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In Search of America (TV) More at IMDbPro »
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| Index | 13 reviews in total |
One of a Kind
Author: cresswell from West Virginia
21 January 2006
They don't write dialog like this any more. Here's a sample:
Man: I hope we're not in your way.
Hippie Girl: No, not at all. 'Cause you don't really exist. You, me,
all of us. We're just dream particles in a great cosmic jellyfish.
Odd movie with disembodied voices in the background singing, and
occasionally chanting, lyrics that vaguely have something to do with
the plot.
I bought this film for $1 and my wife and I enjoyed watching it. It's
not high art but a kind of funny window into the sixties, and what
middle-aged screen writers thought of the younger generation.
Laughably dated, but surprisingly watchable; recommended for all Jeff Bridges fans
Author: Cabaret_Camus from Dollars, Taxes
29 March 2006
This film surprised me; I didn't expect it to even be worth the $1
price of the horrible Digiview catalog, but it turned out to be nicely
acted. Veteran TV toilers Ruth McDevvit, Carl Betz, Vera Miles, Howard
Duff and even Sal Mineo turn in some rather fine performances, but of
course it's Jeff Bridges who steals the show. Early in his career, it's
(almost) the last thing Bridges would do for television, since his
breakthrough "The Last Picture Show" came out the same year. Plus,
relative newcomer Tyne Daley gives us some fantastic work (especially
during her character's childbirth scenes).
That said, the movie itself is barely mediocre. Only Bridges' acting
elevates this above the average 'made-for' (made-for-television movie)
of it's day. Filled with clichéd characters and stereotyped situations,
it might have seemed very original in, say, 1967. Coming from 1971, at
the end of the hippie movement instead of the beginning, it's just
grindingly derivative. Like most television of the time, it's painfully
obvious the writer & director have little or no understanding of the
hippie culture they're trying so earnestly to portray.
Especially the decidedly UN-psychedelic background "songs", which
mostly consist of a large male & female chorus sing/chanting bad
"poetic" commentary on what we're seeing. Think "Paint Your Wagon" on
acid (I'm sure the composer was). Near the beginning they persist in
repeating the phrase "magic bus", and you can almost hear Pete
Townshend wishing he could sue them, just to make them STOP... And
ohmigod the whistling section -- somewhere near the middle, there's a
dozen of them whistling, and I swear no two of them are in the same
key. It's positively the worst whistling ever recorded, ever. (And
maybe worth the dollar all by itself!)
The plot, also, is a sad waste of concept, although it does start out
bright, with Bridges as a clean-cut proto-hippie who (somehow)
convinces his mom, dad, and grandmother(!) to join him in 'dropping
out' and taking out in an ancient, rebuilt bus, to find themselves, and
hopefully America. Unfortunately, their tour (as far as we get to see
it) consists entirely of visiting one ramshackle rock festival,
apparently only a few days away from their suburban home. (The footage
of the festival is genuine, however, obviously shot during the setup
and daytime of some small festival somewhere, without any participation
therefrom (and no music!), but featuring lots and lots of shots of
real, genuine 1971 model hippies dancing, grooving, playing in the mud
-- all the usual stuff. But it's obvious the 'camp' was shot nowhere
near the festival itself, and the attempted montaging sometimes becomes
hilariously bad.)
So, arriving at said festival, the Olsens set up near a small enclave
of 5 hippies: the pregnant Daley & husband, Mineo's vaguely rebellious
'Burnout', the Token Black, and the Love Interest. Each character is
exactly that obvious from the start, but all of them manage to
transcend their crappy dialog and make us actually feel them as people.
Especially Glynn Turman as "Bordo", the 'shaman', who runs around
chanting and making faces in the worst possible
witch-doctor-put-a-hoodoo-on-you fashion, spouting semi-nonsense in an
ostentatious generic African accent. But somehow, someway, he actually
makes it work. And gives a fantastic touch near the end, when he slips
up and (very subtly) for just one line, talks in American to Grandma
Rose -- and then immediately spits out more mumbo-jumbo (which Grandma
fully 'digs', of course). Far out! (He would soon star in the 70's
classic "Cooley High", which set a new standard for "black" films, with
Turman's wooden-yet-somehow-compelling acting being a primary cause.)
