Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1971)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Jeffrey Young

Writers:

Richard Farina (novel)
Robert Schlitt (screenplay)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The man who saw it coming before it hit the fan.

Plot:

Free-thinking student tries to put up with life at a straight-laced college in 1958. |

Plot Keywords:

College Student | Fraternity | Rebellion | 1950s | Activist

Cast

Barry Primus	...	Gnossos 'Paps' Pappadopoulis
David Downing	...	Heff
Susan Tyrrell	...	Jack
Philip Shafer	...	Flip
Bruce Davison	...	Fitzgore
Zack Norman	...	Mojo
Raul Julia	...	Juan Carlos Rosenbloom
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Larry Albright	...	Fraternity Brother
Ved Bandhu	...	George
Marion Clarke	...	Pamela Watson-May
John Coe	...	Motherball
John Collin	...	Sergeant Woody
John Davis	...	Male Student
Linda De Coff	...	Kristin
Guy Deghy	...	Kovacs
Jaime Escobar	...	Cuban Hustler
Scott Fisher
The Five Satins	...	Themselves
Martin Gleitsman	...	Radio Announcer Voice
Nicholas Hammond	...	Byron Agneau
Nick Hammond	...	Agneau
Cynthia Harris	...	Beth
Marilyn Hengst	...	Judy Lumpers
Sue Holliday	...	Vampire Girl
Paul Jabara	...	Heap
Calvin Jung	...	Harold Wong
Shi Khanma	...	Irma
Judy Kiehl	...	Female Student
Murray the 'K'	...	Himself
Fred Krebs	...	Fred Krebs
Mark Malicz	...	Komenski
John Moore	...	Fraternity Brother
James Noble
Bud Palmer	...	Youngblood
Blanca Romero	...	Mrs. Motherball
John Ryan	...	Oeuf
Birdie Schroeder	...	Counterlady
Karel Stepanek	...	Count Derassy
Victor Vasquez	...	Cuban Priest
Luis Vera	...	Cuban Doctor
Bruce Witkin	...	Sports Announcer Voice

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:R

Filming Locations:

Allegheny College - 520 N. Main Street, Meadville, Pennsylvania, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Quotes:

Gnossos 'Paps' Pappadopoulis: Why are you so dressed up?
Fitzgore: It's Rush Week.
Gnossos 'Paps' Pappadopoulis: You gonna kill the fatted calf?
Fitzgore: No, we're having steak.
[Gnossos rolls his eyes]

The only inspired thing about this is the title

Based on the novel by Richard Farina, "Been down so long it looks like up to me" is not so much a coherent story as a series of chapters concerning a young (con-)man's college years in the late fifties. He experiments with drugs, free love and proceeds to party and disregard every rule, as if he were already living the late sixties. This may sound like a fun hippie comedy, but unfortunately it's not.

The film features some familiar faces before they became familiar: A very young Bruce Davison, the late great Raul Julia in one of his earliest roles and even a Pre-Spiderman, Post-Sound of music Nicholas Hammond. Unfortunately, the movie is not about any of them but about a pathological liar named Gnossos, played by Barry Primus.

Gnossos keeps pulling scams and deceiving everybody he meets, but not in a very enjoying of funny way. In fact the character is so unlikable and his misadventures so unrelated to each other that the movie soon becomes tedious. When he starts having bad drug trips this viewer just didn't care anymore and wanted the film to end. But it gets even more depressing from there on.

4 out of 10