John Seal Unavailable on home video and absent from television for decades until a recent screening on Turner Classic Movies, R.P.M. stars Anthony Quinn as Paco Perez, a professor trying to get down with the kids on a strife-torn California college campus. Always one to sympathize with his students, Paco finds himself thrust into a position of authority after activists take over the school's administration building. The Board of Trustees names him President because the kids trust him, but he finds some of their demands hard to comply with, raising the question: how much revolution is too much revolution? Ann-Margret co-stars as Paco's grad student mistress (surely grounds for dismissal?), Paul Winfield and Gary Lockwood agitate the masses, and--in brilliant casting--an uncredited S.I. Hayakawa (himself a veteran of a student sit-in at San Francisco State University) appears as a semantics instructor. Quinn is very good standing in for aging liberal director Stanley Kramer, who probably felt lost at sea during the radical late sixties, but the film's Achilles' Heel is Eric Segal's screenplay, which is generally (though not unremittingly) awful.

Bolesroor I first read about "RPM" in a book on bad movies. The review made note of the dated premise and baffling slang. Anthony Quinn plays a college president stymied by the striking student body and hooked on Ann- Margret's striking human body. And the book was right. "RPM" is bad.Quinn is all wrong for this, but then, I never liked his face. So much of film is visual and Anthony Quinn's terribly inexpressive mug never conveys any emotion, never ever lets the audience in. It's not that he's bad looking- there are plenty of unattractive actors whose faces speak volumes- he just always looks exactly the same: mildly perturbed.Here he plays hipster professor Paco, who has to stare down the self-righteous protesters at a West Coast university. And of course he's hit on all sides by clichéd slang: "square," "copout," "establishment." But neither he nor the guerrilla student body seem particularly passionate about their causes... they're simply reading the script.Ann-Margret was still dripping with pheromones and raw sexuality at this point, and as a courtesy to all us edging males she shows us her exquisite breasts. Her character is a grad student and Paco's young lover, and she spends the vast majority of her screen time scrutinizing every aspect of Paco's hypocritical existence. Margret seems to understand how ridiculous and annoying her character is so she plays it with a wink to the audience... and her nipples go a long way toward helping us forgive her.But the real problem with "RPM" is the direction by Staley Kramer. It is lifeless. It is dull. It shows a complete and utter lack of understanding of the subject matter, the youth culture, and the issues of the day. It renders the movie a hollow and useless experience. Sometimes the book on bad movies is right.GRADE: D

bababear A writer quipped that EASY RIDER was the most expensive movie ever made. Sure, it only cost 400 thousand to make and grossed 60 million. But Hollywood got the idea that it had to produce "youth" movies and so we got THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT and THE Christian LICORICE STORE and THE MAGIC GARDEN OF STANLEY SWEETHEART and this movie, pretty much all of which are forgotten and got limited or no release.Woodstock was in August of 1969. Altamont was in December of 1969. This means that the Woodstock Nation lasted barely four months. Elizabeth Taylor has kept husbands longer than that.What the major studios did was get mainstream directors and told them make movies about youth in revolt. The result was movies like this which were very expensive imitations of movies that American-International had made in the sixties on nonexistent budgets.RPM is watchable for a fine performance by Anthony Quinn. Lord, but he's a trooper. The script was obsolete before the ink dried on it. I'll be generous and say that Eric Segal's screenplay stinks. Of course, forty years later LOVE STORY doesn't get all that much love anyway.The story centers on a Sociology professor who is picked to be president of a fictional college after protesting students occupy the administration building. The board has a late night meeting and decides to appoint Quinn president based primarily on the fact that he's sleeping with a graduate student in his department who is young enough to be his daughter.Imagine trying to sell that to a major studio in today's Politically Correct world. Ann-Margret plays the graduate student and recognizes the script to be crap, so she has fun playing this airhead and wears ridiculous costumes and, in one scene, talks with while chewing food so that audiences won't have to understand the words she's saying.Incredibly, this is directed by Stanley Kramer. Kramer had become a legend directing films like THE DEFIANT ONES, INHERIT THE WIND, SHIP OF FOOLS, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, and GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, all of which dealt with Big Ideas from a socially progressive point of view. More importantly, they were full of characters that audiences could identify with and were fully realized human beings.RPM is like a pageant put on by a community college Sociology department. Characters represent Sexual Freedom, Corporate Apathy, Prejudice, Sexual Liberation, Black Power, etc.At its peak, the student revolution actually appealed to a very small per cent of students and had little support from the mainstream community. Worse yet, this film was released in the middle of Nixon's first term of office. Youthful idealism faded as more students pursued graduate studies in Business Administration.Thanks to Turner Classic Movies for running this. I'd heard of it, but figured that Columbia Pictures had destroyed all the existing prints hoping nobody would remember it. Somehow TCM found a pristine print in excellent condition. It would have gotten just one out of ten, but I had to recognize Quinn's excellent work trying to make a dead horse run.

BachlorinParadise R.P.M. is completely out-dated in today's Me, Myself, and I society. However, in the revolutionary times of the 1960s and early 1970s, R.P.M. was an excellent portrayal of the college "scene" of those times.Anthony Quinn gives one of his finest "latter" years roles as F.W.J. "Paco" Perez. Quinn's character is a liberal fighting, social changing sociology professor who has earned the respect of the rebellious student population at his university. The students want changes now, but are unwilling to compromise. Stanley Kramer shows that there were "no easy" solutions to the various generational problems for the times. Ann-Margret is in her "sexiest" prime, but also shines as a Perez "grupie". Also, Gary Lockwood as the militant student leader gives a creditable performance.Revolutions Per Minute is a great trip down memory lane and helps capture the atmosphere of 1970.