* Friday, March 18, 2011 4:45 am ET

Hollywood has always been famous for attempting to ape the most recent trends in youth culture in movies aimed at that same audience. More often than not, however, they rarely seize the moment before the fad or pop culture phenomena has peaked and faded before the cameras even start rolling. This was certainly true in the sixties as the studio system crumbled and movie executives were franticly searching for subject matter that would click with younger moviegoers. Besides an abundance of films about motorcycle gangs, drug use, rock and roll and sexual liberation, a subgenre emerged briefly in the late sixties, inspired by the turbulent events of the Columbia University protests of 1968 and other SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) related demonstrations and riots.

The Student Protest Film was a short lived cultural moment in Hollywood history but it included several big studio attempts to exploit this once hot topic. Among the more famous titles, all of which were released in 1970, were Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point, The Strawberry Statement, Getting Straight with Elliott Gould and Candice Bergen, The Revolutionary starring Jon Voight and the lesser-known Halls of Anger featuring Calvin Lockhart, Rob Reiner and a young Jeff Bridges. Arriving at the very end of the cycle in September of that year was Stanley Kramer's R.P.M. (aka Revolutions Per Minute) and it could serve as a textbook example of why this subgenre was doomed to fail at the box office.

It is easy to see why Kramer wanted to direct R.P.M.. This was, after all, a filmmaker who made his name dramatizing such controversial subject matter as race relations (Home of the Brave [1949],The Defiant Ones [1958]), nuclear war (On the Beach, 1959), anti-Semitism (Ship of Fools, 1965), and Nazi war crimes (Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961) in his movies. And R.P.M. offered the opportunity to explore the wide ideological gap between the young generation and the establishment while also touching on such topics as the Vietnam War, Black power, and violent vs. non-violent demonstrations against those in power.

Like The Strawberry Statement, R.P.M. appears to be inspired by the Columbia University riots of 1968 even though it is set at a fictional West Coast college identified as Hudson University; It was filmed at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. When the movie opens, a group of radical students, led by Rossiter (Gary Lockwood) and Dempsey (Paul Winfield), have already staged a coup and taken over an administration building which houses the campus's expensive computer banks. The university president resigns and the school's board of directors scramble to find a replacement who can communicate with the students and end the protests without media attention and violence. Paco Perez (Anthony Quinn), a hip sociology professor who is living openly with Rhoda (Ann-Margret), his former graduate student, is drafted to be the new president, a decision that he reluctantly accepts and soon comes to regret. As Perez tries to find a compromise between the two opposing factions - the closed-minded white board members and faculty and the unyielding, idealist radical students - he realizes his own failure to effectively influence either group and the drama plays out with an inevitable clash between the demonstrators and police who are armed with tear gas and riot gear.

Lacking the kinetic visual beauty of Zabriskie Point or the hysterical emotional pitch of The Strawberry Statement, R.P.M. is a stodgy and dialogue-heavy drama that feels like a throwback to one of Kramer's fifties message films. Though well intentioned, the central characters and conflict fail to engage the audience's sympathy for either side and emerge as shallow stereotypes with the students coming off as arrogant, spoiled brats and the authority figures depicted as right wing bullies. The main flaw is the pretentious screenplay by Erich Segal, a former Harvard professor and best-selling novelist. He was riding high on the success of the novel and film version of Love Story the same year he wrote the screenplays for R.P.M. and The Games, a story about four marathon competitors at the Olympic Games, based on Hugh Atkinson's novel. R.P.M.'s dialogue is a mixture of high-minded platitudes and flippant zingers and badly dated catch phrases, some of which are memorably bad. For example, during an argument between Perez and Rhoda about whether Paco is becoming consumed with self-importance, she says, "I see you without your pajamas. I'm your link with reality, Mr. Perez."
Grabbing his gut, he responds, "That's not reality honey. That's flab."
To which Rhoda responds, "Flab is reality. Admit it, you pompous ass."

Despite these often ludicrous exchanges, Anthony Quinn manages to convey and maintain a sense of dignity throughout the chaotic proceedings while several of the other cast members don't fare as well. Gary Lockwood and Paul Winfield, for example, are unable to bring their cliched student firebrands to life and were already too old for these roles (both actors were in their early thirties at the time). Ann-Margret as Perez's bored mistress, however, adds a lively vulgarity to the proceedings and plays her role as if she was an older version of her unstable delinquent from Kitten with a Whip (1964). As Rhoda, she's the slattern from hell and has a voracious appetite (she is constantly eating something in most of her scenes). Whether walking or lounging around in various states of undress or sexually taunting Perez, she makes the most of her underdeveloped role.

In her autobiography, Ann-Margret admitted her discomfort at doing nude scenes and she has two in R.P.M.; a brief one at the beginning as she gets out of bed, displaying her breasts and backside, and a longer scene where she wears a see-through sweater, provoking Perez to make a comment about her needing a bra. Although the actress initially agreed to do these scenes, she changed her mind after filming began and tried to back out of them. "I found myself at a crossroads," she wrote. "By now, I had reconciled myself to the two Ann-Margrets, and I had resolved not to overanalyze the situation. The outside world, however, figured I was a seductress, an extrovert with few inhibitions, and who could blame them? No one could have imagined that undressing was a big deal to me, but it was...I promptly took the edge off my nerves with alcohol." This movie may have marked the beginning of Ann-Margret's long struggle with alcoholism and in several scenes she does appear to be noticeably inebriated.

Kramer was kind enough to save Ann-Margret's most stressful scene till last. "The set was closed," the actress recalled. "Stanley primed my emotions by reminding me of the one and only fight I'd had with my father many years before. My tears flowed, and I forgot about my inhibitions and got into the character. As I walked around the set, partially nude, Anthony Quinn was totally professional...the moment Stanley [Kramer] yelled cut, I covered myself and disappeared into my dressing room, relieved that it was over. I suppose I had achieved some psychological milestone and I should have felt pleased. But I will never shake my innate reserve and prudishness no matter what I do." Ann-Margret would follow R.P.M. with the equally reviled motorcycle gang drama C.C. and Company (1970) but beginning with Mike Nichol's Carnal Knowledge in 1971, critics began to reappraise the actress's talent and she would go on to appear in several acclaimed films and television dramas such as The Return of the Soldier (1983) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1984, made-for-TV).

R.P.M. found few admirers, if any, upon its release and most reviews reflected Variety's take on the film which said, "The treatment is deja vu, Eric Segal's script is replete with glib one-liners but lacking real story fiber, and Kramer's direction is dull." Even the director voiced his own dismay in his autobiography, calling it "one of the least successful pictures I ever made" and added, "I habitually filmed stories that I felt were relevant to the times in which I lived, but this was already out of date by the time I finished and edited it. Everything was happening fast in the '60s. Too fast for me, it seemed. I might have saved the picture if I had held closer to the principles I wanted to illustrate, but unfortunately, I let the relationships in the film dominate the plot to disastrous effect."

Regardless of its poor reputation, R.P.M. is worth viewing as a time capsule that captures a particular moment in time in sixties cinema. From the era's now amusing fashions and hair styles to the unappealing music score by Perry Botkin, Jr. & Barry De Vorzon (featuring songs by Melanie and Chris Morgan) to show-stopping moments of stylized techniques (slo-mo cinematography and action freeze frames during the climactic riot), R.P.M. could work as a camp entertainment if you are in the right frame of mind.

Producer: Stanley Kramer
Director: Stanley Kramer
Screenplay: Erich Segal
Cinematography: Michel Hugo
Music: Perry Botkin, Jr., Barry De Vorzon
Film Editing: William A. Lyon
Cast: Anthony Quinn (Prof. F.W.J. 'Paco' Perez), Ann-Margret (Rhoda), Gary Lockwood (Rossiter), Paul Winfield (Steve Dempsey), Graham Jarvis (Police Chief Thatcher), Alan Hewitt (Hewlett), Ramon Bieri (Brown), John McLiam (Rev. Blauvelt), Don Keefer (Dean Cooper), Donald Moffat (Perry Howard).
C-92m.

by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:
Ann-Margret by Ann-Margret with Todd Gold (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: A Life in Hollywood by Stanley Kramer with Thomas M. Coffey (Harcourt Brace & Company)
The Films of Anthony Quinn by Alvin H. Marill (Citadel Press)
www.afi.com