Drive, He Said

1971
R
1h 30m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

The star player of a college basketball team starts to go off the rails with an illicit love affair and his roommate going crazy to avoid the war draft.The star player of a college basketball team starts to go off the rails with an illicit love affair and his roommate going crazy to avoid the war draft.The star player of a college basketball team starts to go off the rails with an illicit love affair and his roommate going crazy to avoid the war draft.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.7/10

1.8K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination total

Easly
(as Mike Warren)

June Fairchild

Sylvie

Don Hanmer

Director of Athletics

Lynette Bernay

Dance Instructor
(as Lynn Bernay)

Joseph Walsh

Announcer #1
(as Joey Walsh)

Harry Gittes

Announcer #2

Charles Robinson

Jollop

Bill Sweek

Finnegan

David Ogden Stiers

Pro Owner
(as David Stiers)

B.J. Merholz

Pro Lawyer

Mireille Machu

Secretary
(as I.J. Jefferson)

Kenneth Payne

President Wallop

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Jack Nicholson's solo directorial debut. It was one of two post-Easy Rider (1969) Nicholson films that weren't released on any kind of home video until 2010. That year, the Criterion Collection released this movie and A Safe Place (1971) on DVD and Blu-ray as part of their "America Lost And Found - The BBS Story" box set.

Goofs
During the second basketball game, the writing on the Ohio Leopards jerseys frequently changes from "Leopards" to "Ohio" on a shot by shot basis.

Quotes
Gabriel: This is death, this is army, war, shoot, blood, fear, kill! No way, man, no way, I'm making a stand right here, that's all there is to it. For me, it is strictly a survival trip.

Crazy credits
The opening credits are typed so small, one can hardly read them. Sometimes the letters in the names are blurred because of their ultra-small size.

Connections
Featured in Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies (2020)

Soundtracks
Theme
Written by Moondog (as Louis Thomas Hardin)
From the instrumental album "Moondog"

User reviews31

Review

Featured review

6/10

An interesting premise, but unfinished product

One of the more unusual movies I've ever seen is "Drive, He Said." Made in 1971 made by the same production company that made "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces" that made Jack Nicholson a star a year or two earlier.

This was the first film directed by Jack Nicholson. It's a combination basketball, free love, anti-draft movie that was filmed on the campus of the University of Oregon. It was not well-received at the time, and was somewhat infamous for its male frontal nudity scenes. The basketball skill level seemed very high.

It's basically the story of two friends--one a basketball star and Greek major who's hormones are raging and is undecided about a pro career. The other is a guy taking drugs to try to stay out of the draft, and basically he flips out.

I thought it was an interesting premise, but I found the speech of the main characters to be stilted. In some ways it captured the ethos of U. S. campuses in the Vietnam War era pretty well.