Review of Making It

Making It (1971)
6/10
Teenage Hedonist
19 June 2014
Kristoffer Tabori attained some brief glory as a teenage idol with the release of Making It. I saw it on the big screen and Tabori was quite the sexy package for teen girls and gay teen boys.

It's Tabori's mission in life to work his way through the student body at his high school and beyond. Early on in the film his basketball coach's wife Marlyn Mason picks him up and gives him a lift and thereafter she gets several lifts from Tabori.

Tabori is living with his widowed mother Joyce Van Patten and oddly enough face the same problems in the film, that of an abortion. Joyce gets involved with an insurance agent Dick Van Patten her brother in real life. Knowing that the casting was a wee bit freaky.

Making It came out two years before Roe v. Wade and the film shows the problems of getting a legal abortion in California in any event. It was quite the intrusive process for women. They had to go before a panel of doctors who would judge whether the reasons were sound. Van Patten talks of going to New York where under Governor Rockefeller abortions were made legal before Roe v. Wade.

Seeing Making It again reminded me how much Kristoffer Tabori looked like David Cassidy who was just hitting it big as a bubblegum idol. The film gave Tabori a brief run at teenybopper idol status. But Tabori wanted to be a serious actor and he's certainly had a fine career in front of and behind the camera.

Note some other performances like Lawrence Pressman as the English teacher who isn't taken in by Tabori's charm. Sherry Miles as the pretty but dumb teen queen, Bob Balaban as Tabori's nerdy best friend, and Denny Miller as the basketball coach.

Things have changed quite a bit since the Seventies and Making It shows how far things have come.
10 out of 18 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed