This 1982 comedy with drama was based on Cameron Crowe's 1981 non-fiction book about a year in the life of a group of Clairmont, California high school students. To write the book, Crowe, then in his twenties, posed as a high school student for the entire school year so that he could get up close and personal with the kids he was writing about. The result was a compelling report from the front on the fun, challenges, and heartbreak of being a teenager in the late 1970s.
Universal acquired the screen rights to the book and reportedly toyed for a while with making the film about Crowe -- about a reporter who goes undercover at a high school. But eventually this angle was dropped and the decision was made to make a film that focused just on the kids. Crowe himself wrote the screenplay and Universal hired NYU grad Amy Heckerling to make her feature film directing debut on the project.
Fast Times was made at the height of the 80s teen sex comedy craze and the film certainly contains a number of such elements (including the famous "Phoebe Cates coming out of the pool in slow motion" sequence). But Crowe and Heckerling both made the decision to make the characters and their adventures as grounded and realistic as possible, especially when it came to the sexual material. In contrast to the sniggering handling of such material in most of the teen comedies of the era, Heckerling presents the sex scenes as awkward, clumsy, and vulnerable -- in other words, as real. The result is a film that it very funny, but also serious, sometimes painful, and ultimately touching.
The movie is noted for launching the careers of many actors who had big careers in the 80s and a number who continue to work today, including Sean Penn (in his final role before he apparently lost his sense of humor), Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, Eric Stoltz, Forrest Whitaker, and Nicholas Cage. Ray Walston is terrific as the hardass teacher who clashes with Penn's quintessential surfer dude Jeff Spicoli and Vincent Schiavelli is great fun as a mildly ghoulish science teacher. There are also amusing cameos by film producer Stuart Cornfeld and film director (and another NYU grad) Martin Brest. The film also has a killer soundtrack.
Universal had no idea what to do with this movie, since it was too serious to be promoted as a pure comedy and it was too funny to be promoted as a drama. Rumor has it that the studio -- figuring it had a turkey on its hands -- toyed with the idea of skipping a theatrical release entirely and selling Fast Times directly to cable TV. Finally they decided on dumping the movie in the dog days of August in a limited release. They sold it as a dopey sex comedy, as evidence by the truly lousy poster seen above. No one was more surprised than Universal when the film became a well-reviewed hit. And of course, Fast Times went on to become a classic of its kind and has a passionate following to this day.
Awesome. Totally awesome
