You’re a Big Boy Now — Francis Ford Coppola

Following a brief, but productive apprenticeship with Roger Corman, young Francis Coppola continued to explore numerous opportunities in film and theater while finishing his master’s degree at UCLA. Dementia 13 proved a modest success; more importantly, it was on this set that he would meet his future wife, Eleanor. Coppola would receive a student screenwriting award in 1965, which led to a writing job with a small production company affiliated with United Artists. Shortly thereafter, Coppola bought the rights to David Benedictus’ 1963 novel You’re a Big Boy Now, and proceeded to adapt it to the screen for his thesis project. Surely, the resulting movie has got to be one of the most high profile of student films — starring multiple Academy Award nominees and greenlit with an $800,000.00 budget (considerably more than the average Corman production that Coppola cut his teeth on), it would eventually land closer to a full $1M to finish. But it was picked up for distribution by a major studio, became a critical and (modest) financial success, and even garnered an(other) Academy Award nomination for supporting actress Geraldine Page. Not bad for a newly married, 27-year-old grad student.

Coppola’s work in the ’60s is certainly worthwhile in its own right, but also shows an artist shaping himself from project to project. Dementia 13, You’re a Big Boy Now, Finian’s Rainbow, and The Rain People flit from genre to genre (horror, sex comedy, musical, & road picture, respectively) with gleeful abandon, all evidence of a filmmaker eager to explore new avenues and play with his expensive train set (apologies to Welles). You’re a Big Boy Now suggests an early dead end of sorts; while plenty of Coppola films have a wry sense of humor, screwball farce would not prove to be his strongest voice. The “big boy” in question is Bernard (Peter Kastner), a typically horny young man chafing under the ever-watchful eye of domineering parents Margery & I. H. Chanticleer (Geraldine Page & Rip Torn, married in real life at the time). Bernard works for his father at the New York Public Library, where he frolics about on roller skates and hitches rides on the book elevator. He’s a free spirit, you see, with a carefree attitude and a burning desire to break free from Mom and Dad. His parents reluctantly grant his wish, allowing him to take a room in a complex in the city. It’s run by mother hen Nora Thing (Julie Harris), an old friend of Margery. Meanwhile, Bernard catches the eye of one of his father’s secretaries, Amy (the great Karen Black, in her feature film debut), but despite her advances, Bernard becomes hopelessly enamored with the bohemian actress Barbara Darling (Elizabeth Hartman). There’s also Bernard’s chum, Raef (Tony Bill), a self-proclaimed poet and fellow library employee who is more experienced with women and enjoys dabbling with illicit substances.

All of these characters collide during Bernard’s desperate journey to get laid, and if the conclusion is fairly obvious (and typically conservative) from the outset — Bernard must learn that liberated women are crazy and settle for the “good girl” — the journey represents a fascinating time capsule. After the expressionistic black-and-white look of Dementia 13, here Coppola employs far more varied techniques in capturing the city; dollies and tracking shots make the interiors of the public library into a massive, cavernous space, while the city streets are captured in a run-and-gun handheld, vérité style. You’re a Big Boy Now occupies an interesting interstitial territory, following Richard Lester’s Beatles films (A Hard Day’s Night and Help!) as well as The Knack… and How to Get it, but predating American landmarks like The Graduate and Easy Rider. The film features wall-to-wall music by The Lovin’ Spoonful, and is enamored of strip clubs, peep shows, experimental theater, and non-stop montages. Even at a brief 100 minutes, Coppola can’t seem to find a form or rhythm to contain his ideas, leading to distended, repetitive stretches that make the film feel longer than it is.

There’s also considerable anxiety on display, and one suspects that Coppola views it from an ultimately conservative viewpoint. Bernard’s parents are cretins and hypocrites, and Harris’ oddball landlady has her own sexual dysfunctions to deal with. But the film is only slightly self-reflexive; its best scene features Bernard ripping open a peep show camera to fix the film strip that has gotten stuck in the gate (as has his tie) and denied him the release of finishing the strip tease clip. Here, sexual release, masturbation, and shame are linked directly to the film apparatus itself. Unfortunately, this sort of clear-eyed metaphor isn’t repeated again. Even worse is the film’s treatment of Barbara Darling, introduced as an obscure object of desire but ultimately reduced to a schizophrenic headcase and cock tease. The film has a lot of energy and is frequently quite funny — Torn & Page are highlights — but there are simply too many contradictory modes at play here. Ultimately, the prevailing impression is that Coppola doesn’t have a feel for this sort of thing. Fortunately, he would continue to find his footing as the decade proceeded. As we now know, better things were on the horizon.