Edward R. Pressman Movies

"He wanted to die with me and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms." A young couple goes on a Midwest crime spree in Terrence Malick's hypnotically assured debut feature, based on the 1950s Starkweather-Fugate murders. Fancying himself a rebel like James Dean, twentysomething Kit (Martin Sheen) takes off with teen baton-twirler Holly (Sissy Spacek) after shooting her father (Warren Oates) when he tries to split the pair up. Once bounty hunters discover their riverside hiding place, Kit and Holly head toward Saskatchewan, leaving dead bodies in their wake. As the law closes in, however, Holly gives herself up -- but Kit doesn't hold it against her, as he basks in his new status as a momentary folk hero. Inaugurating the use of voice-over narration that he would continue in Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick juxtaposes Holly's flat readings of her flowery romance-novel diary prose with the banal and surreal details of their journey. Singularly inarticulate with each other, Kit and Holly are more intrigued by mythic celebrity gestures, as Holly peruses her fan magazines and Kit commemorates key moments before orchestrating a properly dramatic capture for himself (complete with the right hat). The sublime visuals lend a dreamlike beauty to the couple's trip even as their actions are treated casually; Malick neither glamorizes Kit and Holly nor consigns them to the bloody end of their fame-fixated predecessors in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). With the couple's opaque dialogue and Holly's fanzine dream narration, Malick further denies an easy explanation for their crimes. Made for under 500,000 dollars, Badlands debuted at the 1973 New York Film Festival, along with Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and was released within months of two other outlaw-couple road movies, Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express and Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us. Although Badlands did not make an impression at the box office, its pictorial splendor and cool yet disquieting narrative established Malick as one of the most compelling artists to come out of early-'70s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Years before Coma, Jurassic Park, and Twister made him a household name, Michael Crichton co-wrote this amiable drug-oriented comedy, based on a novel Crichton co-authored with his brother Douglas under the pen name Michael Douglas. Peter (Robert F. Lyons) is a shaggy but straightlaced Harvard law student who feels the need for some rebellion in his life (and could use some extra money), so he takes up the offer of mid-level drug dealer John (John Lithgow) to ferry a load of marijuana from California back to Boston. En route, Peter meets Susan (Barbara Hershey), a comely hippie with whom he falls in love. Peter helps Susan avoid a drug bust and she decides to head back to Boston with him, but she finances the trip by arranging to bring back a stash of her own. At the airport, Susan runs afoul of Murphy (Charles Durning), a crooked narcotics cop who steals half the pot and attempts to blackmail her. Dealing featured the screen debut of John Lithgow; Demond Wilson (who later starred in Sanford and Son) and musician Buzzy Linhart also
appear. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

High school students struggle for social status and acceptance from the opposite sex in Out Of It. Paul (Barry Gordon) is the shy boy who asks the blonde cheerleader Christine (Lada Edmund Jr.) for a date. The two see Romeo and Juliet, but Christine tells Paul she is feeling ill. After he brings her home, he discovers she made the excuse to keep a date with Russ (John Voight), the quarterback on the football team. As the rivalry between the two teenage boys heats up, Russ injures Paul during football practice and later burns his varsity jacket. Paul retaliates by grabbing a toy handgun and humiliating Russ in front of his friends. This feature was made in 1967 and purchased for release by United Artists in the wake of Voight's role in the massively successful Midnight Cowboy. Gretchen Corbett and Peter Grad also appear in the film. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide