Main Cast: John Travolta, Diana Hyland, Robert Reed, Ralph Bellamy, Glynnis O'Connor
Release Year: 1976
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
Welcome Back Kotter star John Travolta headlines the made-for-TV Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Douglas Day Stewart's fact-based teleplay casts Travolta as Tod Lubitsch, a teenager who was born without disease immunities. Tod is forced to live out his life in incubator conditions; whenever he vetnures into the outdoors, he must be encased in a huge plastic bubble. When he falls in love with Gina Biggs (Glynnis O'Connor), Tod must decide between staying safe and following his heart, which would mean facing near-certain death. Diana Hyland won an Emmy for her portrayal of Travolta's mother. Incidentally, Hyland and Travolta became real-life lovers, a relationship that was tragically terminated when the actress died of cancer. Boy in the Plastic Bubble was first telecast November 12, 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble is often remembered as the gloriously dated disease-of-the-week movie from the 1970s -- the first feature-length vehicle for John Travolta, made for the medium of television, where he was the breakout star of Welcome Back Kotter. But it's also the only produced feature-length teleplay by noted film critic Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal. Well, neither needs to be embarrassed, as The Boy in the Plastic Bubble contains a surprising amount of nuance. Travolta doesn't play Tod Lubitsch as a saint, but perhaps more importantly, nor does Morgenstern (with Douglas Day Stewart) write him that way. Travolta combines with Glynnis O'Connor to make a charmingly gawky pair of believable teenagers, who don't always do or say the right things. What's great about O'Connor's performance is that she's one of the popular girls, but doesn't use that as an excuse to make Gina an aloof caricature -- she's just a normal girl with equal parts mischief and goodness. Travolta's work is good as well, but it's difficult to determine how much like a real life-long shut-in he is. It's tempting to hope a person in his position would remain generally upbeat, but since the disease is so rare, it's hard to say for sure. Not only does the film work as a soulful consideration of the sacrifices of living without immunities, but on a purely logistical level, it's also a how-to manual, satisfying our curiosity about the day-to-day routines of a seemingly impossible life. If any part of The Boy in the Plastic Bubble gives pause, it's the ending. Generously, it's lyrical; more honestly, it's probably just cheesy. But chalking that up to the era as well makes it easier to swallow, and truly, this film about quarantined solitude is a breath of fresh air. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Karen Morrow - Martha BIggs; Victor Brandt - TV Installer; John Friedrich - Roy Slater; Hilda Haynes - Nurse; John Megna - Smith; Howard Platt - Pete Biggs; Anne Ramsey - Rachel; P.J. Soles - Deborah; Kelly Ward - Tom Shuster; Vernée Watson - Gwen; Darrell Zwerling - Mr. Brister; Jack McLaughlin-Gray; Seth Wagerman - Tod at 3 years old
Credit
Randal Kleiser - Director, John McSweeney, Jr. - Editor, Mark Snow - Composer (Music Score), Paul Williams - Composer (Music Score), Arch R. Dalzell - Cinematographer, Leonard J. Goldberg - Producer, Aaron Spelling - Producer, Joel Thurm - Producer, Cindy Dunne - Producer, Shelley Hull - Producer, Douglas Day Stewart - Screenwriter, Joe Morgenstern - Screenwriter
The movie first aired on November 1, 1976, on the ABC television network. The film entered the public domain and is available from the Internet Archive.[2]
The film centers on the life of Tod Lubich, who was born with an improperly functioning immune system. This means that contact with unfiltered air may kill him, so he must live out his life in incubator-like conditions. He lives with his parents, since they decided to move him from Texas Children's Hospital where he was being kept as a boy. He is constricted to staying in his room all his life, where he eats, learns, reads and exercises, while being protected from the outside world by various coverings.
As Tod grows up, he wishes to see more of the outside world and meet regular people his age. He is enrolled at the local school after being equipped with suitable protective clothing, similar in style to a space suit. He falls in love with his next door neighbor, Gina Briggs, and he must decide between following his heart and facing near-certain death, or remaining in his protective bubble forever. In the end, after having a discussion with his doctor who tells him he has built up some immunities which may possibly be enough to survive the real world, he steps outside his house, unprotected, and Gina and he ride off on her horse.
The "Bubble Boy" who inspired this film, David Vetter, questioned the film's depiction of how sterile Tod's use of the spacesuit was. Vetter scoffed at the idea that Travolta's character could simply wear the space suit back into the isolator without contaminating the bubble.[3]
Days after Bill Clinton was inaugurated as U.S. President, William Safire reported on the phrase "in the bubble" as used in reference to living in the White House.[4]Safire traced that usage in U.S. presidential politics to a passage in the 1990 political memoir What I Saw at the Revolution by Peggy Noonan, where she used it to characterize Ronald Reagan's "wistfulness about connection"; Richard Ben Cramer used the phrase two years later in What It Takes: The Way to the White House with reference to George H. W. Bush and how he had been "cosseted and cocooned in comfort by 400 people devoted to his security" and "never s[aw] one person who was not a friend or someone whose sole purpose it was to serve or protect him."[4] Noonan's use was a reference to The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.[4]
^ ab"World Premiere 'In the Bubble' Fourth New Musical for AMTP". Northwestern University. May 22, 2007. http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/05/theatre1.html. Retrieved 2009-05-18. "AMTP's newest musical was inspired by multiple “bubble boy” sources in pop culture, including the 1976 Emmy-nominated made-for-television movie “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” starring John Travolta; the 1987 Paul Simon song “The Boy in the Bubble”; a 1992 “Seinfeld” television episode; and Bandeira Entertainment's 2001 screen comedy “Bubble Boy,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal, (and more potently, the protests surrounding the Gyllenhaal film)."
^"High Steppin' to stardom". Time. Monday April 3, 1978. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,919534,00.html. Retrieved 2009-05-18. "At the cast party, Travolta remembers, 'we admitted not only a friendly attraction but a sexual one. The intensity of it was new to both of us.'...She [later] told him that their six months together were the happiest time of her life.... Says Travolta, 'I would have married her.'"
