Just got the VHS at a local dollar store, of all places. Hadn't seen this movie in years, and $1 was cheaper than I could rent it, so it came home with me. I must say, I enjoyed the film much more this time than the first time I saw it. It did not seem to drag in the concert portions as much; in fact, it seemed like a much shorter movie than I remembered all around.
Then it dawned on me that I hadn't seen a few of the scenes I was anticipating...so I started trying to figure out what I must have seen several years back. I have memories of a scene with Eileen Brennan as the DJ "Mother", where we learn she IS in fact a single mother, tucking in her daughter. Also a scene where "Mother" is in the control room, talking to another staffer about how smooth it is when she "plays the radio". I had thought this movie was rated R when it first appeared (the video is PG) due to nudity, and again that the concert scenes were much longer. None of this was in the version I saw last night on the Anchor Bay VHS, circa 1998, 104 minutes long. (I thought there were more scenes of Alex Karras' character, the DJ "Doc Holiday"; and more exposition of the love story between GM Jeff Dugan and the other female jock Laura Coe, too.)
Is there a director's cut of this film floating around out there somewhere??? Did I make those scenes up in my head after reading "FM" the novel, upon which the movie is based? Does anyone else know of the scenes I *think* I remember, but are not included in this particular release? After watching this version, I wondered if this was not the one they cleaned up and shortened a little for use on TV in the early '80's, or something like that.
Having said all that...it's an amusing story. Working in radio since 1984, I can tell you it's not like "FM" anymore--you wouldn't see broadcast carts, open-reel tape decks, or record albums these days. Even fewer and fewer CD players; it's all computerized. And if they thought they had problems with tight corporate control THEN...they never anticipated what radio would become in thirty more years after that movie was made. In a technical sense, radio wasn't even like the movie depicts at the time it was made (1978). In the station studio interior shots, there is odd placement of sound equipment, just sitting around the general manager's office and even in illogical places in the control room, where in a real radio station it would be nonsensical and nonfunctional to place these items (not to mention hookup would be a nightmare). It seems this must have been done to have gratuitous appearance of switches and knobs in nearly every scene, to remind us this was a movie about radio. Kind of a quaint touch. (Announcer mikes in a stereo array, with a left mike and right mike, is never done anymore either. It's no longer novel to have the DJ's voice drift back and forth between your speakers.) The part about the owner coming across the country and deciding when he gets there to hand the station back to the music guy and fire the money guys is also pure fantasy. But it's a fun film, and of course an enjoyable bit of nostalgia to see Linda Ronstadt in her youthful prime, and Jimmy Buffet when he still had hair on top.
Anybody catch that Q-SKY, the call letters, couldn't really be used in the US? All stations east of the Mississippi River start with W, all west start with K, since an act of Congress back in the 1930's (though there are some stations that predate that act which are grandfathered to their previous calls to this day), but none start with a Q. And, 71.1 FM is somewhere off the left of the broadcast dial (which actually starts at about 88.1), so obviously we are talking in every respect about a radio station in some alternate universe. But it does contain a LOT of great music and a humorous glimpse of '70's culture. A modern-day classic? Maybe not. But a fun little romp; well worth my dollar invested.
Then it dawned on me that I hadn't seen a few of the scenes I was anticipating...so I started trying to figure out what I must have seen several years back. I have memories of a scene with Eileen Brennan as the DJ "Mother", where we learn she IS in fact a single mother, tucking in her daughter. Also a scene where "Mother" is in the control room, talking to another staffer about how smooth it is when she "plays the radio". I had thought this movie was rated R when it first appeared (the video is PG) due to nudity, and again that the concert scenes were much longer. None of this was in the version I saw last night on the Anchor Bay VHS, circa 1998, 104 minutes long. (I thought there were more scenes of Alex Karras' character, the DJ "Doc Holiday"; and more exposition of the love story between GM Jeff Dugan and the other female jock Laura Coe, too.)
Is there a director's cut of this film floating around out there somewhere??? Did I make those scenes up in my head after reading "FM" the novel, upon which the movie is based? Does anyone else know of the scenes I *think* I remember, but are not included in this particular release? After watching this version, I wondered if this was not the one they cleaned up and shortened a little for use on TV in the early '80's, or something like that.
Having said all that...it's an amusing story. Working in radio since 1984, I can tell you it's not like "FM" anymore--you wouldn't see broadcast carts, open-reel tape decks, or record albums these days. Even fewer and fewer CD players; it's all computerized. And if they thought they had problems with tight corporate control THEN...they never anticipated what radio would become in thirty more years after that movie was made. In a technical sense, radio wasn't even like the movie depicts at the time it was made (1978). In the station studio interior shots, there is odd placement of sound equipment, just sitting around the general manager's office and even in illogical places in the control room, where in a real radio station it would be nonsensical and nonfunctional to place these items (not to mention hookup would be a nightmare). It seems this must have been done to have gratuitous appearance of switches and knobs in nearly every scene, to remind us this was a movie about radio. Kind of a quaint touch. (Announcer mikes in a stereo array, with a left mike and right mike, is never done anymore either. It's no longer novel to have the DJ's voice drift back and forth between your speakers.) The part about the owner coming across the country and deciding when he gets there to hand the station back to the music guy and fire the money guys is also pure fantasy. But it's a fun film, and of course an enjoyable bit of nostalgia to see Linda Ronstadt in her youthful prime, and Jimmy Buffet when he still had hair on top.
Anybody catch that Q-SKY, the call letters, couldn't really be used in the US? All stations east of the Mississippi River start with W, all west start with K, since an act of Congress back in the 1930's (though there are some stations that predate that act which are grandfathered to their previous calls to this day), but none start with a Q. And, 71.1 FM is somewhere off the left of the broadcast dial (which actually starts at about 88.1), so obviously we are talking in every respect about a radio station in some alternate universe. But it does contain a LOT of great music and a humorous glimpse of '70's culture. A modern-day classic? Maybe not. But a fun little romp; well worth my dollar invested.