It's not all bleak though, which justifies (I hope) this lengthy
review; after all, while writer Lewis John Carlino might not 'grok' the
hippies, it doesn't mean he doesn't get human beings. This is the same
guy who wrote "The Great Santini" and the adaptation of "I Never
Promised You A Rose Garden", after all. And director Paul Bogart
(eventually) went on to do "Torch Song Trilogy", so we know they both
had at least some talent in them. And, as I said, the ensemble's acting
is actually worthwhile here; it certainly feels as if most everybody
involved really cared about this production, and gave it their best.
So, overall, if you like to watch the craft of acting done well, you
will likely enjoy this unimportant yet unassuming little film. If, that
is, you can sit through the painful chanting chorus, the laughable
suburban-sitcom setup, and the clichéd situations with sensible
television resolutions by the end of the episode ... er, of the movie.
Which brings me to my last point: it doesn't mention it on the IMDb
here, but it seems rather clear to me that this movie was (at least at
some point) considered as a pilot episode. Without spoiling the
internal plot threads, I can tell you that, by the end, its time to
leave the festival:
Mom: Anybody know where we're going?
Son: Nope... you?
Mom (to Dad): You want to go home?
Dad: (thinks): No!
All: hahahaahahah
Swell the godawful "music", and cut to external shot of bus driving
away along a coastal highway to who-knows-where, In Search Of America.
And when I think about it, what a fantastic series it could have made!
Each week, new adventures in their completely square psychedelic bus,
discovering themselves, and America! Perhaps they even could have had a
very special episode where they stop to help a broken-down Partridge
Family, and Laurie falls in love with Bridges' character, and... on
second thought: no. But still, a TV drama starring Jeff Bridges would
have been something to see...
I should also mention that it's yet another awful transfer from
Digiview, with no features, special or otherwise.
Groovy Time Capsule
Author: aromatic-2
22 April 2001
The late 60's was a different and frightening time and place. Adolescents and adults alike were questioning who they were, why they existed, and whether these gosh-darned flower children kids might just have something. This movie shows all that as suburban Dad, Carl Betz, flower child Jeff Bridges, loose-as-a-goose grandma Ruth McDevitt take off for the road in search of America. Most of the usual made-for-TV cliches and pat solutions are offered, but the mood is so '60's, I didn't mind a bit.
Low quality 70s hippie melodrama
Author: funkyfry from Oakland CA
19 March 2007
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This film actually starts out pretty interesting but for my taste it
degenerated far too quickly into a dull and predictable melodrama. None
of the performances are particularly interesting and the camera work is
just standard TV movie stuff, so there's really no reason for anyone to
see this movie unless they are as big of a Jeff Bridges fan as I am I
guess.
Bridges plays Mike Olson, a young man who announces at a family picnic
that he is quitting college to go on the road. His parents believe he
is "just acting out" and talk about how "he has no plan". He assures
them he does have a plan, and that he needs to discover his true self
and his place in the world. So much so in fact that he invites them to
go on the road with him and purchases an antique bus to travel in,
which he and his father repair in true TV movie father-son bonding
fashion. Up until about this point in the film I was somewhat
interested in the plot and characters and I wanted to see how his
stuck-up mother (Vera Miles) was going to react to life on the road.
There's a funny scene early on where the father and son have to
convince her to take the trip with them. They show her the inside of
the bus and she gradually becomes more and more interested, finally
departing in a huff with some kind of talk about curtains versus blinds
on the windows. Bridges marvels to his dad (Carl Betz, equipped with
radio announcer voice) that she has changed her mind. Dad assures him
"electric oven... works every time!".
But the movie goes downhill almost as soon as they hit the road. It
turns out that Mike's only "plan" is to introduce them to some
"friends" of his who turn out to be random people who they meet at a
hippie rock festival. As soon as I saw the rock festival I was a bit
disappointed... particularly as it became obvious that the entire rest
of the film would take place at the festival campground and not
actually on the road. But at least I thought there might be a decent
band like, well, if they couldn't afford Hendrix or the Stones maybe
they would at least have Canned Heat or Little Feat or something like
that. No dice -- apparently the only music at this festival is some
horrible choral group with orchestra that sounded like a poor imitation
of the Fifth Dimension, coupled with an annoying announcer who's
supposed to be humorous.
Also we are introduced to a set of hippy festivalgoers and their
various medical melodramas. Kathy (Renne Jarrett) is a pretty blonde
girl with existentialism and nature on her mind, who falls in love with
Mike before revealing the fact that she needs kidney dialysis to live
and has run off to the festival to die. And 2 other campers are
determined to have a baby in their crude tent, introducing the struggle
between modern medicine and hippy ignorance (or something like that).
All in all the longer this goes on the more painful the film becomes
for anyone hoping for any element of surprise or real drama.
Basically this movie is a waste of time, although it would probably
amuse anyone who is really into the period of time in the late 60s,
early 70s and the films from that time. I'd be just as happy if I never
see it again though.
Cosmic Jelly Doughnut
Author: inspectors71 from The Man-Cave19 September 2007
Picked this one up in the Buck-a-Movie Bin at Wally World and can't
stop thinking about how good it must feel for Jeff Bridges to know In
Search of America, a baby-food-level, cutesy-poo, hippie-dippy mess of
a series pilot didn't sell.
You really have to see this glop of strained peas to appreciate how
much of an insult it is to everyone from the vast majority of silent,
hard-working Baby Boomers to their "Greatest Generation" parents.
Bridges plays the earnest college freshman who wants to . . . search
for America! So he convinces his middle-class liberal parents and
granny to hop on the hippie bus for a tour of the country (from the
locales, they never get out of the LA area; how's that for a fresh
perspective?!).
There's a whole bunch a rock concerting and baby having and voodoo
witch doctoring and failing kidneying and when it's all over, with the
warbling of some sort of Osmond/Cowsill/Partridge Family singing group
never far from the soundtrack, you're wondering if ol' Jeff might
refund your buck.
This movie was an antique by the time of its release in 1971.
Author: StevenArizona1 from Arizona, United States
6 January 2007
This movie purports to show a middle class family's attempt to figure
out what is "going down" in the America of the late 1960's. Their trip
to a rock festival is as far as their refurbished old bus gets. Without
exception, the characters are superficial stereotypes.
If you want to know which well-established Hollywood actors were
desperate for a paycheck in those days,.. just look at the credits. Sal
Mineo, I had forgotten just how badly his career had hit the skids!
Thank God, his career rebounded before his untimely death.
The writers on this television turkey were clueless. Outside of doing
weed, their insights into the "hippie movement" were laughable.
The worlds most Boring movie
Author: Bullwinkle96 from Australia
2 January 2012
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie wasn't so much as bad as it was boring. I bought it for $1 while looking for really bad movies but this wasn't bad. IT WAS BORING!!!!!!!!!!! I was so bored while watching this. They try and make it interesting and funny but failed epically. This movie was Boring! Do not watch it! If you want to watch a good movie, watch something else. If you want a really really bad movie that has bad acting and stuff, watch something else. If you want to get tired, bored and not entertained at all, this is the perfect movie for you. It is extremely boring. Something about birth and Woodstock. I hear Woodstock was amazing and NOT BORING!!!! Do Not Watch this Film
Stupid, boring, and pointless
Author: Mixxy_Mona from United States
29 August 2010
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie is a heaping pile of garbage. The entire movie is grainy, the audio is poor and the acting is terrible. Let's put it this way, I got this at a DOLLAR store for FIFTY CENTS. The plot is totally unrealistic. A college dropout convinces his family to sell their house, and tour the country in a house-bus. There's a snarky old granny, the concerned but wanting to be hip parents, and the annoying lead who falls for a dying hippie chick at a woodstock-type concert where they park for a while. There's some racist depictions of black hippies as basically African witch doctors, complete with bone through nose. I did not find any of the characters likable, which made this movie feel dragged out and ultimately lost any point it was trying to make about the counter-culture of the sixties. I say booo to this movie, try watching if you like old drugsploitation and sixties pulp stuff, but don't expect much.
