Serial (1980 film)

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Serial is a comedy film from 1980 from Paramount Pictures. The screenplay, by Rich Eustis and Michael Elias, is drawn from the novel The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County by Cyra McFadden, published in 1977. The film stars Martin Mull, Tuesday Weld, Sally Kellerman, Christopher Lee, Bill Macy, Peter Bonerz, and Tom Smothers. The music was composed by Lalo Schifrin, with lyrics written for the film's main theme song "It's a Changing World" by Norman Gimbel, sung by singer/songwriter Michael Johnson during the credits. The film was produced by Sidney Beckerman and directed by Bill Persky.

Amidst an abundance of plot twists, cultural references (e.g., Star Trek), and wacky situations and characters, the film contains many memorable lines, beginning with the wedding vows near the start.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In trendy Marin County, California during a year in the 1970s, uptight Harvey Holroyd (played by Mull) is losing patience with, on one hand, his wife Kate (Weld) and her friends, who are thoroughly caught up in new age consciousness-raising and psychobabble, and, on the other hand, his rebellious teenage daughter Joanie. In the opening scene, where he and his wife are attending the wedding of two of their friends, the Reverend Spike (plyed by Tom Smothers) says, "We are not here to celebrate a wedding," and Harvey says to his wife, "Great! Let's go." Later, their friends Bill and Martha give their vows in which the husband says "Thank you Martha for pushing my button - for I am an asshole" and being an asshole is neither good nor bad, it just is". Sardonically, Harvey says to Kate, "These are exciting times aren't they? Gas is over a dollar a gallon, and it's okay to be an asshole."

As marital problems persist, Kate and Harvey separate, and each of them becomes sexually involved with others -- rather awkwardly, however. Kate admits to her hairdresser and his female assistant that she is involved with a "gorgeous" latin whose name is "Paco," she says with a bit of fondness. The hairdresser asks her if it's a certain person named Paco from El Pero. Kate admits this, and the hairdresser, in a fit of pique, proceeds to butcher her hair, eventually admitting that Kate's boyfriend is also his lover, whom he was unaware was bisexual.

Meanwhile, Harvey meets Marlene (played by Stacy Nelkin), a free-spirited 19 year-old woman who is a cashier at a local supermarket. Telling him how he shouldn't be eating most of the stuff in his cart, the manager fires her. Walking out to his car, he tries to invite her out for coffee, only she doesn't use artificial stimulants. He wants to offer her one of the vegetables he just bought, and instead, she suggests, "Why don't we just go home and go to bed together," and gets in his car. Taken aback by her forthrightness, he manages to say, "We could do that." Harvey and Marlene engage in numerous sexual encounters. Harvey confesses on the ferry home from work to his friend Sam (played by Bill Macy), that he never believed that he would dread having sex four times. Sam, apparently deprived in sexual relations with his wife, is amazed that Harvey is having sex four times a week with Marlene. Harvey corrects him to inform Sam that he is having sex with Marlene four times a day.

Meanwhile, being unhappy at home, Joanie is lured by "concerned" members of a flower-peddling religious cult and eventually is imprisoned by them in their "church". Harvey and Kate have to patch up their differences in order to join forces to rescue her. Harvey tells Sam to go see Marlene and tell her that he can't see her right now because of a family emergency (he believes that rescuing his daughter from a cult qualifies). Sam goes to see Marlene and ends up leaving his wife for her.

Later, Harvey meets Sam on the ferry home, and discovers that Sam has gone back to his wife after going through treatment provided by Dr. Leonard Miller and appears to Harvey as a zombie, and Sam confirms that he is sedated on prescriptions. Harvey turns around for a moment, turns back, and discovers that Sam has vanished. Later, at Sam's funeral, Harvey realizes that his friend didn't fall off the boat, instead he was so unhappy that he committed suicide. He admits he is unhappy because he loved his friend, that nobody there understood how Sam really felt. The Reverend Spike proceeds to say that the funeral ground was Sam's favorite place. Harvey disagrees with Spike's claims that this is Sam's favorite place. Harvey says "This was not his favorite place. If you want to put him in his favorite place, put him in front of a 20" Sony! Jesus Christ, didn't any of you people know this man?" Harvey then sabotages Sam's funeral by grabbing the urn with his cremains away from the cluless Spike and plays keep away with everyone else until the urn ends up bursting, spilling Sam's ashes on the ground - much to his wife Angela's distress.

Harvey wakes up in bed, after he has been sedated by Dr. Leonard Miller (played by Peter Bonerz), the same one who treated Harvey's friend who committed suicide, and as a result Harvey considers him a quack. Leonard says Harvey should be honored, it's his first house call in twenty years, and he's going to put him on a weekly regimen of psychotherapy. Martha's young son Stokely (who himself is under the care of Leonard at the tender age of 11 to be put in touch with his childhood!) visits Harvey as he is recovering. Stokely points out that more-or-less everyone in the neighborhood thinks Harvey is crazy. Harvey asks Stokely what he thinks and Stokely replies "In an insane society the sane man must appear insane. - Star Trek". He leaves as Harvey reflects "I miss that show."

Throughout the movie, we are also introduced to a character called Luckmann - played by Christopher Lee. As well as being a high profile recruiter, (whom Harvey turns to for career advice only to be mocked by Luckman for not earning enough), Luckman is also in love with the Reverend Spike - as well as leading a gang of homosexual motorcyclists. At Bill and Martha's wedding, Leonard Miller recounts of the gang that "On weekdays, they're regular guys with regular jobs but at weekends they get all dressed up like Hell's Angels and listen to a lot of Judy Garland records".

In a final climactic scene, Harvey blackmails Luckman (whose clients are obviously unaware of his sexuality) to have the other members of his biker gang invade the home used by the cult and tear the place apart to find Joannie. As Luckman, his gang and Harvey set off to "the city" to rescue Joannie, Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" plays in the background. The rescue is successful and the gang even recruit a new member in the process!

The rescue of Joanie brings the family back together as Harvey insists to Joannie that he "doesn't want to hear any more of that smart ass teenage crap". The final scene shows them relocating to Denver. As the film ends, Harvey is worried because Kate believes there is a new-age organization in the Denver area that she could join.

Above all else, the film is a comedy - either a truly hilarious parody of all things 1970s, or a tragic black comedy about unhappiness and lack of enlightenment - depending on your point of view. The film is a parody of much of the intellectual fallout of the flower power era. The men work in boring jobs with long commutes, the women go to coffee mornings and are highly sexual but under sexed. Sexual enlightenment and promiscuity is rife with couples regularly being unfaithful, remarrying and or attending orgies. The unhappiness or dissatisfaction is apparently curable with enough psychiatrist sessions and enough drugs but ultimately - the film portrays that if couples could communicate properly with each other (as Kate repeatedly tries to - just using the new language of humanitarian studies alien to Harvey) - happiness is possible.

[edit] Trivia

Certain scenes or lines have been included in presentations of this film on broadcast television (albeit with overall censorship applied), but are lacking on the commercial VHS tape (issued by Paramount Pictures Corp., 1989).