Filmed on "The University of the Pacific" campus in Stockton, R.P.M. (political REVOLUTIONS per minute) at the time of its 1970 release was regarded as the worst of the "counterculture-revolution-on-campus" sub-genre of films. It has not improved with age and almost 45 years later is notable only for two good "Melanie" songs "Stop! I Don't Wanna' Hear It Anymore" and "We Don't Know Where We're Going" which play over three nice montage sequences of the President of fictional Hudson College coming and going to the campus Administration Building.
Its fundamental problem (other than having hacks like Stanley Kramer as acting for-the-camera director and Erich Segal as writer) is that the focus is on adults rather than on students. Although casting an aging Gary Lockwood as the student leader meant than no under twenty viewer could suspend their disbelief enough to buy into the premise. Even the extras playing the sundry students look to be in their thirties; perhaps their list of demands included unrestricted access to the swimming pool in "Cocoon".
The adults are Ann-Margret (Rhoda) and Anthony Quinn (Prof. F.W.J. 'Paco' Perez), whose performances simply do not complement each other in the few scenes they have together (blame Kramer's directing). Ann's big emotional scene midway through the film is an absolute mockfest moment. Poor Ann was one of those women who did not age gently but rather by plateau; she hit her first one in the late 1960's - almost overnight losing all her youthful glow. The idea was to make a 53 year-old professor seem hip because he lived with his 25-year-old graduate student, but the age disparity seems less between them than between Rhonda and a typical graduate student.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Its fundamental problem (other than having hacks like Stanley Kramer as acting for-the-camera director and Erich Segal as writer) is that the focus is on adults rather than on students. Although casting an aging Gary Lockwood as the student leader meant than no under twenty viewer could suspend their disbelief enough to buy into the premise. Even the extras playing the sundry students look to be in their thirties; perhaps their list of demands included unrestricted access to the swimming pool in "Cocoon".
The adults are Ann-Margret (Rhoda) and Anthony Quinn (Prof. F.W.J. 'Paco' Perez), whose performances simply do not complement each other in the few scenes they have together (blame Kramer's directing). Ann's big emotional scene midway through the film is an absolute mockfest moment. Poor Ann was one of those women who did not age gently but rather by plateau; she hit her first one in the late 1960's - almost overnight losing all her youthful glow. The idea was to make a 53 year-old professor seem hip because he lived with his 25-year-old graduate student, but the age disparity seems less between them than between Rhonda and a typical graduate student.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.