Fast Times at Ridgemont High

"Ridgemont High School" redirects here. For the high school in Ottawa, see Ridgemont High School (Ottawa).

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Directed by	Amy Heckerling
Produced by	Irving Azoff Art Linson
Written by	Cameron Crowe
Starring	Sean Penn Jennifer Jason Leigh Judge Reinhold Phoebe Cates
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Editing by	Eric Jenkins
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	August 13, 1982
Running time	90 min.
Language	English
Budget	$4,500,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a 1982 American coming-of-age teen film adapted by Cameron Crowe from his novel of the same name. The film follows a school year in the lives of freshman Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh), freshman Mark Ratner (Brian Backer) and their respective friends Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates) and Mike Damone (Robert Romanus) who believe themselves wise in the ways of romance and counsel their younger counterparts. The ensemble cast of characters also includes Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn), a perpetually stoned but savvy surfer who faces off against uptight history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), who is convinced that all of his students use marijuana. Stacy's brother, Brad (Judge Reinhold) is a successful high school senior who works at a local burger joint.

Director Amy Heckerling shepherded the young cast, that also included Nicolas Cage, here credited as Nicolas Coppola for the first and only time, Anthony Edwards, Eric Stoltz and Forest Whitaker. Several scenes have entered pop culture. The most famous is a fantasy sequence in which Cates exits a pool and removes her bright red bikini top in slow motion to the beat of The Cars' hit "Moving in Stereo". The scene was parodied by Jimmy Kimmel playing the part of Cates to Adam Carolla's Brad on The Man Show. Fountains of Wayne's paid tribute by casting Rachel Hunter in the Cates role for their "Stacy's Mom" video clip and pop-punk band Fenix Tx performs a song called "Phoebe Cates": "I've been in love since the day I saw 'Fast Times,' it's on a permanent rewind and can you guess my favorite part?"

According to the DVD extras, many video store owners reported that VHS copies of the film had tracking errors during Cates's famous scene. The sequence ranked No. 1 on a list of the top 100 nude scenes compiled by Mrskin.com.

The story is loosely inspired by the year Crowe spent at Clairemont High School in San Diego, California. 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. Crowe's screenplay was nominated for a WGA Award for best comedy adapted from another medium. Despite Universal feeling the film would have no appeal outside of California, the movie ended up making over $27 million in its theatrical run, six times its $4.5 million budget.

In 2005 it was added to the list of films preserved in the United States National Film Registry. The film also ranked #87 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list. This film is number 15 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". This movie ranked number 2 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.

Plot summary

Naïve Stacy is a high school freshman who works at a mall pizzeria with the more experienced Linda. Mark Ratner also works in the mall, as assistant to the assistant manager of the movie theater. His friend Mike Damone, who believes himself wise in the ways of women, shares his advice with Mark. Stacy's brother Brad is a successful senior who saved enough from his long-time gig at All-American Burger to buy a blue 1960 Buick LeSabre. ^[1] Partier Jeff Spicoli hotboxes in a Volkswagen Microbus before the final bell rings for the start of a new school year.

Stacy and Mark end up sharing a class when school resumes. Mark asks Stacy out and receives pointers from Damone. One of his many tips is to play side one of Led Zeppelin IV, but shortly thereafter Mark plays "Kashmir" from the band's 1975 double album Physical Graffiti. The date goes well despite Mark forgetting his wallet at home, and the tape deck being stolen from his sister's vehicle during their dinner.

Meanwhile, Spicoli drinks beer and smokes cigarettes as he joyrides in a 1978 Chevrolet Camaro owned by Jefferson, star of the football team. With him is Jefferson's little brother. A missed turn leads to Spicoli wrecking the car. Brad loses his job at All American Burger.

