Drive, He Said was a movie released in 1971. It was directed by Jack Nicholson. and filmed at the University of Oregon. I was a student at the UofO in 1971 having returned there for Law School after two years in the US Army. Jack Nicholson had became famous after Easy Rider and this was his first attempt at being a director. I agree completely with the reviewer below that this film comes the closest of any film in capturing the American college experience of the late 1960's to early 70's. While I do not agree with the point of the film it really captures a time and place of my youth. I wish it was on DVD. A few years later another movie would be filmed on the University of Oregon campus that would capture an earlier period on the American college campus.... Animal House. To go to the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) listing of Drive He Said click on the title above for a link. The best review on that site is as follows:
"This may be the only film that actually comes close to capturing on film the essentially uncapturable world of the American college experience of the late 60s-early 70s. Go ahead, name another movie that even approaches this one: "Getting Straight"? "RPM"? These are caricatures. "Return of the Secaucus Seven" has its moments, but that's a retrospective film about (self-obsessed) individuals more than a film about a time and a place depicted *in* that time and place. "Drive, He Said" portrays-- with subtlety and nuance where it should, and a swift kick in the shorts where that's the only appropriate way-- the anti-draft movement, the ambiguity of big-time college sports (especially when there's a war on), the sexual revolution of the period, and the general unreality of the day. Believe me, it was like that.The whole cast deserves commendation (as does the director, of course) but particular praise should be reserved for Bruce Dern, as the basketball coach, and Karen Black, the hero's very unusual-- except for that time-- love interest. William Tepper, as the lead, also rates a real round of applause both for his perfect capturing of the student-athlete of the period and for actually playing real college basketball in the film (remember Anthony Perkins in "Tall Story"? Yikes!).All in all, a classic of a kind...."
