Having seen director, Milos Forman's two Czech b/w classics, The Fireman's Ball and The Loves of A Blonde (or a blonde In Love, as I knew it) I saw this, his first US film upon its original release. I remember it being controversial although not a big hit, but I loved it. It barely has a narrative story line, no big stars, Buck Henry being the most well known, but it just made me feel good. It wasn't one of those films preaching at one side or the other (that's kids and parents!) and just seemed to present a little of what was happening towards the end of the sixties and derive some good natured humour from it. Watching it again, I was amazed at how well it still works. There are no embarrassing moments, it looks good, sounds good and probably does you good. I have no idea why the recent Park Circus DVD release box is so subdued but then this is not a jazzy, wacky film, just a relaxed, intelligent picture of a very strange time. Wonderful.

I am not in Forman's movies but definitely, if not with his first two, with this one he is able to catch the eye. Especially after his previous one in which he presented man's life through the libido's desires to light fires and of the firmen's to put out fires like the libido put out with age.Here age again is central theme. People say that every big producer should have done 80's movie about the American teenagers or movie that shows a bathroom. In this we can see both things. How much the generations walk past each other, how much the adults do not remember their past and how much the present of their children is well known to them. Parents are always worried and will worry, that is the system in which we have decided to be. There is choice but is there any boldness? This movie is not comical, not nasty, not joyful, not sad not strange, not boring, not traditional, not well known, maybe reminds of the opposite of all this but is not one of them. Definitely in it is hinted the talent of the producer which for now is staring deeply into the psyche of his personages and slightly is touching social questions which he will rise in hi next movies.The movie is two-shifted, behind it is the music of the life, the different songs about different moments with different moods in them. It is innovative and it is interesting. But how is made that way I leave to your imagination.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

I'd love to see this again, even if just a rented VHS. I see that it's not out on DVD. Was it ever out on tape?I loved this when I saw it. But it was only the once, and I don't think I even got a chance to finish it. (It was one of very few tapes on an Alaskan fishing vessel, and it wasn't very popular with the rest).Spoilers follow:I remember the daughter that they'd thought still run-away discovering her father (Buck Henry) standing nude on the table, singing. And I remember her boyfriend, who'd suprised her father by looking like a broke hippie, but turned out to earn $90k a year. I remember some of the auditions. I remember the lessons given to the parents on how to smoke pot (killer scene!). I remember a lot of mold breaking, but I'm sad that I don't have the opportunity to see this again.Chris

A wonderful American debut from Milos Forman, who transcends a rather schematic premise ('wayward' daughter is actually quite sensible, while bourgeois parents enter a counterculture of pot-smoking and (nearly) wife-swapping orgies) with his wise European eye, which mixes clear-eyed observation with fantasy, implausibility and farce. The lead couple are acted in such a low key, you're astonished at the emotional power they generate, and while the subject matter is quite depressing, Forman's comic benevolence is always foregrounded: the convention for parents of missing children, and the accompanying lesson in parental empathy, is an American classic.