Based on the theatrical one-sheet and the R-rating, you're expecting a soft-core sexploitationer: you actually end up with a not-so-bad, smart "coming of age" teen dramedy. As it should be: it's written by Peter Bart (for 20th Century Fox), who you known best as the co-host, with film executive Peter Guber, of AMC's film talk and interview programs Shootout and Storymakers, as well as Encore's In the House.
True movieheads known that, after his screenwriting career, Bart was a writer at the New York Times, an Editor-In Chief at Variety, and later a Vice President of Production at Paramount Studios. While serving as the screenwriting debut for Bart, Making It was also the feature film debut for longtime TV director John Erman (Outer Limits, My Favorite Martian, Star Trek: TOS); continuing with TV series, Erman directed numerous TV movies into the early-2000s.
While Sherry Miles is what brought us (well, moi) here: we're also captivated by a cast that features early roles for the familiar Bob Balaban, David Doyle (yep, Bosley from TV's Charlie's Angels), character actor extraordinaire John Fiedler, Denny Miller, Lawrence Pressman, and Tom Troupe, along with the brother-sister thespian duo of Dick and Joyce Van Patten.
Based on the '60s best-seller, What Can You Do?, a very young Kristoffer Tabori (later of Brave New World and a Star Wars video game voice artist) stars as Phil Fuller: a 17-year-old ne'er-do-well clone of David Cassidy (who would have been perfect in the "grown up" role) living with his widowed mother (Joyce Van Patten). He quenches his self-centered needs by using the girls in his school (prom queen, Sherry Miles), his nerdy best friend (a very young Bob Balaban), and his basketball coach (Denny Miller) -- by taking up with his wife (Marlyn Mason). Meanwhile, Joyce Van has or own sexual issues: she's facing the thoughts of an abortion after shacking up with an insurance agent (played by her brother!). Then Phil deals with the issues of abortion when he gets one of his high school-conquests, pregnant.
In the end, what you get in the frames of Making It is not a sexploitation comedy, or even a "coming of age" dramedy, but an insightful examination of a pre-Roe vs. Wade world regarding the legalities surrounding abortions (then illegal in California, where this takes place, but legal in New York, where Patten's character considers going to get one).
It's pretty heavy stuff of a time and place, but without the favorable atmosphere of Fast Times of Ridgemont High -- if that film centered on Mike Damone knocking up Stacy Hamilton.
True movieheads known that, after his screenwriting career, Bart was a writer at the New York Times, an Editor-In Chief at Variety, and later a Vice President of Production at Paramount Studios. While serving as the screenwriting debut for Bart, Making It was also the feature film debut for longtime TV director John Erman (Outer Limits, My Favorite Martian, Star Trek: TOS); continuing with TV series, Erman directed numerous TV movies into the early-2000s.
While Sherry Miles is what brought us (well, moi) here: we're also captivated by a cast that features early roles for the familiar Bob Balaban, David Doyle (yep, Bosley from TV's Charlie's Angels), character actor extraordinaire John Fiedler, Denny Miller, Lawrence Pressman, and Tom Troupe, along with the brother-sister thespian duo of Dick and Joyce Van Patten.
Based on the '60s best-seller, What Can You Do?, a very young Kristoffer Tabori (later of Brave New World and a Star Wars video game voice artist) stars as Phil Fuller: a 17-year-old ne'er-do-well clone of David Cassidy (who would have been perfect in the "grown up" role) living with his widowed mother (Joyce Van Patten). He quenches his self-centered needs by using the girls in his school (prom queen, Sherry Miles), his nerdy best friend (a very young Bob Balaban), and his basketball coach (Denny Miller) -- by taking up with his wife (Marlyn Mason). Meanwhile, Joyce Van has or own sexual issues: she's facing the thoughts of an abortion after shacking up with an insurance agent (played by her brother!). Then Phil deals with the issues of abortion when he gets one of his high school-conquests, pregnant.
In the end, what you get in the frames of Making It is not a sexploitation comedy, or even a "coming of age" dramedy, but an insightful examination of a pre-Roe vs. Wade world regarding the legalities surrounding abortions (then illegal in California, where this takes place, but legal in New York, where Patten's character considers going to get one).
It's pretty heavy stuff of a time and place, but without the favorable atmosphere of Fast Times of Ridgemont High -- if that film centered on Mike Damone knocking up Stacy Hamilton.