The In Crowd (1988)

The In Crowd (1988) is one of those movies that is more interesting than good. It's very similar to Absolute Beginners (although not as vibrant or electric) in that it covers the early Rock and Roll days, only in mid-60s Philadelphia instead of late-50s England. I have to say, if you were going on just those two movies, England comes out way, way ahead. Which is really a testament to how boring and bland this movie's view of the American 1960s is. 

For a movie about the power of music on people (and specifically our teenage protagonists, played by Donovan Leitch and Jennifer Runyon), it's surprisingly unmusical and has some major flaws. First, the DJ character, "Perry Parker," apparently based on a real Philly DJ who sued the film and settled out of court, and is played by Joe Pantoliano. Yes, the human weasel who is the very effective villain of The Matrix and Memento and other films. He has neither the voice nor persona of a DJ and his presence is a major hole in the file. You never believe for a hot city second that he would fill Dick Clark's shoes, as is his goal in the movie.  

Second, the film has long periods without any music. Are they crazy?? Did they learn nothing from the immortal American Graffiti?? For a film that is almost totally about a '60s TV dance party, there is not nearly enough soundtrack. 

But that leads us to the film's greatest asset: the song "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," by Vince Guaraldi, best known for the Charlie Brown theme song. "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" is a tuneful, soulful, catchy song that appears several times and is always welcome. Funny that the film ignores so many lessons from similar films and instead leans on a song that has very little to do with its subject matter. 

Finally, the director. This movie was directed by Mark Rosenthal (who is from Philadelphia), and is the only movie he ever directed ... and it shows. He is normally a screenwriter, who is responsible for some decent-to-very good scripts like The Legend of Billie Jean (1985, and to be covered here at some future date) and Jewel of the Nile (1985, sequel to Romancing the Stone). He is also responsible for a lot of dreck, like Superman IV (1987), Star Trek VI (1991), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), and Planet of the Apes (2001). 

You can tell he's not used to the director's chair, since the movie never flows very well. With all the aforementioned silences and poorly cut dance numbers, the whole thing is edited in such a way to drain most of the enthusiasm away from the music. There's nothing spicy, nothing dangerous, nothing hotttttt - and so I checked out pretty early on and had to force myself to slog through the whole running length. Never a good sign. Absolute Beginners feels dangerous, even with all its own flaws. American Graffiti IS dangerous and you're never sure what might happen. This movie is mayo on indifferently toasted week-old white bread. 

Next up: Tequila Sunrise (1988)