Drive, He Said (1971)

Please don't spend money on this.

Absolutely amazing

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Hector (William Tepper) is a star basketball player for the College basketball team he plays for, the Leopards. His girlfriend, Olive (Karen Black), does not know whether to stay with him or leave him. And his friend, Gabriel (Michael Margotta), who may have dropped out from school and become a protester, wants desperately not to get drafted for Vietnam.This film marks Jack Nicholson's directorial debut, a chair he would not return to often. The casting was nothing special (though Karen Black is always great); the best part may be Bruce Dern as the coach. Some day he will get the full respect he deserves.Roger Ebert found the film "disorganized", but also said it was "occasionally brilliant" with the performances being "the best thing in the movie", including the "laconic charm" of Tepper. This seems fair. For all the good things that can be said, it never really hits home hard enough, and may be dated.

Before he became a journalist, Eugene McCarthy's speechwriter, and then an Oscar-winning screenwriter (The Candidate), Jeremy Larner was a successful novelist. His first effort, Drive, He Said (Delacorte Press, 1964) won the $10,000 Delta Prize for best first novel, beating out over a thousand other manuscripts. The protagonist of Drive, He Said is Hector Bloom, "a half-hick, half-Jew, left-handed neurotic basketball player from the green hills of California" who attends a small, upstate New York university on the Hudson River. The book's other protagonist is Bloom's roommate, Gabriel Reuben, a New York City Jew from an affluent family who nonetheless harbors revolutionary political sentiments. Bloom plays great basketball, sleeps with a professor's wife, and confusedly ponders his future with pro recruiters while Reuben plots seditious mayhem—and eventually acts out by burning down the campus! Written before America's full engagement in Vietnam, Drive, He Said is more centrally concerned with early 1960s cultural vertigo, the vagaries of American Dream ideology, and arms race anxieties. Scripted just after the Sixties by first-time director Jack Nicholson in collaboration with author Jeremy Larner (and un-credited help from Robert Towne and Terrence Malick), Drive, He Said zeroes in on the radicalization of an All-American college jock during the era of Vietnam War protests—which were at their height when the movie was being filmed on the campus of the University of Oregon (Eugene, OR). The somewhat chaotic structure of Drive He Said, while off-putting to some critics, nicely enacts the turmoil of the time. Performances are, however, a mixed bag. The redoubtable Bruce Dern is excellent as Hector's mean-spirited coach. Karen Black is equally convincing as Olive, Hector's troubled mistress. Michael Margotta, who plays Hector's roommate, the increasingly psychotic campus radical is also good. Unfortunately William Tepper, an unknown cast as Hector lacks the charisma to carry off the lead role. Filmmaker Henry Jaglom and screenwriter Robert Towne both play professors and David Ogden Stiers and Cindy Williams appear in minor roles. Screened at the 6th Annual CineVegas Film Festival (2004) where Jack Nicholson was honored with the Festival's Marquee Award, Drive, He Said has not been released on VHS or DVD.

One of only three films Jack Nicholson directed. This film was kind of a dud at the time, which probably explains why Nicholson's secondary career never flowered. I have to say, he did have some talent as a director. Unfortunately, Drive, He Said isn't that good of a film. Well directed, but still a bit of a bore. William Tepper plays a college basketball star (in Ohio, as the whole film is meant to make the audience think of Kent State). His roommate, Michael Margotta, is a hippie activist who is about to be drafted. Karen Black, who made a big splash opposite Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, plays a faculty wife with whom Tepper is having an affair. The big problem with the film is that Tepper is pretty boring and Margotta is extremely annoying. There are some good scenes, but it just doesn't come together. This one is more a candidate for rewatch than A Safe Place (which is on the same Criterion disc), though. I felt like there was something I wasn't getting. I may not have entirely liked it, but it was intriguing.

I lived in Eugene in 1971. Took part in some of the "crowd'' scenes. Never had a chance to see the movie, though. Something, though I'm not sure what, recently jogged my memory about the filming of "Drive.''I've read the reviews. Not surprised. The crew seemed a little wigged out, like most of us were in those days. I had read something in the Register-Guard about the film needing extras, so some friends and I went to take part. One of those crazy, 1970s Eugene days. Oh those were the days!At the time, I didn't know any of the names of the people in the film except director Nicholson. Would love to have the chance to see what was banned in Oregon at the time. I remember the filming causing a stir, but never saw the completed project to find out why.Are there any copies of this movie available?