Pointless wallow in American Innocence: teenage romance under the cloud of World War II, aimed, apparently, at the generation of teenagers who just missed out on Summer of '42, Red Sky at Morning, Baby Blue Marine, et al. The boy (Sean Penn, with a good haircut) is a bowling-pin setter, son of a grave-digger, and a trained classical pianist who inclines personally toward boogie-woogie; the girl (Elizabeth McGovern, with a better haircut) is the daughter of a housemaid, mistaken to be the daughter of the muckymuck in whose house her mother is employed — and the chronicle of their relationship is the rough dramatic equivalent of baby talk: ravenous for a response, any response, but chortles above all, and simultaneously cloying and grating to anyone not of a like mind. The only part of the venture that seems to arise from genuine emotion, or might be able to give rise to same, is the mouth-watering catalogue of small-town icons: bowling alley, roller rink, public library, pine-encircled pond, picket fences and front porches, the railroad, and so on. Historical-accuracy note: one very minor character is described as looking "just like Robert Walker"; he in fact looks nothing at all like him, but that's not the main reason a California bobby-soxer would not be saying so in 1942. With Nicolas Cage; directed by Richard Benjamin. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
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