Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Hand. Hitchcock's film was the basis for the comedy Throw Momma From the Train (1987), starring Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito. The movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High inspired a short-lived 1986 television series called Fast Times, featuring Courtney Thorne-Smith as Stacey, Wally Ward as Mark, Claudia Wells as Linda, Patrick Dempsey as Mike, Dean Cameron as Spicoli, James Nardini as Brad, and Ray Walston reprising his role as Mr. Both versions are currently available on DVD. The "Ridgemont Mall" shown in the film was actually the Sherman Oaks Galleria, with its exterior shot at Santa Monica Place. An early preview edit of the film, sometimes erroneously labeled the "British" version (in fact it was never released in Britain or anywhere else), includes some different scenes than the film as released. Most of the exteriors of Ridgemont High School were shot at Van Nuys High School, and other scenes were shot at Canoga Park High School. "Isn't it a fascinating design?" Hitchcock is reputed to have said; "You could study it forever.".

"Ridgemont" is a fictional name, however; there is no California community by that name. A few examples:. Although it is never explicitly mentioned as such in the film, Fast Times was filmed in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles and many people identify the film with that area and the teen culture that existed there, or was perceived to exist there, in the early 1980s. The film employs a number of puns and visual metaphors to suggest the motif of double-crossing and crossing one's double. Upon which, Brad utters the memorable line: "Doesn't anybody ever fucking knock anymore?". Like Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train is one of many Hitchcock films to explore the doppelgänger theme. Brad masturbates in the bathroom to this mental image until Linda, in real-life, accidentally walks in on him. Disgusted and embarrassed, she flees. Guy doesn't take Bruno seriously, but Bruno kills Guy's wife and then demands that Guy honors his part of the bargain.

The fantasy ends with Linda embracing Brad and kissing him. Haines meets the unstable Bruno Anthony (Walker) on a train and Bruno tells Guy about his idea to switch murders: Bruno would kill Guy's wife if Guy kills Bruno's father. The film is most memorable to some for a nude scene fantasized by Stacy's older brother Brad (Judge Reinhold) in which Phoebe Cates' character, Linda Barrett, emerges from a swimming pool wearing a red bikini, and--in slow motion, and with constant eye-contact with the camera-- she removes her bikini top, exposing her breasts. Tennis star Guy Haines (Granger) wants to divorce his unfaithful wife in order to marry the woman he loves, Anne Morton (Roman). Hand (Ray Walston), who is convinced that all students are on "dope." The film features small parts by many actors who later achieved some degree of fame: Anthony Edwards, Eric Stoltz, Nicholas Cage, and Forest Whitaker. Detective novelist Raymond Chandler wrote an early draft of the screenplay. Another character in the film is Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn in an early film role and one for which he is still often remembered), a perpetually stoned surfer dude who faces off with history teacher Mr. Ripley.

Sophomore students Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Mark Ratner (Brian Backer) are both looking for love, and they are helped along by their older classmates, Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates) and Mike Damone (Robert Romanus), respectively. The movie was based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, who also wrote The Talented Mr. He went undercover to do research for his 1981 book Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story, about his observations of the high school and the students he befriended there. Carroll and Patricia Hitchcock. The story is loosely inspired by the year Cameron Crowe, then in his early 20s, spent impersonating a high school student at Clairemont High School in San Diego, California. The film starred Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Its title inspired Vernor Vinge's Hugo award-winning short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High". The film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock.