Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786302060829 Format: Color ISBN: 6302060826 Label: United American Video Languages: Array Manufacturer: United American Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: United American Video Release Date: 1991-04-16 Running Time: 74 Studio: United American Video Theatrical Release Date: 1971-02-16
Customer Reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Now It's My Daughter's Turn... Comment: I remember this movie on television when I was a teen. It was very powerful and moving then. It truely left an impression on me. I recently purchased it on DVD. Now it's my 15 year old daughter's turn to see this wonderful movie. Customer Rating: Summary: Maybe I'll Come Home in The Spring Comment: If you're a baby boomer and a fan of the 70's ABC movies then this classic Sally Field movie worth seeing again. Customer Rating: Summary: Now We Know Where She Got "You Love Me, You Really Love Me" Comment: This must have been one of those avantgarde films of the Seventies to promote the hippie lifestyle. Drugs with a capital D is what it was all about, and the rebellion of children who are not trusted or shown respect by their disapproving parents. What appealed to me was the fact that Linda Ronstadt's songs (those I have never heard) were used at intervals to show how Denice really felt. Sally Field and the actress who played her younger sister both had little girl voices, and had never grown up -- due to the fact that the extremely strict parents had never let them grow, and so Denice decided to fly away to find herself in the hippie world. First, she had gone to Chicago, but finding no one substantial there, she ended up a year later out in L.A. where the beautiful people find their fixes.
The issue I found at the sale showed a beautiful Sally Field, as far from Gidget as possible, with a young David Carradine, rough around the edges. The street scene has a motorcycle formation which did not take place in the film. After she returned to the upscale home complete with swimming pool, the character played by Carradine first stole a pest control truck and then an ice cream truck to get to her parents' home. The younger sister hid her drugs in capsules which looked like real medicine. All of the family took vitamins at the dinner table, but the food was pretty terrible.
The hippies back then are what we now see as the homeless, and this town is full of them. They scavenge through the dumpsters and garbage cans for food, even though they can get two free meals a day at the local missions. One church group even brings soup to Market Square for any and everybody to take free of charge. This backward town which starred a bear killer, an animal abuser, and a drughead to perform before 3,000 people (parents such as Denice had with their young children in tow) take good care of the homeless from who knows where. While the girls' father and mother go through their bedrooms searching for drugs, it defeats their strict discipline when we see them hosting a rauncous party of adults playing "Charades" in a gross, adult scene of drunken participants. Their drug is liquor (and sleeping pills) and thus the lavish lifestyle is deceiving. They could live down in Podunk Florida or Branson, Missouri, wherever the wine flows freely. I thought this would be about the Age of Aquarius; instead, it shows clearly how parents can force their young teenagers to leave home to seek some freedom of choices. Soon, they will be grownups and certainly don't want to be like their unrelenting, uncompromizing parents. It's a shame to have to see this on the screen to realize how some kids had no choice but to leave home. I left home when I was 17. Customer Rating: Summary: I had no idea this was a made for tv movie Comment: I saw this in 1981 at the age of 13. I was starting to show a more rebellious nature according to my parents, and I just wanted to see what this was about. It was to me about wanting to have acceptance, and hsve a relationship. Sally returns from hanging around with the hippies, and finds herself ridiculed by her parents as she wants to bury the hatchet for running away like she did, and her sister now wants to do the same thing, and in the middle of all this is Sally's character waiting for her love to come, and get her, but imagine her surprise when he's working as an ice cream man, and her sister runs away. I found this movie looking back after 25 years of watching it was about the fact that parents and children don't really know how to talk to one another. Parents seem to want to dominate thier children, and not allow them too many outside influences. I know with me all I did was read a lousy book about Bob Dylan, and I was branded a rebel. I also feel that children don't know how to talk to their parents either as there's a lack of respect, and also mistrust. I'm not saying that parents are not to be trusted with a child's feelings, but that sometimes in their quest to know and grow in the world they will look at outside forces because it's going to be inevitable. When I was reading about Bob Dylan it was because it was a name that was stuck in my brain from childhood, and I wanted to know why. I had no interest in his music, or anything like that, but my father threw down the gauntlet by making him look bad, and weird, and to me that was enough to feul my interest even more, and yes I did listen to his music. Do I thank him for wetting my appetite more for knowledge, or do I look upon him in pity because he wasn't comfortable with himself to be open to the fact I was interested, and just acknowledge this. I have to remember that my son's growing up, and there's going to be times when he listens to weird music, or watches weird movies, or wants to read about people that I may feel not pleasant about, but I have to remember that it's better to just allow the interest, and not provide any feedback unless there's a serious change in his behavior, and with me I read about Bob Dylan a month before I heard the first song from him. I found this to be a rather sad movie of a family that I'm sure tried to get along, but couldn't because of feelings of inadequcies that made them want to build a shell of armor that they could hide behind, and act tough. That's the way the world is, and to me that's the biggest crime of all. What's more sad is the ending as Sally's character is submitting to being like her mother, and is vacumning. I feel that if there was a heart to heart talk with the two women there may have been some healing, but alas there was none, and if this movie were to be remade I wonder how the ending would turn out? Customer Rating: Summary: One of my favorite movies! Comment: I love this film because it can be analyzed on so many different levels, in terms of parent-child relationships and the whole family dynamic. The film begins with Sally Field coming home as a burnt out hippie, basically trying to go back to the life she left behind, only to find out that nothing has changed, and her parents never learned what drove her away from home in the first place. The only difference is that now she sees her parents repeating the same mistakes with her younger sister. Her sister, played by Lane Bradbury, is popping downers, and the parents are going through her room, yelling at her, berating her for using drugs, yet the parents have a medicine cabinet overflowing with pills. They are constantly telling Sally and her sister to "Take a vitamin!", "Take a sleeping pill!", "Take a couple of aspirin!". Then they can't understand why their daughter starts popping pills.
Meanwhile, Sally has her own problems trying to readjust to coming back home. She cuts off her hair, goes back to playing with dolls, and basically tries to go back to being the kid she was a year earlier, but realizes she can't, especially since she keeps having flashbacks of her hippie life, and the boyfriend she left behind (played by David Carradine).
Granted, the movie is dated, but that is one of the reasons I recommend it. Because it takes the viewer back to another time and place; before anybody had ever heard of Osama Bin Ladin or terror cells or Internet chat rooms, any of the things we take for granted today. I highly recommend this movie.