Fiebre musical

70's time capsule is chock full of fantastic music, the soundtrack is justly famous, and excellent actors. The basic story line is David vs. Goliath but is entertainingly played and provides a look at what FM radio used to be and shows what's been lost by the homogenization of the airwaves, at least the non satellite airwaves.

Good concert footage of Jimmy Buffet and Linda Ronstadt give a sense of what live concerts were at the time. Of the performers while all are good a few stand out. Martin Mull is a hoot as the egotistical and somewhat child like disc jockey Eric Swan and the great Eileen Brennan makes a lot out of her small part as the world weary DJ Mother. No one did world weary as well as Eileen Brennan. Not a great picture but for any music lover unmissable.

A film with a great soundtrack of the late 70's rock era although it belies the lyrics from the title song where Steely Dan sings about setting the mood for getting it on with a girl with funk and reggae because there is no funk or reggae in the movie. The film has a simple premise in the radio station staff rebels over the commercialization of what is a commercialized business to begin with. This is not a public or college station but regular commercial station but they take on the corporate world in a strike against the stations plans to be top 40 rock rather than free-form album rock with non-stop music and enlist their listeners help in their fight against the man. Despite this most of the songs in the movie aren't deep album cut album rock but mostly top 40 rock single releases. It does feature a great soundtrack in music by Steely Dan, The Eagles, Boston, Steve Miller, Boz Scaggs, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, Joe Walsh, The Doobie Brothers, Queen, Billy Joel, Walter Egan, Foreigner, Reo Speedwagon, and concert footage of Jimmy Buffett and Linda Ronstadt. A good cast which includes Eileen Brenna, Martin Mull, Clevon Little, Michael Brandon, Alex Karas and James Keach. There are some moments of good satirical comedy but kind of weak as a story but that's OK because it's fun ride in a rambling sort of way. David Myers is the film's cinematographer who compiled quite a resume in the 70's in music films and documentaries photographing Woodstock, Mads Dogs & Englishmen, The Grateful Dead, Soul to soul, Wattstax, Elvis on Tour and Renaldo & Clara. John Alonzo directs in his first and only theatrical film. He did go on to direct a couple of made-for TV movies but he had been a cinematographer and returned to photographing films. He had been a cinematographer on such films as Vanishing Point, Harold & Maude, sounder, Lady Sings the Blues and Chinatown and continued filming up until his death with such films as Scarface, Star Trek: Generations, Steel Magnolias and Cool World. although not a great film, this movie is worth a look. It debuted on screens in the spring of 1978 and is a great snapshot and soundtrack of the late 70's rock radio. I would give it a 7.0 out of 10.

It may not be a cinematic masterpiece, but the 1978 movie FM has something going for it as, admittedly in its dated late 1970s way, it somehow foresaw the corporate turn that the radio media would take in years to come. And it does so with a wall-to-wall soundtrack of late 70s Top 40 memories that now fall under the rubric of Classic Rock. In essence, this is the classic rock response to the disco onslaught of Saturday NIGHT FEVER.

Michael Brandon is Jeff Dugan, the program director at QSKY radio in Los Angeles who oversees an on-air staff of wild and crazy disc jockeys (Alex Karras; Cleavon Little; Eileen Brennan; Cassie Yates; Martin Mull) that, through playing what the L.A. populace wants to hear and with limited commercial interruptions, has made the radio station Number One in the second largest media market in the nation. Things seem to be looking up, until "the boys upstairs" decide how much better things could be if more commercials were aired between blasts of Steely Dan, Queen, and Boston. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with Dugan and his merry band, but the top brass envision QSKY just becoming one big infomercial. This, however, leads to an insane backlash from the QSKY staff and, eventually, a takeover of the station that nearly results in rioting on the streets.

This is definitely pretty thin stuff for a film that was allegedly the inspiration for CBS-TV's fine sitcom "WKRP In Cincinnati" (though the pilot of that series was being filmed at the same time FM was being filmed, so the resemblance is only coincidental). But while this film is no NETWORK, in terms of films that attack the decay of the media, FM still works in getting its situations across. Maybe the idea that a radio station's staff would rail against corporate interference sounds a bit daft, but the notion that a big conglomerate (Clear Channel, for example) would turn a radio station into one big box in which the music is only the filler between attempts to part listeners from their hard-earned money isn't so easy to laugh at anymore.

FM has a lot going for it. For one, it was the only feature film directed by John A. Alonzo, one of Hollywood's premiere cinematographers; his credits include CHINATOWN, BLACK Sunday, SCARFACE, and parts of Steven Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. And for another, that wall-to-wall soundtrack of what we now call classic rock is enhanced by actual concert footage of Jimmy Buffett and Linda Ronstadt. Buffett's performance of "Livingston Saturday Night" reminds one of what he was decades before his Margaritaville was hijacked by Nashville pretenders like Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith. And Linda, normally a very stage-shy performer, asserts herself boldly on searing renditions of "Tumbling Dice" and "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me", then pays a heartfelt tribute to Elvis by doing the King's 1956 classic "Love Me Tender."

I can't help but give FM a rating of "7" because it reminds one of what the radio was like before corporate interference and MTV began to slowly corrupt and destroy it, and because it is an interesting time capsule of life in Los Angeles at the end of the 1970s.

This is one of my favorite "Radio" themed films, mainly because I work in radio. The characters in this movie remind me of many of my fellow co-works, on many levels.

The film's plot centers on Station Manager and Morning Man Jeff Dugan. Dugan has the right idea, in keeping the station "Q-Sky" as uncommercial as possible. He LOVES playing GOOD music and so dislikes the idea of selling too much airtime to advertisers. Especially when it is the Army that wants to buy airtime, with high spot rotation in prime time hours.

That doesn't sit well with Dugan, and he tries his best to avoid "cashing in" on the deal. Wow, imagine that, a Station Manager who refuses good money! Dugan even attempts to ignore his corporate boss' desire to accept this package. Dugan finally gets so tired of saying "no, no, no!" to the Army and his boss, that he quits.

The rest of the on-air and support staff like Dugan a lot, and they dislike the fact that he quit. So they plot revenge against the same people Dugan was fighting with. Their idea of revenge is to go on strike, on the air. They dump all the commercials and go wall-to-wall music.

If you tried something like this in corporate radio today, kiss your job goodbye. So many radio stations today have taken the approach that Dugan so willingly and unselfishly fought against.

So if you like films about radio, or if you want to get a glimpse of how radio really "should be" today, you might find this film worth watching. This movie includes a good musical soundtrack, with bits of songs that were big in the 70's

Hindsight beings what it is now some 27 years after it's release, FM fore tells the impending doom of commercial radio! If you're in the radio business you'll get the meaning of that for sure. FM also spawned the first multi artist soundtrack album that sold very well. The Movie can be a bit slow in places, but it chillingly fore tells the coming doom of radio under corporate control, over commercialization, and the stripping of the Jocks influence and power. Nice musical performances from Linda Ronstadt who was actually played on Rock Radio then, and Jimmy Buffett. Good lightweight entertainment. Tune in turn on, and never come down to earth with Q Sky!