Cover Me Babe (1970)

Tonight, FMC showed Cover Me Babe – released in 1970, it's got Robert Forster as a student filmmaker, who's obsessed with the idea that "reality" might be more interesting than scripted productions. Especially seedy, sordid reality. He's inspired by the Lee Harvey Oswald shooting that was broadcast live on TV - his big idea is, essentially, reality TV! He tells his film teacher about how someday people's real lives will be filmed, and viewers will come to prefer it over anything scripted - very prophetic! A better movie than I expected, and apparently rarely seen, especially on TV - this version seemed uncut, with nudity intact.It's not worth any great expense or effort to seek, but fine as an easy diversion - interesting and prophetic, but by no mean a great movie. I can see why it was despised in 1970 - it's only value as a cinematic artifact is achieved by it being almost 40 years later now, and how eerily the film predicted the rise of "reality" entertainment. The very same things that Forster's lead character is hated for screening, those things now win awards and accolades and movie/TV career contracts. Forster's performance is metallic and makes him more unlikable than any film character I can think of outside the a-hole principal in Animal House - and at least HE was funny!So it's a curios at best, but with out-there and ultimately accurate ideas about media and pop culture, the kind of thing film buffs can appreciate. And (very) young Sondra Locke really isn't bad as one of Forster's long-suffering girlfriends, even tho there's never the slightest indication why she'd put up with his vidiot/savant personality and ways ------

Did you see Harrison Ford in this movie? Oh he is not in the credits, however...I believe that most extras and some "under-fives", meaning actors are just background or who have under five lines, rarely get credit on-screen.Look about 15 to 17 minutes into the movie.Check out the lifeguard giving mouth to mouth to the drowned child. All you see is a profile for just a second or so.Looks like Harrison Ford, huh?Cover Me Babe is a good mirror of how "deep" and pretentious many "creative" young people were in the late sixties, early 70's in America. (I was one of them and oh boy does it smart to see myself so well limned on-screen.) Also, great to see so many (now) well-known actors knocking out those lines with such flat lighting and coming off with less than star-quality. Reember Deniro in his b-movie, and how much better an actor he "became" with a great cameraman? Same here.

My recollection is that when I first saw this film (maybe at a drive-in) it was rated X, had a scene of male frontal nudity (Forster) and was actually first shown in theaters (some theaters anyway) under the title of Run, Shadow, Run. Can anyone verify this? I too saw the PG version once on TV years ago but last night saw the TV-MA (R?) version on Fox Movie Channel. This version seemed to have some scenes cut though I cannot be sure. A friend also told me at the time (he later became a film editor for Variety) that there was a trailer for the film that was a vicious diatribe against the studio for restricting the directorial control of Black. I was quite taken with the version I saw then, in part because I thought Black, the director of Pretty Poison, was an outstanding new director. Unfortunately his films after Pretty Poison have never lived up to it on subsequent viewings.

I saw "Cover Me Babe" in its brief first run in New York City. The film was rated "R" due to scenes of sexuality. To the best of my knowledge, if there was a "PG" rated version, it would have be the version edited for television. I interviewed Noel Black, and he told me that "Cover Me Babe" was televised although I did not pursue further information on the broadcast. This would have been in the late 70s. I wrote an article on Noel Black's films in the magazine, Velvet Light Trap, in 1973. The main problem Black had with this film was that he was contractually unable to change the screenplay to more accurately reflect the attitude and film-making style of a student film-maker in the early 70s. Black also noted that his original choice in the lead role was a then unknown Al Pacino. The box office performance of this film was so poor that it is unlikely to be seen again, except, possibly on the Fox Movie Channel.