Movie Details
| Title: | Lifeguard | |
| Director: | Daniel Petrie | |
| Year: | 1976 | |
| Genre: | Drama | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.11.26 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Fort Apache, The Bronx
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.11.26 | Blu-ray | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2026 Day Two of this year's DVRfest follows a theme I've long threatened to do but always run out of time: a non-criterion physical media day. It's not just Criterion titles on the "unwatched" shelf of the collection, and some of these things have been collecting dust since forever. But this year it's grown a bit thanks to watching several "physical media high council" videos from ringer. Their recs got me to buy a small stack sight-unseen and they've been sitting there in a dark corner of my room while I play video games every weekend. But not today! Special shout-out to vlc player. For probably a decade or more I struggled during the criterion random roll days of these festivals trying to find a piece of software that plays blus and is not a complete piece of shit. I bought the Power DVD license... they came out with a new version and wanted me to buy it again, then the old version stopped working. I found some freeware app, but it didn't support stuff like, i dunno, MENUS. It's always been a hassle to play these on my computer, having to, like, take a guess at which video file is the movie and play it independently and stuff. At the end of last year I discovered VLC would play blus as long as I had the right codec so this year I'm putting it to the test and first impressions are that it just works (as it does playing every other video format). I got a menu, i could use my mouse on it, and the volume's not shit. I love vlc player. Ok. Let's start with this 1976 title starring a brown-haired Sam Elliot where he plays a lifeguard in LA. According to the commentary, this is the birth of the Sam Elliot mustache. I really liked this. This came out a couple years before I was born but it captures the vibe I remember as a small kid going to the beach and moreso this feels like what it was probably like for my parents before I came along. The beach movie was very much a thing in the 60s and this shares some of that - there's some nudity and lots of hot girls and guys in their skimpy swimsuits - but really this movie is a pretty in-depth character drama. This reminded me a lot of that movie Redneck Miller that Tarantino showed at the alamo way back when in that it goes harder and brings much more depth than it has any need to. But first, the beach-life fantasy that this movie opens the film with is utterly intoxicating. Elliot's a lifeguard, peak physical condition with a hairy chest and crazy tan (he looks a little crispy in a few shots early on but for the most part I'm serious about this tan. It's crazy). He has casual sex with playboy playmate stewardesses on their layovers, drives around town in his corvette stingray, living that perfect southern california livin. And when a super young Kathleen Quinlan shows up playing a 17 year old and starts lusting after him you might think ok, this is what this movie is. And it sort of is? But there's also more. Elliot's character starts to feel his age, he bumps into an old high school buddy who's making bank selling porsches, he goes to the reunion where some people have become successful, and with all these pressures to give up the no-future lifeguard gig and start to get serious about a career, he's feeling pretty torn. Anne Archer, looking unbelievable, is the embodiment of that yearning since she's divorced and has a nice house and works in an art gallery and also practically throws herself at him but wants him to move up the ladder and start selling those damn porsches too, man. There's a great scene of some kind of beach competition where he's not as young as he used to be and realizes it and Elliot's performance is amazing. I'm so used to seeing him as a cowboy or soldier or whatever it's great to see him as just a dude. Quinlan's also great as the girl. It took me quite a while to see the older her in there she's so young, but she does a lot with her role. But what really seals the deal for me (spoiler alert) is the ending. The choice he makes feels true and earned and you understand. And, I love how the movie leaves things vague but offering my own thoughts here, if he went to Anne Archer and was like "i'm a lifeguard. I'm good at it. Take it or leave it," she's fine with it. Just as long as he doesn't tell her he screwed a 17 year old. Or that he's, like, kinda fine with the perverts exposing themselves on the beach or camping out in the ladies' room or the kids trying to pull off women's bikinis in the water. But you know... different time and all that. So yeah, another weird feeling for nostalgia on my parents' behalf. It really did seem pretty fun to live in LA in the 70s. This is fun. let's throw another disc on. |
