University of Virginia Library

Film Preview:

'Adam At 6 A.M.'

By Jacob Atlas

UCLA was cold, bleak and grey
the Tuesday the "Adam at 6 a.m."
company decided to shoot a summer
sequence. The students generally
ignored the shivering "Adam,"
Michael Douglas, and the Fouad
Said portable "sound-stage" truck
parked just off a main thorough way.
Typical for jaded UCLA; they
have their own film department,
and besides "The Graduate" was
shot there. Only the scampering
dogs warmed to the visitors.

"Adam at 6 a.m." is the
synthesis of all the talk of a New
Hollywood. A post "Easy Rider"
Hollywood, a post "Medium Cool"
Hollywood. It's the first film for
producers Rick Rosenberg and
Robert Christiansen; the first motion
picture for director Robert
Scheerer (veteran of television); the
first writing effort for Stephen and
Elinor Karpf; the first feature film
role for Lee Purcell. In fact,
Michael Douglas, 25, who has one
other film and a leading television
role to his credit, figures as one of
the old timers.

The film also emerges as an
outgrowth of today's thinking. It
deals with the dissatisfaction of a
young man fed up with his
creations; pursuing the ever popular
myth of the Middle America, he
gets in his car - to clear his head -
and heads out to his heritage and
Missouri.

Michael Douglas, blond, good
looking, and still smarting from the
bummer-weight of his first film
explains, "Adam's like a lot of my
friends, who either because of the
army or whatever went right into
their doctorate program and around
25 or 26 they're not even sure they
really wanted to, but almost without
any choice they were there. It's
about a guy who's at that point.
He's really disenchanted. It's a
struggle for him to work on his
thesis, it's an effort to get involved
with what he's doing.

Living From Memory

He's bored at a very early age
like a lot of kids are. They've been
through a lot of scenes already;
they've done it every which way,
they've drugged themselves to
death; they're burnt out at a very
early age. It's about a beginning of
a summer and he should be starting
his thesis and nothing is working
right, so he hears about a funeral of
a great-great aunt in Missouri and
he gets into his car and drives. He
gets all hooked up in the Missouri
life of generations and cycles, and
everything having substance and
being firm. It's so simple. It makes
sense, waking up in the morning
and being clean and free."

The film is an extension of
trying to find that point in
America, that point where life
becomes purposeful and living
ceases to be something that is done
from memory.

The people connected with

"Adam" believe in it passionately.
The producers take great pride in
stating that they personally interviewed
everyone working on their
set, from the actors to the gaffers.
They were looking for that ever
popular and still necessary element
of team spirit. They wanted people
who would be committed not, they
said, to an assignment, but to a
film.

As part of the desire to get into
the country the Found said Movable
sound-stage was utilized
throughout the film. This is the
set-up that was originally developed
for television's "I Spy." It enables
the production to go on any kind
of location and still maintain the
highest possible standards of production.
The "Adam" company
spent eight weeks in Missouri
filming and two weeks picking up
locations around Los Angeles.

Political Extension

Also unique to the production
was the face that the writers -
former graduates of USC - Stephen
and Elinor Karpf were on the set
constantly. Stephen and his wife,
who are just 27, meet Actor Steve
McQueen (for whose company
Solar Productions and Cinema Center
Films "Adam at 6 am" is being
made) when they were doing a
thesis on screen heroes. At that
time, McQueen expressed a desire
to do a film with the two; "Adam"
is that reality.

Stephen, who now teaches at
USC and hopes in the astonishing
near future to direct, views the
script as an extension of the politics
of this country. "One of the things
that came out of the election
campaign of last year is hat there
are two Americas: those people
who pay their taxes and own
property and keep the family
together, and then there are the
sort of screw-balls who live in New
York or LA or San Francisco. We
wanted to show what the substance
of the two Americas is about. It's
more concerned with life-styles
than polarization.

"Adam," Stephen states, "is a
creature of our times. He can make
aesthetic choices. Like in the 1930's
picture with Paul Muni, 'I Am A
Fugitive From A Chain-Gang' Muni
was concerned with making a living.
His driving concern was bettering
himself. Take 'Cool Hand Luke' in
1967. Cool Hand Luke didn't like
the world aesthetically he wasn't
oppressed economically. He sort of
said, well, there's too much civilization.
That's the difference. So that
Adam's dissatisfaction is anaesthetic
one, as opposed to what was
before."

This attitude of aesthetics is
inevitable, according to Stephen,
given our system of economics. We
create the leisure time for thinking.
"What we're doing is taking our
young people and forcing them into
protracted higher education because
of our system. We're told to
think, and when kids think and
become aware of themselves they
will want to change things.

'Something Better'

"It's kind of a truism that every
generation wants to build a monument
to their own style. This
generation is going to change
things, there's no question about
that. It's going to be different.
There's less emphasis on sheer
general building. That was the great
thing of the Eisenhower Administration
- we're going to blanket
this country with super-highways -
a 40 billion dollar program, the
hallmark of the Administration.
Our generation is looking for
something better."

Obviously Optimistic

What comes out of that scene
for something better? Stephen is
obviously optimistic. He sees the
alternative route shinning rather
clearly in the sunshine. He relates
his hero, to this optimism by saying
Adam will make the choice to
join-up; not sell-out, but join-up
making the choice of becoming a
functioning part of society and
working from within. Michael
Douglas sees the search slightly
differently. Somewhat more pessimistically,
Michael views it as a
grasp for small moments of happiness
that will eventually add up to a
life-time of something fulfilled.

The film was completed six
months after it was scheduled to be
on the boards. A record time for
any motion picture company. It
should be out by the early part of
next year, with music hopefully by
a group of the caliber of The Band.
The enthusiasm for the film runs
high and thick, and the self-proclaimed
integrity with which it
was meticulously made, will, with
any luck at all, come through to us
on film.