First let me say that I remember this film vividly from seeing it as a 10 year old when it first aired. I find it all quaint and sweet..from a time I remember fondly. It's part of a genre of movies from the period addressing changing social concerns: the ecology, anti-war movement, youth culture, changing views on marriage etc... This one, of course, was about narrowing the generation gap. It's the TV Movie version of this, however, with it's silly sweetness and attempt at depth. I am perhaps more tolerant of it as I am a fan of both 60's and 70's TV movies and Hippy/Generation Gap movies of the period. Yes..the music is trite and seems strange now. At the time it fit for a family TV Movie. The film would have been much improved by using more relevant rock music of the day (like The Strawberry Statement). By the way, I ditto the comments about great cast and standout acting by Bridges and Daley. 60's and 70's TV movie regulars McDevitt, Betz, Miles, Duff and Hunter are always worth watching. And yes, it is reminiscent of the Partridge Family in many ways. It seemed so at the time, too.
A forgotten blip on Jeff's resume
Author: Poseidon-3 from Cincinnati, OH11 April 2008
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Fans of Bridges may enjoy checking out this pilot for a proposed series, though it's likely to leave most viewers scrambling for the fast-forward button on their remote. He plays a college student who shocks his upper middle-class family by announcing that he's going to 'drop-out', meaning to go see the country in a rehabbed old bus and eschew all the suburban trappings he's grown up with. In a surprise development, his parents, Betz and Miles, and his sassy grandma McDevitt decide that, rather than wonder and worry over his decision, they will drop out, too! The foursome loads into the bus and sets off across the land. Unfortunately, their big adventure leads solely to one place; the dingy, dirty site of a rock festival, packed with hippies. The hippie friends include Anderson and his pregnant girlfriend Daly, antagonistic Mineo, gibberish-spouting Thurman and musically inclined, mysteriously solemn Jarrett. Before long, Bridges has begun to fall for Jarrett, but her straight-laced parents, Duff and Hunter, have come to retrieve her. Several conflicts and dramatic situations develop and are resolved before the family departs, ostensibly to continue its journey on a weekly series that, unsurprisingly, did not develop. Betz and Miles make a believable couple and have occasional moments of effective acting. He had had years of experience as a daddy on "The Donna Reed Show" and she was still quite lovely in spite of her rather dowdy role here. Bridges is young, lean, fresh and generally likable. McDevitt tries awfully hard to be spunky and amusing in her somehow grating role, though she does get a nice little moment near the end. Duff and Hunter do all right, obviously slumming for the fee of a guest star appearance. Jarrett isn't a particularly appealing or interesting, making a key storyline less compelling that it could have been. What's really sad is seeing former film star Mineo reduced to playing the non-role of an over-aged druggie in a piece of disposable junk like this. The film was clearly shot in a thatch of woods somewhere while stock footage of a Woodstock-ish festival is spliced in to try to give the piece some verisimilitude. The music for the film is likely to please only the smallest percentage of viewers as it's a loud, ersatz Mamas and the Papas or 5th Dimension imitation. There's also a ludicrous scene in which a turkey (of all things!) is placed in the stove on the bus and somehow burns pitch black in just a few minutes. Probably the most enjoyable segment of the movie is when Betz and Bridges strip off their shirts to work on the bus, painting and repairing away years of neglect. Nothing that follows is quite as watchable as that!
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