There is too much fun and not enough serious thought in The Paper Chase, now showing at the Stuart. The film centers around a group of first-year Harvard law school students who are competing for the almighty grades.



The film attemps to comment on this near inhumane grading system, but brushes it off with furtive midnight forays into secret files of the library stacks and other slightly amusing escapades. Timothy Bottoms (Johnny Got His Gun, Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing, The Last Picture Show) portrays the main point of interest in the college crows. This is, by far, the most shallow role he's taken to date. He finds himself placed between the cool, calculated gnawing intellect of Prof. Kingsfield (John Houseman) and the warm sensuous bed of Kingfield's daughter Susan (Lindsay Wagner).



Houseman shows the strongest performance in a generally weak effort. The study group offers an interesting cross-section of students devising methods to come out on top of the hectic law school race.



Although the basic character differences are presented in this study group, there is no further
development of the roles. And the action in The Paper Chase is as slow as a tortoise on the run.
It does succeed in capturing the Ivy League atmosphere of Harvard, even to the point of resembling the setting of the tearful Love Story. I wouldn't be surprised if they used the same snow!



This film is a disappointment! PG.

Holly Spense