Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring

A TV movie with excellent acting and a still timely message. Although the clothes and attitudes are dated the basic dilemma of misunderstanding between the generations is as true today as it was when this is made. Sally is strong in the lead, she was working hard at this time to leave Gidget and the Flying Nun behind which would take a few more years when Sybil moved her to the next level of respect, and captures the difficult transition period between teen rebellion and adult responsibility. Eleanor Parker and Jackie Cooper give good performances even though their characters are drawn in one dimensional tones. Not a great movie but a good one from when network TV tried to tackle controversial topics. Added bonus the soundtrack is by Linda Ronstadt, a rare occurrence.

I was a senior in high school when I saw this and I loved it. I wrote a term paper comparing/contrasting this to "Pilgrim's Progress" (which we had just studied in my English class) and got an "A" from my "hippie" teacher then. I longed to join the "hippie trail" then but didn't because I felt responsible for my younger siblings stuck in an abusive situation with my alcoholic dad. We only had each other. I used to read bus schedules with the dream of leaving.

Everyone is great in this movie. Sally Fields shows growth as an actress from her "Gidget" and "Flying Nun" days. Plus, it really portrays the frustration her parents feel and the difficulties the whole family had in relating to each other.

I remember seeing this movie when I was very young and there were certain scenes that have stayed with me my entire life. For instance the scene when they are eating other people's garbage and the final scene. So my curiosity got the best of me and I rented this movie from Netflix to see it now as an adult with children (and one grandchild). I wanted to see if it would have the same impact and oddly enough it did.

The acting was relatively good in the movie, the writing a bit weak in certain areas but it had a message and that comes through loud and clear. It actually reminded me a bit of an "After School Special" but that was OK.

It didn't glorify either the parent's side or the "hippie" side. It made you see what was wrong from both ends of the spectrum. Sally Field's did not play a "Gidget" type of part in this movie but I thought she was good.

My real shocker was that David Carradine played her boyfriend. I told my husband this and now he wants to see it for just that reason!

These comments come from the memory of seeing this movie when it was first on television. Although it says the movie was made in 1970, it was more like 72-73 when it was aired.

My experience as a teenager in the United States in the late 60's was similar to this movie although I did not grow up in the suburbs. The Vietnam War protests had split the generations. Our parents, who had survived WW2 were grateful for the suburban homes and cars. We teenagers were not going to fight a useless war. In many homes, this led to a deep rift that lasted for years. It was not unusual for young teens to simply leave home. In many cases, it was at the pushing of the parents. (Now as a parent, I would have died of a broken heart had my teens left). This movie depicts one story of a teenager (Sally Field) who leaves home. She experiences a lot of horrors that cause her to return. But she discovers that although she has changed, the home has not.

I remember watching this made for TV movies back in the early 70's when I was about 11 years old. See, at that time I was too young to be a hippie but was old enough to think hippies were "cool", I liked the hair, clothes, etc. Watching this strange little movie made me rethink that position. Sally Field plays "Dennie", a young woman who has run away from home due to the wildly dysfunctional family she has. Eleanor Parker and Jackie Cooper play her screwed up parents who live in a nice house and drink too much. She has a younger sister who wants to be just like Dennie and to escape the weird family dynamics she too starts doing drugs. The movie is hard to watch at times, there are weird "flashback" scenes of when Dennie and her boyfriend, numbly played by David Carradine,out on the road, doing drugs, making love, protesting the war and eating food left on a table at a drive-in (believe it or not, that scene stuck in my mind for years, yuck-eating some strangers left over garbage!!!!!)The film maker tried too hard to be hip and cool with unusual lighting and a weird scene of Dennie writing "Happy" in the air (that scene is truly surreal and has to be seen to be believed), but the message is overall a good one, that drugs and unhappiness just don't happen to people living in the hood, but also to middle class white people.