You're a Big Boy Now (1966) on Netflix
TV-MA19661h 36mComedyDramaRomance
Nineteen-year-old Bernard Chanticleer leaves his parents' home for a room in Manhattan. He is smitten with the actress Barbara Darling, while his classmate Amy Partlett has a crush on him.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.0/102,442 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
Bernard Chanticleer, nineteen, works as a low-level assistant at the New York Public Library, where his father is curator of incunabula, and lives in Great Neck with a clinging mother and a disapproving father. His father decides he is old enough for his own apartment in Manhattan, and his mother arranges a room in a rooming house run by Miss Nora Thing, who reports any female activity to her. Bernard, a naive virgin, is infatuated with the actress Barbara Darling. Amy Partlett, his grade-school classmate, now works in his father's office and tells him she has a crush on him. His worldly co-worker Raef Del Grado urges him to date Amy instead of pursuing Barbara.
Cast
- Ronald Colbyas Barbara's Stage Play Crew
- Rufus Harleyas Barbara's Stage Play Crew
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about You're a Big Boy Now (1966)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Coppola shot the department store chase at 11 a.m. during the store's normal business hours, concealing three cameras in carts and shopping bags and filming with natural light; no one outside the cast and crew knew. Sources say the store was Macy's, but the film's signage reads "Mays", another New York chain.
- The New York Public Library refused to allow filming on its premises, worried about disruption and objecting to the script's suggestion of a vault full of erotica its curator enjoyed visiting, but Coppola got a permit with help from then-Mayor John Lindsay.
- Tony Bill brought the idea for the film to Coppola, being a fan of David Benedictus' novel, and hoped to play Bernard, but was cast instead as the duplicitous co-worker Raef Del Grado.
- Coppola made the film as his UCLA thesis project for a fee of $8,000 and a budget of $800,000; it went over budget to nearly $1 million, which was not recouped until the film was sold to television.
- Coppola wrote the screenplay while on location in Europe for Seven Arts Productions working on Is Paris Burning?, and moved the novel's setting from London to New York City, changed Bernard's job from shoe store clerk to library assistant and added an upbeat ending.
- In the scene where Bernard roller skates through Manhattan after receiving Barbara's letter, the facade of the original Pennsylvania Station, then being demolished, is briefly visible, with Madison Square Garden under construction behind it.
- Two songs from the film's Lovin' Spoonful soundtrack were released as singles, and "Darling Be Home Soon" reached #15 on the U.S. charts and spawned many covers by other artists.
- You're a Big Boy Now was presented at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival as the only American entry in the lineup.
