Drive, He Said

This was a very interesting movie, as it was Jack Nicholson's directorial debut, and included several other stars before they "became big" such as Bruce Dern and Karen Black. I was an extra in this movie when filmed on the University of Oregon campus/in Eugene area in 1971. Before it came out in theaters, I had left the country for the Peace Corps. When I returned, it had come and gone but I never got a chance to see it.

I remember one of the scenes was filmed with a camera inside a basket ball, and was passed back and forth across the court running from one end to the other to "get a perspective from the ball's viewpoint".

Anyone seen any copies (vhs or other options for getting a copy)? Would love to see it, as I was in several scenes but again never saw it.

Thanks for any leads or ideas of where one would go to get more info.

Bob Petow (bobpetow@comcast.net)

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.

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 attended college in the late Sixties, and I wanted to chime in with Titov and others who says that this is one of only a handful of movies that captures the time as lived experience rather than journalistic cliché. I can think of only three or four others: "Baby, It's You"; "Dog Fight"; and to some extent Milos Forman's first American film, "Taking Off." Not one of these films is available on Netflix. I saw each when it came out. "Taking Off" was revived pretty often for three or four years, so there must have been others who liked it as much as I did. The others I haven't seen since they were first in theaters, so I can'be sure of my present reaction. But for 40 years I've remembered the last line of "Drive, He Said," which says something.

One of the more unusual movies I've ever seen is "Drive, He Said." Made in 1971 made by the same production company that made "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces" that made Jack Nicholson a star a year or two earlier.

This was the first film directed by Jack Nicholson. It's a combination basketball, free love, anti-draft movie that was filmed on the campus of the University of Oregon. It was not well-received at the time, and was somewhat infamous for its male frontal nudity scenes. The basketball skill level seemed very high.

It's basically the story of two friends--one a basketball star and Greek major who's hormones are raging and is undecided about a pro career. The other is a guy taking drugs to try to stay out of the draft, and basically he flips out.

I thought it was an interesting premise, but I found the speech of the main characters to be stilted. In some ways it captured the ethos of U. S. campuses in the Vietnam War era pretty well.