

Yeah, this is a "local" production with no-name actors, but as someone who was Matt Caufield's age (20 in 1968 -- I was "there", as they say), this film captures with near perfection the mood and atmosphere that million-dollar productions try to capture but don't. Maybe "Gardens of Stone" comes close, but "Purple Haze" is almost a psychological documentary about the war, 1968 and its effect on and in the US. It deserves way more positive recognition than it ever received.

The DVD is available from David Burton Morris. Don't miss it.

Its a shame this film isn't more widely known or on DVD. Perhaps its due to its year of release. I watched it on HBO in 1985 and have tried to get a VHS, then a DVD copy since, but it doesn't appear to be around.

Its an excellent story of a period in American history that some may choose to forget, but as with any history, its important to try to understand what and why it occurred. Having lived in that period, this film delivers its spirit.

I really don't remember the details of this film, but remember that it really struck me, especially the final scene of the bus driving away. Wish Amazon would place it on Prime.

I'm not sure why this film so completely slipped through the cracks--I don't remember it coming out at the time, and it seems to have evaded all conventional release to VHS, DVD, etc. (Maybe there were legal issues--the soundtrack is wall-to-wall famous late 60s "oldies," and perhaps the filmmakers didn't pay for the music rights beyond theatrical release.) In any case, it has a good reputation from the few who've seen it. But it doesn't hold up particularly well.

Perhaps its typical coming-of-age story of a young man worrying about the draft, what his parents think of his long hair, etc. has been done too many times by now. But the problem is how routinely "Purple Haze" tells that story, with rote characterizations from fairly colorless lead actors and variably amateurish support ones. You could forgive that and other clumsy aspects from a firsttime filmmaker, but the director/coscenarist had made a few features before (including the truly awful horror movie "The Meateater;" I'd like to see 1976's "Loose Ends," which got some critical acclaim at the time), and what appears to be a pretty pedestrian later career of TV movies (including lame biopics about Sonny & Cher, the Partridge Family and Jackie Onassis).

I imagine this was a more personal project for him (it was shot in his native Minnesota, and some of the actors have a very "local talent" feel), and in some ways it's pretty ambitious for an indie feature of the era. But it just doesn't have the spark of personality in terms of writing, performance or direction to make a memorable impression. A later movie (by another prolific TV-movie director) that likewise fails to make anything distinctive of a clearly autobiographical late-60s-young-manhood tale (and likewise shows practically no interest in women as anything but interchangeable sex partners) is Bobby Roth's 2005 "Berkeley."

I'm sure anyone who came of age circa 1969 thinks their experience of the era was unique and unforgettable. Sure it was--to them. Trouble is, too many of those stories all begin to seem generically alike when they're dramatized. It takes a savvier dramatist than this movie has to recapture what seems exciting in nostalgic recall and actually make it interesting for viewers.