''FM'' is a 1978 American
comedy drama
Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...
film about internal conflicts at an FM
radio station
Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...
directed by
John A. Alonzo and starring
Michael Brandon,
Eileen Brennan,
Alex Karras,
Cleavon Little,
Martin Mull and
Cassie Yates with special appearances by
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is an American singer who has performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin music.
Ronstadt has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three A ...
and
Jimmy Buffett
James William Buffett (December 25, 1946 – September 1, 2023) was an American singer-songwriter, author, and businessman. He was known for his tropical rock sound and persona, which often portrayed a lifestyle described as "island escapis ...
in his feature film debut. The screenplay was written by Ezra Sacks.
The film was produced by
Universal Pictures
Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...
and originally released to theaters in the spring of 1978. The film performed poorly at the box office, but its soundtrack was a
Platinum-certified disc, selling over one million records.
Plot
Q-SKY program director and morning DJ Jeff Dugan builds a large fanbase by assembling a group of charismatic on-air personalities playing popular rock and roll. He soon finds that corporate management expects Jeff to use the station's position atop the ratings to sell more advertising time, and does so with the aid of a newly-hired sales manager.
The new sales manager, Regis Lamar, presents him with the chance to advertise for the U.S. Army using a series of cheesy radio ads. When Jeff refuses to endorse the contract, Regis takes the issue to upper management. Jeff is then ordered to run the ads as provided by the Army and on the schedule specified in the advertising contract. Rather than comply, Jeff quits his job. All of the remaining DJs decide to take control of the station in a lock-in/sit-in/protest. They get listeners to gather in the street outside the station as a sort of protest while the DJs play music without any commercials.
Jeff wakes up the next morning to hear the DJs take control of the station. The crowd is already present when he arrives at the station. The DJs lift him up to the second storey with a fire hose as they have already barricaded the front doors. The lock-in lasts only until the police get an injunction to remove the staff. A tow truck rips off the front doors and the police enter the building. The DJs battle back by using a firehose and throwing tapes and other office stationery at the police.
The battle is resolved when Dugan finds himself fighting a policeman outside on an overhang. Jeff saves the policeman from falling off and decides that fighting is the wrong thing to do. He calms the crowd and announces that the DJs are coming out. Unknown to him, company owner Carl Billings has been watching from the crowd as the events unfolded. Billings steps forward and insists that the DJs stay in the station, fires his management staff responsible for the advertising conflict, and then joins the DJs inside the station.
Cast
Production
The story unfolds across a background of concerts, broadcast music, appearances by various rock stars, and public appearances by the station's DJs. A minor sub-theme to the film is the competition between QSKY and another area radio station, KLAX. The major event of that sub-theme occurs when Jeff arranges to broadcast a live concert by
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is an American singer who has performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin music.
Ronstadt has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three A ...
that is being sponsored by a competing radio station. Another minor sub-theme is the ongoing task of massaging egos of the various DJs to keep them happy and on the air.
Martin Mull appears in his feature film debut as libidinous, egotistical DJ Eric Swan. Rounding out the cast are
Cleavon Little, who plays the Prince of Darkness, QSKY's overnight host (Little had previously played a disc jockey in the film ''
Vanishing Point
A vanishing point is a point (geometry), point on the projection plane, image plane of a graphical perspective, perspective rendering where the two-dimensional perspective projections of parallel (geometry), parallel lines in three-dimensional ...
'' in 1971);
Eileen Brennan as "Mother", the 40-something nighttime DJ;
Alex Karras as "Doc Holiday", the midday DJ with the lowest ratings on the station who is eventually let go after the survey period;
Cassie Yates as Laura Coe, who takes over Doc's midday slot; and Tom Tarpey as new sales manager Regis Lamar, the bane of the disc jockeys' existence. In addition, the film includes live appearances by
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950October 2, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the leader and frontman of the Rock music, rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s sup ...
and
REO Speedwagon
REO Speedwagon (originally stylized as R.E.O. Speedwagon), or simply REO, was an American Rock music, rock band from Champaign, Illinois. Formed in 1967, the band cultivated a following during the 1970s and achieved significant commercial suc ...
along with live performances by
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is an American singer who has performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin music.
Ronstadt has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three A ...
and
Jimmy Buffett
James William Buffett (December 25, 1946 – September 1, 2023) was an American singer-songwriter, author, and businessman. He was known for his tropical rock sound and persona, which often portrayed a lifestyle described as "island escapis ...
.
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a traditional band lineup, Becker and Fagen cho ...
performed
the title theme, which became a sizable hit.
The Eagles
The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971. With five number-one singles, six number-one albums, six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s in ...
,
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.
Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the single "Fi ...
,
Bob Seger,
Dan Fogelberg,
Billy Joel
William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Piano Man" after his Signature song, signature 1973 song Piano Man (song), of the same name, Joel has ha ...
