{"id":26537,"date":"2025-05-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=26537"},"modified":"2025-05-08T13:32:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T20:32:43","slug":"classic-corner-youre-a-big-boy-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/classic-corner-youre-a-big-boy-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Classic Corner: You’re A Big Boy Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Presumably the first student film to score one of its actors an Oscar nomination, 1966\u2019s You\u2019re a Big Boy Now<\/em> was the thesis project of a UCLA grad school hotshot named Francis Ford Coppola. Not a lot of film students wind up having their homework released by a major studio, but the then-27-year-old wunderkind could never be accused of thinking small. Budgeted at an unheard-of $800,000 (but coming in at more around $1 million), Coppola\u2019s freewheeling adaptation of David Benedictus\u2019s 1963 novel has style and ambition to burn. It\u2019s a wild, visually spectacular calling card in the service of material that\u2019s honestly pretty puerile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few genres have aged worse than antic \u201860s sex comedies \u2013 except maybe \u201880s sex comedies \u2013 and Coppola\u2019s ensuing six-decade career would indicate that he\u2019s never been much for bedroom farce. In hindsight it seems clear that You\u2019re a Big Boy Now<\/em> was a shrewd calculation from a young filmmaker looking to make a name for himself in the then-nascent youth movie market. Coppola had previously helmed softcore sexploitation flicks (his official first feature was 1962\u2019s Tonight for Sure<\/em>) and worked as a jack-of-all-trades for Roger Corman, who in return let him direct the low budget 1963 chiller Dementia 13<\/em>. You\u2019re a Big Boy Now<\/em> was to be his shot at the major leagues, the title itself a declaration of principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benedictus\u2019s story itself is pretty thin gruel. It\u2019s the tale of wide-eyed innocent Bernard Chanticleer, whose overbearing parents call him Big Boy. Played without much in the way of charm by Canadian actor Peter Kastner, Bernard is a guileless little horndog who gets around on roller skates and stumbles haphazardly from one slapstick mess into the next. His uptight, rage-prone father (Rip Torn) is a curator of incunabula at the New York Public Library, allowing his son to work as an assistant there despite the kid being basically unemployable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much to the chagrin of his smothering mother (Geraldine Page, who was married to Torn at the time) it is decided that it\u2019s time for Big Boy to leave the nest. His folks set him up in a New York apartment governed by a busybody landlady named Miss Thing (Julie Harris) who has installed a vicious, woman-hating rooster roaming Bernard\u2019s floor to frighten off any female company. Bernard\u2019s mother is hysterical regarding the possibility of her son landing in the arms of a lady \u2013 Page\u2019s surprise Oscar nomination appears to have been out of respect for sheer physical exertion \u2013 going so far as to enclose locks of her hair with her weekly letters to Big Boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you notice any odd echoes in Rip Torn\u2019s unavoidably funny consternation with his stunted, manchild son, it\u2019s because the actor basically reprised the role to even more blustery, profane ends some 35 years later in Tom Green\u2019s absurdist 2001 masterpiece Freddy Got Fingered<\/em>. (There are few things funnier than Rip Torn being angry with someone, especially when it\u2019s his idiot kid. Thanks to the magic of the movies, he seemed to stay mad at his son for three-and-a-half decades.) But You\u2019re A Big Boy Now<\/em> doesn\u2019t dwell too much on the father-son problems, instead zeroing in on the protagonist\u2019s considerable issues with women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bernard is adored by Amy, played by the great Karen Black in her first real movie role. A co-worker now at the library, Amy\u2019s had a thing for Bernard since grade school. (\u201cBut you were so ugly!\u201d he says when remembering her, ever the smoothie.) Though he deigns to date her now, our Big Boy is still hung up on Elizabeth Hartman\u2019s Barbara, a go-go-dancer and man-eating sociopath who toys mercilessly with his emotions. Suffice it to say, none of this plays especially palatably today. Even making allowances for the era, Bernard is not an interesting enough character to get away with it. (Black spent the 1970s being mistreated onscreen by a far more fascinating gallery of men.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the film\u2019s credit, Coppola isn\u2019t particularly interested in Bernard\u2019s romantic travails either, instead focusing his energy on making every scene into an eye-popping, show-offy set piece. There\u2019s one tour de force camera move through the library after another, and a pretzel factory sequence is a marvel. One standout scene finds the young man getting his tie caught in the projector gears of a nudie film booth like a perverted Charlie Chaplin. A go-go bar projects scenes from Dementia 13<\/em> over Bernard and Amy\u2019s big date, as their first kiss takes place amid the backdrop of Times Square marquees and lighted news tickers spelling out Bernard\u2019s innermost thoughts, saying: \u201cBarbara\u2026 Barbara\u2026 Barbara\u2026 She\u2019s On My Mind Even Now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coppola gained control of the Times Square signage through an arrangement with New York mayor John Lindsay that also allowed him to shoot around the library\u2019s strenuous objection to Rip Torn\u2019s character keeping a secret stash of erotica in the venerable institution\u2019s vault. Coppola has said he doesn\u2019t much like the movie anymore, and it looks politically lightweight next to the \u201860s counterculture comedies that followed soon after, especially his buddy Brian De Palma\u2019s Greetings<\/em>. Yet You\u2019re A Big Boy Now<\/em> remains worth watching for the sheer visual extravagance of a young student bound for much bigger and better things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You’re A Big Boy Now” is streaming on the Criterion Channel<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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