Fraternity Row, 1977

“Ah, the pledges: mow ‘em down, turn ‘em active, and they keep coming, like bad dreams…”
The Best Part- 0:10-0:18. (Take a second to queue it up and look at just that moment and the non verbal acting.  He expresses what we have all felt about GDI's in a single minute.  The actor playing "Chunk Cherry" deserved an Oscar.)  In fact, we feel deep respect for the character "Brother Chunk" throughout this movie.

Review:
This remarkably assured feature debut by director Thomas Tobin and screenwriter Charles Gary Allison (who completed the film as his thesis project at USC) is based on a true story of accidental death-by-hazing. Given this background knowledge, one expects the story to be a  negative portrayal of fraternity life. When we hear the fraternity bro played Scott Newman (Paul’s son and an 'SC student) say early on, “Never forget that you are pledges, because a pledge is a low-life — scum, dirt, filth, diseased meat!” we might be further tempted to think that this is going to be about the negatives of hazing and fraternity bashing. Instead, the bulk of the story turns out to be relatively tame. The filming is done with many actual fraternity and sorority members at the time and filmed largely at the SAE's Tudor style mansion.

The culture of the very conservative fraternity row of USC foreshadows some of the conflict and tensions of today. (It is mistakenly assumed that the story is set firmly in the 1950's while Allison explained that he drew on both his time as an undergraduate and later as graduate student in the 70's to express some of the heightened tensions on campus that he noticed upon his return.) The film is credited with familiarizing the term "GDI" with a large segment of the American population that were otherwise unfamiliar with the phrase what they are.

The untimely death scene is a downer is probably the reason this film does not get more attention. Otherwise it would rate well as a nostalgic meander (without the death there is hardly a plot).  Besides needing a better ending, it is difficult to find fault with this competent film, a counterpoint to raunchy and tons more upbeat college-exploitation flicks such as Animal House.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments

• An insightful if dry look at the rituals of fraternity life in that era
   
• A heads up to NOT USE RAW LIVER IN HAZING
  

Proto Fratting: Famous tongue-in-cheek take on fraternity men at University of Virginia 1979

Virginia is both the Mother of Presidents and the mother of modern fratting it seems.  Ancient GDI archives tell us this even if the GDI's could not fully understand what they were witnessing.

Some older documentation goes back to the 1970's, shown here in the poster above.  (Click to see a larger image.)  If we change the high-water pants, perhaps nix the circa 80's layering of button-down shirt over polo when wearing a blazer (layering is still a good thing but we must be aware of trying-to-hard), and maybe get something going on with the hair: voila!  Proto Preppy is Modern Fratting Man. The two share 99.89% of the same genes.

The backstory of the poster: a UVa student, Tom Shadyac, Sigma Chi I believe, decided to cash in on the hate by making  posters, making tons of money before going on to be a wildly successful film producer. You lose again fraternity haters!

Some GDIs asked us what was "gatoring" or how to do "the gator" was when they saw the poster.  We told them to go jump in reptile infested waters up to their eyeballs.  Our apologies, we should have seen that as a teachable moment.  I guess the youngsters don't have parents. Charlie, if you will demonstrate...