, and
Queen
Queen most commonly refers to:
* Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom
* Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king
* Queen (band), a British rock band
Queen or QUEEN may also refer to:
Monarchy
* Queen dowager, the widow of a king
* Q ...
were featured on the Platinum-plus soundtrack album. It was the first film to feature Queen's music on its soundtrack; as of 2020 their songs had since appeared in nearly 100 other movies.
Record company executive
Irving Azoff
Irving Azoff (; born December 12, 1947) is an American businessman, who is chairman of Full Stop Management, a company that represents recording artists. During the course of his career, he has worked as an agent, personal manager, concert pr ...
participated in the making of the film as executive producer, but he disowned it before release and asked that his name be removed from the credits, a request which Universal granted.
Azoff said the film was "not an authentic representation of the music business" and that the studio reneged on its promise to allow him creative control over it, particularly regarding selections of music.
Reception
The film received negative reviews.
Janet Maslin of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' wrote that the film "turns into a preposterously self-serving variation on 1960s' themes" and that the central problem in the plot "is certainly a real one, for rock radio stations everywhere. But Ezra Sacks's screenplay manages, by taking this crisis so very, very seriously, not to take it seriously at all." ''
Variety'' called the film "the modern equivalent of the 1930s newspaper film, all break-neck dialog, quirky happenstances and behind-the-scenes drama transposed to a 1970s rock radio station. Unlike such classics as the original '
Front Page
Front Page or The Front Page may also refer to:
Periodicals
* ''Frontpage'' (techno magazine), a German magazine for electronic music
* '' FrontPage Africa'', a Liberian daily newspaper
* '' FrontPage Magazine'', an online political magazine s ...
,' however, this Universal release goes nowhere with a potentially-fascinating set of plot elements."
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune'' who co-hosted a movie review television series alongside colleague Roger Ebert.
Siskel started writing for the '' ...
of the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and found "little reason to care" about the plot, as the sales manager "is a caricature that belongs on a TV variety show" and the "miserable deejays... do their best to make you want to switch stations. Unfortunately, you can't switch stations in a movie theater. All you can do is leave."
Charles Champlin of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' declared it "Fairly Mediocre" and "such claptrap silliness that only the tender in years and soft in mind are apt to be enraptured." Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' panned the film as "a shallow attempt at rabble-rousing comedy" which "flounders in smarmy virtue" and "tries to be hip in all the worst ways." John Pym of ''
The Monthly Film Bulletin
The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' wrote that the movie's central premise rests on the idea "that commercial, pop-music radio stations were not primarily created to generate advertising revenue, and that the people who put on the records and ad-lib between the jingles are folk heroes, free from the exigencies of the business world, members of that select cinematic breed of American independent professionals. Ezra Sacks' attenuated script, which alternates between episodes of jovial high jinks and moments of melancholy self-indulgence, fails to acknowledge the practical implications of this premise (namely that, without advertising, these 'creative' broadcasters would be out of work) and instead makes the army salesman a ludicrously over-drawn figure of fun and Regis Lamar a sycophantic yes-man."
''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' magazine considered the music heavily biased towards musicians who had been managed by Irving Azoff, who would become the head of the studio's then-corporate sibling
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc. established in 1972, though MCA had released recordings under that name in the UK from the 1960s. The label achieved success in the 1970s through the 1980s, often by acquiring other ...
five years after the film's release.
The film holds a score of 20% on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
based on 10 reviews and was not successful at the box office.
Some reference books claim that the sitcom ''
WKRP in Cincinnati
''WKRP in Cincinnati'' is an American sitcom television series about the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional AM radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson. It was based upon his experiences obs ...
'' was based on ''FM''. The physical resemblance between Michael Brandon and ''WKRP'' lead actor
Gary Sandy and the fact that their respective characters were both based upon
KMET programming director
Captain Mikey["Deaths", Billboard (December 6, 1997):64.] may have contributed to this speculation. However, ''WKRP'' series creator
Hugh Wilson asserts that the sitcom was already in development when the film came out. He also states that he was "scared to death" when the film came out, afraid that it would eclipse the CBS sitcom, which made its debut in September 1978. Wilson was relieved when ''FM'' came and went from theaters quickly.
Soundtrack
Despite the film's poor performance at the box office, the soundtrack sold over a million copies in its first several weeks.
[ ]Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a traditional band lineup, Becker and Fagen cho ...
's " FM (No Static at All)" won engineers Al Schmitt and Roger Nichols the 1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...
for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical.
References
External links
*
*
*
* {{Letterboxd film
1978 films
1978 comedy-drama films
American comedy-drama films
American rock music films
1970s English-language films
Films about radio
Films about radio people
Films directed by John A. Alonzo
Films set in Los Angeles
1978 directorial debut films
Workplace comedy films
1970s American films
Universal Pictures films
English-language comedy-drama films