Mark and Mike crash Stacy and Linda's backyard sunbathing session. Brad arrives home from his new job and spies on Linda from the bathroom. Brad fantasizes that Linda exposes her breasts before embracing him as he arrives home for work in a business suit. Brad masturbates in the bathroom to this mental image until Linda, in real-life, accidentally walks in on him. Disgusted and embarrassed, she flees, upon which Brad utters the line: "Doesn't anybody ever fucking knock anymore?" Then, Damone comes over to swim with Stacey, but then the two have sex in the poolhouse. Stacey later tells Damone that she's pregnant. After Damone doesn't show up to give her a ride to the abortion clinic, she asks Brad to take her to the bowling alley. He does, but as he drives away, he spots her walking into the abortion clinic. After Stacey is done, Brad picks her up and asks who got her pregnant, she doesn't reply. After an argument breaks out between Damone and Mark at school, they stop talking. Then they meet up at the dance and become friends again. Then we see Brad at his new job at a local Mini Mart. Spicoli then walks in and asks Brad if he can use his bathroom. Brad replies yes. As Spicoli walks in the bathroom, a thief (played by James Russo) walks in the door with a pistol and tells Brad to give him the money in the safe. Brad though, doesn't know the combination. Then Spicoli walks out and asks Brad if he has any paper towels. Spicoli sees the thief and yells "Woa, AWESOME!" The thief then gets distracted by Jeff so Brad throws coffee in the robber's face. The robber yells, and Brad takes his gun, and becomes a hero. Then in the credits, we see what happens to the students in the future. Brad becomes manager of the Mini Mart. Damone is busted for scalping Ozzy Osbourne tickets, and works 7-11. Mr. Hand is convinced all of his students are on dope. Jeff Spicoli saves Brooke Shields and is rewarded with money, which he uses to hire Van Halen to play at his birthday party. And it goes on and on.

Filming locations

Fast Times was filmed in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles (although it is never explicitly mentioned as such in the film), and many people identify the movie with that area and the teen culture that existed there, or was perceived to exist there, in the early 1980s. "Ridgemont" is a fictional name, however; there is no California community by that name. There is, though, a Canadian school named "Ridgemont High School" under the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, although it has no relations to the movie. Cameron Crowe likely named it after Clairemont High School in San Diego. 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. The "Ridgemont Mall" shown in the film was actually the Sherman Oaks Galleria, with its exterior shot at Santa Monica Place. The actual mall has since been converted to an open-air mall. "The Point" was filmed at the Encino Little League Field in Encino.

TV spinoff

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, Ray Walston reprising his role as Mr. Hand and Vincent Schiavelli reprising his role as Mr. Vargas, the biology teacher at Ridgemont High.

Trivia

• The film's title inspired Vernor Vinge's Hugo award-winning short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High".
• Led Zeppelin, notorious for being highly selective in allowing their tracks for feature films, agreed to the use of "Kashmir" for Fast Times. Crowe also used several Zeppelin tracks in Almost Famous, including "The Rain Song"and "That's The Way".
• The soundtrack features solo tracks by four different members of The Eagles.
• The soundtrack also features a track by Donna Summer entitled "Highway Runner," which was originally recorded for her 1981 album I'm a Rainbow, which had been shelved by her record label at the time. Its appearance on this soundtrack was an exclusive for Summer fans.
• Crowe's girlfriend at the time, Nancy Wilson of Heart, has a cameo as "Girl in Corvette". They married in 1986.
• Minnetonka High School in Minnetonka, Minnesota used to be called Ridgemont High (many places in the area have "ridge" in the title) but the name was changed after this film was released.
• Near the beginning of the movie, right after Mr. Hand sends Spicoli to the front office for being late to class, Mr. Hand passes out the class schedule of quizzes. After the paper is passed out, the students put the page up to their noses and deeply inhale. This was a popular school ritual of the 60's, 70's and early 80's as photocopying machines were very expensive, so spirit duplicators, more commonly referred to as "ditto machines," were used. The spirit duplicators used a colored wax as the "ink" and a noxious solvent as a transfer agent to impress the ink on the paper. These solvents sometimes took a long time to dry, hence the students use of these solvents as a short-term "high".
• In each scene which takes place in Mr. Hand's history class, he is attempting to teach the students about the Platt Amendment.
• Phoebe Cates' disgusted reaction to Judge Reinhold in the masturbation scene was real as Reinhold ad-libbed the scene to play a joke on her.

References

• Fast Times at Ridgemont High DVD commentary

External links

• Fast Times at Ridgemont High Home Page
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High: The Info Archive
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High at the Internet Movie Database
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High at All Movie Guide

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