The In Crowd (1988)

Thanks for the memories!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Many of my friends and i were extras in this when they filmed it in Wildwood. The film company took a bunch of high school kids from the nearby high schools. It was the beginning of my sophomore year in 1986 and quite a way to start it. It is a great campy movie and a much overlooked one, too. Altho i think my personal scene was cut (so much for my 15 minutes of fame), i know many dear friends...who i am still close to this day...do appear in it. The experience of being put in hair, makeup and costume resonates with me to this day. My gang and I still talk about it when we get together. For a brief 15 seconds, i was able to meet some of the stars. Joey P. really took his career to big heights, in spite of this flick. Regardless, this reviewer's very biased opinion: give it a roll!

I saw this movie back when I used to get the "Encore" movie channel. The movie to me was campy at first but the more I saw it the more I loved it.Great dancing,likable kids,and songs you just don't hear inevery teen 60's movie.I was heart-broken when I read Orion Studios went broke and this movie was never released on a big scale.I'm not saying the acting is great in fact most of the actors are bad but the spirit of teen dance shows is alive and making you want to get up and boogie. Betten than the show "American Dreams" to me and picking Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" to end the movie was perfect.I, like others also found this movie in the dicount bin and it made my day.Again kudos to whomever picked the songs used in the movie."When You're Young and In Love", "Cast Your Fate to the Wind"..... oh it made me cry.......

The earlier review saying this is one of the worst movies ever made is obviously from someone who hasn't seen a lot of bad movies. All I can guess is that it brought back too many bad memories of the reviewer's teen-age years, teen-age angst being one of the things with which this movie deals. All in all, I found it quite enjoyable, especially because it made such good use of the music from the time, including Vince Guaraldi's big hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" (and when that song plays in the background, it is really telling you something about what is going to happen). The story line is not much, dealing with teen-age romance and growing pains, and with the difficulties of trying to fit into the currently popular styles, whatever they may be, but it's not terrible either. Joey Pants' speech in the classroom is a classic, and a lot of the other scenes in the movie transcend the story. I certainly wouldn't call it a great movie, but if you enjoyed "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", or "Some Kind of Wonderful", then you'll have a good time watching this one too.

I guess when you are a kid of around six or seven, you start to notice the teenagers around you and what they're doing. And for the rest of your life you associate "cool" with the clothes, cars, music, and hair styles of the teenagers you see when you are a little kid. This movie really speaks to me, because I still get goose pimples when I see the fashions, cars, girls, hair, and everything else of the years 1965-67. And the wonderful music! Was there ever a better sound than the Philly sound of those years? I love all those doo-wop tunes--the O'Jays, Gene Chandler, "The Duke of Earl", Curtis Mayfield, Vee-Jay records, "The Real Thing", and on and on...This film is excellent in so many ways, I can't list them all. First of all, the writer and director, Mark Rosenthal, got the look right. Philly in 1965 was a nice suburban city, with a core of hoods and blacks who brought spirit and life to the City of Brotherly Love. The acting is terrific from the young cast, and the extras put their heart and soul into the dancing and clothing of those years. Joe Pantoliano "becomes" Jerry Blavat and gives a wonderful and energetic performance. And I loved the ending, because the 60's only became the 60's when the kids discovered Dylan, San Francisco, and drugs. It was a step in the wrong direction, but this film serves as a time capsule. Maybe some future generation will rediscover that dancing, love and soul music make youth the best time of life.