YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW 1966lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/b/post-preview

Coming-of-age films have always been with us, but they really came into their own during the youth-obsessed '60s.The post-Baby Boom "youthquake" of the '60s, which impacted American culture in ways both social and economic,was the perfect breeding ground for films pertaining to social rebellion, sexual awakening, and the challenging ofauthority. As a genre, coming-of-age films were tailor-made for the New Hollywood. A Hollywood desperate to courtthe new-found economic clout of the young through "personal" films populated with anti-heroes and comprised ofromanticized depictions of the struggles of the post-adolescent set (almost always always male). Given that coming-of-age films have also always afforded ample opportunities for sex, drugs, and the baring of female flesh, it'snot surprising that Hollywood's old-guard (usually rather reluctant to respond to change) proved so receptive to eventhe more way-out, avant-garde entries in the genre. After all, whether audiences be young or old, sex always sells.

Time has granted Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967) the uncontested title of representative coming-of-age film for ageneration, but my favorite entry in cinema’s “pain of growing up” sweepstakes is this delightfully offbeat comedyfrom a young Francis Ford Coppola (ony twenty-seven at the time). You’re a Big Boy Now was Coppola's first filmfor a major studio as well as his master's thesis submission to the UCLA film school, and as such, displays anengagingly youthful lack of discipline and the novice filmmaker's fondness for camera trickery...two things that don'texactly qualify as liabilities in '60s films.

Elizabeth Hartman as Barbara Darling

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Peter Kastner as Bernard Chanticleer

Geraldine Page as Mrs. Chanticleer

Julie Harris as Miss Thing

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Rip Torn as Mr. Chanticleer

Karen Black as Amy Partlett

You’re a Big Boy Now is about the misadventures of Bernard (scornfully nicknamed “Big Boy” by his self-centeredfather), a woefully under-experienced 19-year-old who, at the insistence of his father and against the protests of hisobsessively over-protective mother, goes off to live on his own in Manhattan. Bernard’s naiveté and propensity tolose himself in flights of fantasy consistently get him into trouble as he attempts to navigate life and love along thebumpy path to adult independence.

Given how male writers and filmmakers never seem to tire of wistful, semi-autobiographical tomes hearkening backto the days of their sexual awakening; there’s never been a shortage of these “rites of passage” films to choosefrom. Indeed, one could probably fill an airplane hangar with them. Inherently similar in tone, most suffer from a kindof willful masculine myopia and gender fear which finds endless charm in the sexual fumblings of doltish, sociallyawkward, physically unattractive, emotionally superficial young men who nonetheless feel they rate the designated"dream girl" figure. Being the wish-fulfillment fantasies they are, our callow hero usually does get the longed-forbeauty, but it’s a certainty that before the end credits roll, said dream girl will reveal herself to be somehowundeserving of his noble affections (take THAT pretty girls who snubbed the director in high-school!).

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Message Received: Women Are Terrifying

You’re a Big Boy Now doesn’t deviate far from this well-trod narrative path, but Coppola invests the proceedingswith such creative exuberance (every scene holds at least one element of surprise - whether visually, verbally, or inthe goofily straight/comic performances he elicits from his game cast), that the film feels more like a surreal satire ofthe genre rather than a representative of the genuine article.

Tony Bill as the exotically named Raef del Grado, Bernard's more sexually-assured friend

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMProviding, as it does, a subjective view of the overwhelming and perilous adult world as it's perceived by thesheltered Bernard, there is much to enjoy in the film's many eccentric visual flourishes, absurdist characters, andanarchic editing style. With its blaring (and rather good) score of pop songs by The Lovin' Spoonful, You’re a BigBoy Now is a '60s film to its core, complete with an overarching air of reproach directed at middle-class repressionand sexual guilt.

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"Don't eat too much, don't stay out late, don't go to suspicious places or playcards, and stay away from girls! But most of all Bernard, try to be happy."

I'd always thought of Peter Kastner (right) as looking like a cross between RobertMorse & Michael J Pollard, but a friend nailed it when he said Peter reminded him

of Ernie (Barry Livingston) from My Three Sons.The late Peter Kastner starred in his own TV series in 1968, The Ugliest Girl in

Town; about a man who poses as a female model and becomes a boyish fashionsensation, a la Twiggy

PERFORMANCESThe desirable, yet dangerous, female is as much a staple of the coming-of-age film as the virginal hero having amore sexually sophisticated best friend/adviser (in this instance, the appropriately unctuous Tony Bill). When itcomes to scary women, You’re a Big Boy Now has probably the most disturbing, dick-withering example of thatgynophobic archetype ever to come out the free-love era: the man-hating, aspiring actress/go-go dancer, BarbaraDarling.

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The character of Barbara Darling in less capable hands would be just another bitch-goddess cliché, but someonehad the inspired genius to cast against type, and the late Elizabeth Hartman manages to be downright chilling, yetterribly funny, in the role. What makes her performance here so amazing is that I saw You're a Big Boy Now onlyafter I had already seen Hartman in A Patch of Blue (1965), The Group (1966), and The Beguiled (1971); all rolesemphasizing the gentle, almost fragile vulnerability of this immensely likable actress. Though obviously talented(she was Academy Award® nominated and won the Golden Globe for A Patch of Blue ), there is nothing about herperformances in any of those films that would lead you believe she could be so aggressively carnal andconvincingly, psychotically, mercurial. In a transformation the likes of which I've rarely seen, the Elizabeth Hartmanof her earlier films is nowhere to be seen in You're a Big Boy Now. She gives my favorite performance in the film.

Displaying her vast range, the man-eater of You're a Big Boy Now is light yearsaway from the Elizabeth Hartman in this promotional clip.

A Cinderella Named Elizabeth: 1965 featurette for "A Patch of Blue"

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

You're a Big Boy Now has some great shots of Manhattan and New York's seedy Times Square area that predatethe gritty images in Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Klute (1971). It's fun seeing theater marquees advertising films likeBorn Free and The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming.

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THE STUFF OF DREAMS

What's fun about watching the early works of accomplished directors is trying to catch a glimpse of some kind ofnascent artistry or budding style that would later emerge as a defining trait or characteristic of their work. To look atthe early films of Roman Polanski or Woody Allen is to see the beginnings of a style and preoccupation with themesthey continue to bring to their work even to this day.

Watching You're a Big Boy Now, I was left with two thoughts: 1) with this film's pre-MTV kinetic rhythms, how is itthat all of Coppola's subsequent musical outings (Finian's Rainbow, One From the Heart, and The Cotton Club) allturned out so flat?; 2) Coppola shows such a flair for comedy here, I'm surprised he hasn't had many morecomedies on his resume.

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Although You're a Big Boy Now is not a particularly well-known or talked about title today, Elizabeth Hartman andGeraldine Page were both nominated for Golden Globes for their performances, with Miss Page (married to co-starRip Torn at the time) garnering an Oscar® nod as well. Best of all (for me, anyway, because I'm such a big fan) thefilm gave Karen Black her film debut. Pretty classy pedigree for a director's first major film.

Copyright © Ken Anderson

About Ken Anderson

LA-based writer and lifelong film enthusiast. You can read more of his essays on films of the ’60s & ‘70s at DreamsAre What Le Cinema Is For

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