Adam at Six A.M.

This is an unusual film for Michael Douglas, and kind of "lost". I wonder if it was ever even released? I rather doubt it's even available on video or DVD today: your only shot at seeing it is late at night on same cable station. Which is how I saw it, many years ago.

Adam is a late 20s college professor having a sort of early mid-life crisis when he decides to spontaneously attend a family funeral in the Midwest. Away from his intellectual/liberal environment and hedonistic lifestyle, he finds life in the small town surprisingly warm and embracing. In time, he has a working class job (light years from his cushy teaching job), friends (Joe Don Baker) and a cute girlfriend for whom he has the major hots, but who is "saving herself for marriage." Adam becomes, for this one summer anyhow, so immersed in this simple down-to-earth lifestyle that he decides to marry the girlfriend and buy a house.

At this point, the film takes a sharp detour...as if ashamed suddenly of the idea that simple hard work, good friends and a loving marriage might be exactly what spoiled pretentious Adam needed all along. So he abruptly decides to "chuck it all" when sent on a mission to buy vanilla ice cream for his fiancé's bridal shower...and skedaddles out of town in his sports car, presumably never to be seen again. (Or maybe to return to his unhappy life as a swinging college teacher.) No closure on the presumably broken-hearted fiancé, who had to be humiliated by his disappearance, or his confused and hurt friends.

For some reason this film has stuck in my mind all these years. I think because up until the final couple of minutes, it almost seems like a pre-Reagan paean to family values...which would have made "Adam" a real oddity in 1970. Some good supporting work from supporting actors. This film also foreshadows the 80s film, "Amber Waves of Grain" with Kurt Russell and Mare Winningham, about a spoiled actor who becomes a farm worker.

If you are up late at night and this comes on...watch it. Something different, and you get to see a very young Michael Douglas.

(BTW: No, the title makes no sense at all.)

This is a very early Michael (or as he was popularly known then, Mikey) Douglas vehicle. He plays a disillusioned college professor of the late Sixties (there seem to have been so many of them scurrying about in those days!) who drops out of his successful, stressful life in the big city to go in a search for his roots in a not-so-idyllic midwestern small town. The story plods along, showing his courtship of a rather status-proud Junior Miss type whose Mom (wonderfully etched by Louise Latham) is the town hairdresser, and his adventures in serious male bonding with Joe Don Baker and other flannel clad logger types. Grayson Hall has an excellent cameo role as his aunt, and gets to administer a deft put-down of Douglas' masculine vanity towards the end. In some ways the last 30 seconds is the best part of the movie. Overall not at all a bad effort. To quote Maggie Smith in a movie that is much more suitable to this writer's temperament, "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing that they like." I did make liberal use of the fast forward button in viewing "Adam at Six A. M."

The movie starts with Adam (Douglas) as a linguistics professor in California. During summer break, he takes the opportunity to look at his life. The movie doesn't really spend enough time developing the early Adam, but he sees something in his life he doesn't like. He finds out that an aunt that lived in Missouri has died and he takes this opportunity to drive across country for the funeral and maybe a better life.

Being somewhat disenchanted with California life, Adam enjoys what he saw in Missouri. He is introduced to Jerri Jo (Purcell) and as most guy meets girl plots go, they fall in love. Because of this, he decides to spend his summer break in Missouri. He gets a job and makes friends with the locals. Joe Don Baker plays a member of Adam's work crew, and is portrayed as the basic mid-western, small town family man. With a wife and kids he seems happy, but restricted from doing much else with his life.

Time progresses and Adam and Jerri Jo decide to get married. But not much later, he begins to see Jerri Jo and her family in a different light. He notices little snippets of the life he might be living, if he goes through with the marriage. It becomes more and more obvious to him that he and Jerri Jo don't share the same views of married life.

From interaction with Jerri Jo's family and friends, his concerns build until he seems to struggle with the choice he's made. He sees a "cookie cutter" way of life laid out for him, if he stays in Missouri. He's torn between two worlds. There are parts of Missouri life he would enjoy, but he also enjoyed parts of the free spirit life he had in California. The intensity builds until he finally has to choose.

I won't spoil the end, although some of the other reviews have already done that. I enjoyed this movie. I think I partly liked seeing the places I'm familiar with, the faces I know, etc. But I'm also very much a Michael Douglas fan. This film was before "The Streets of San Francisco", a series I loved. And you'll see a much younger Douglas in this movie, although you'll see his compelling persona has already begun to form.

To give you a bit of an inside, I grew up in Cameron, Missouri. It was one of the small towns this movie was filmed in. I was 17 at the time. The producers came to our high school, looking for extras. They wanted a fresh and naive mid-western look. Men with short cut hair and no mustaches or sideburns, women with wholesome, girl next door faces.

I don't intend to spoil the "look" of the movie for you, but it was obvious that they wanted Missouri to look vastly different than California's "hip" way of life. I thought they might have gone too far looking for the "hick" element in contrast. They even had a tractor driving down the main street of our town, in the film.

Other than some things that only a local might see, they did a pretty good job of showing how a small mid-west town was, back in the late 60s or early 70s. And although this production has some flaws, it shows a "coming of age" struggle that many young people deal with. I think this movie is worth your time.

Saw Adam at 6AM decades ago. I believe it was Michael Douglas's first movie and he was still in college when asked to make the movie. The movie gets its name, when Adam starts his trip east in the red sports car and the camera focus on the clock 6 AM. The movie was very low budget. Several scenes in Mo at the home were never cropped and you can see the the lighting and other equipment. They never went back to re shoot. Michael's voice hadn't developed, but you can see his grace and charm even at this young age.

The movie starts to drag about 3/4 through and doesn't pick up.Obvious when the movie was casted, producers wanted the Douglas name even if only the son of Kirk was available. Movie appears to be related to the the graduate.I'm still trying to remember the res sports car, was it and Austin Healey? Reminds me of my TRS 3 in college. I knew I had something in common with Michael Douglas.

A minor cult classic for fans of 70s films. Joe Don Baker is outstanding. I highly recommend it, if you see it in the late-night TV listing.