The staff of the Back Bay Mainline, a Boston underground newspaper that rose to prominence in the 1960s, struggles with the shifting social climate of the '70s amid rumors that the paper is about to be sold to a media giant.
John Heard
Harry
Lindsay Crouse
Abbie
Jeff Goldblum
Max
Jill Eikenberry
Lynn
Bruno Kirby
David
Gwen Welles
Laura
Stephen Collins
Michael
Lewis J. Stadlen
Stanley
Jon Korkes
Frank
Michael J. Pollard
The Hawker
Lane Smith
Roy Walsh
Joe Morton
Ahmed
Richard Cox
Wheeler
Marilu Henner
Danielle
Raymond J. Barry
Herbert Fisk
Gary Springer
Jason
Susan Haskins
Sarah
Charles Levin
Paul
Guy Boyd
Austin
Martha Deignan
Cora
Deborah Weems
Annie One
Ginny Scales-Medeiros
Annie Two
Deborah Margolis
Susan
Robert Costanzo
Austin's Man
John H. Gartner
Austin's Man
Leo Grillo
Car Owner
Frank Licato
Car Owner
Allison Argo
Dancer
Scott Evans
Student
Allen Day
Cheapo's Mgr.
Douglas Kenney
Doug Henkel
Southside Johnny
Self
Adrienne King
Young Lady (uncredited)
Director
Joan Micklin Silver
Screenplay, Story
Fred Barron
Story
David Helpern
April 20, 2023
6
The twenty-something staff of the erstwhile quite radical newspaper "Mainline" are struggling to keep their work relevant as the 1970s give way to the 1980s. I don't know if anyone remembers a television drama called the "Paper Chase" (1973) but a lot of the style and characterisations of that film are reminiscent here. Young people trying to make their own way, defiantly trying to hold on to values and commitments that may be largely on the wain. The thing with this, for me anyway, was I found them all rather shallow and selfish. The combination of their working and social lives are presented in a fashion that is very, very, verbose. Why use one word when you can use eight? As the story drifts along, I felt less and less interested in the characters and their semi-comic antics and started to notice silly continuity errors - that wouldn't ordinarily matter - and to focus more on the tangential aspects of the film - the big collars, bell-bottom jeans - all the things I used to remember from "Starsky and Hutch". Maybe the fact that I'm not an American means that this Bostonian story of intellectual maturity and liberating camaraderie doesn't resonate in the same way - because I found this all rather dull. Will their newspaper be subsumed into a bigger, commercial, enterprise? Well at the start I hoped not, but by the middle I was indifferent.
Status:
Released
Original Language:
English
Budget:
$0.00
Revenue:
$0.00