Die Saat der Liebe

There are lots of memorable/silly lines in this one. One of the best is: "I didn't come to college to cop-out". How about when the kids get together for a party? One of the guys says: "Hey, let's have a hootenanny"! A girl wisely tells him: "Get Lost".

THE YOUNG LOVERS is loaded with laugh out loud lines like this that betray the writers total lack of knowledge about how college students talked. It appears to have been written by someone trying to be hip but old enough to have remembered the films of the 30s and 40s.

The script is the real problem here. Although the idea is a good one. I just wish it had been executed more competently.

Made and released in 1964 it sells itself as a contemporary drama about a serious issue at the time: Unplanned pregnancy in college. It was a timely subject. Roe V Wade had made abortions legal only the previous year. The movie attempts to make a very good point about it's subject but gets tangled in silly, unbelievable dialog, stereotyped characters and bad casting.

Peter Fonda is totally out of his depth with this one. In fact you could make a case that Fonda was a terrible actor. But strangely it does not seem to have hurt his career. He continued to get other parts in films and still remains a working actor. In later years his laconic acting style would lend itself primarily to roles that fit that character. A good example is EASY RIDER. In the beginning I guess the producers or this film wanted an actor with the same last name as Henry Fonda to bring audiences to see it. Too bad that Peter's inherited qualities did not include his father's skill as an actor.

Five years later, a much better film was made about first loves in college. THE STERILE CUCKOO. Pass up THE YOUNG LOVERS and go see THE STERILE CUCKOO.