Main Cast: Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Julie Harris, Peter Kastner, Rip Torn
Release Year: 1966
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
Plot
This cult favorite began as Francis Ford Coppola's UCLA thesis, ending up with a professional cast and nationwide release. Teen Peter Kastner undergoes his coming-of-age rites when, urged on by dad Rip Torn, he strikes out on own and moves to NYC. Every person Kastner meets is an eccentric's eccentric, from landlady Julie Harris to cop Dolph Sweet. Kastner's new friend Tony Bill, who works at the New York Public Library and accumulates pornography on side, introduces the boy to sex and drugs. Our hero truly matriculates to manhood after his heart is broken by disco dancer Elizabeth Hartman; he settles instead for Karen Black, still enough of an unknown quantity in 1966 to play against type as "the right girl". Adapted from a novel by David Benedictus, Big Boy is afflicted with usual youthful film-class fervor, crammed full of showoffish cinematic tricks that Coppola would eventually outgrow. But one can't deny that this seminal production is both heartfelt and energetic. To improve the film's saleability, distributors Seven Arts tacked on a music score by the Lovin' Spoonful, hardly necessary but very enjoyable appendange. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
As with most cult films, You're a Big Boy Now is definitely not for all tastes. Some will find it tedious, annoying, and empty, a technical exercise turned loose on a vapid story. Others will treasure it as a time capsule of 1960s filmmaking, extolling it for capturing the freedom of the times and for its youthful freshness and vigor. Both sides are right, for the young Francis Ford Coppola's experiments with editing and camera angles have an invigorating liveliness, but they also draw attention to themselves at the expense of telling the story. (Yes, sometimes the manner in which the story is told can be the story, but that's not the case here.) The screenplay is disjointed and sloppy, which is both endearing and irritating, and the film alternates between sequences that are spot on and others that are far off the mark. Still, several segments (Julie Harris and Rip Torn in the vault, the delirious climactic chase) are excellent, and if Peter Kastner is too bland in the lead role, the supporting cast is exceptional. Special praise goes to Torn, Harris, and Geraldine Page, and Elizabeth Hartman is quite good playing against type. Dated and at times silly, Big Boy has a youthful charm that most will find hard to ignore. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
