Why doesn't anyone tell you there's a difference between making love and being in love?


First Love is a 1977 American romance movie. It stars Susan Dey and William Katt and was directed by Joan Darling. The movie is based upon the story Sentimental Education by Harold Brodkey. The original music score was composed by John Barry.


It's hardly likely that anyone will confuse 1977's First Love with the 1939 Deanna Durbin musical of the same name. In the earlier film, Durbin received her first screen kiss from Robert Stack. In the 1977 film, no one stops at kissing. College boy Elgin (William Katt) falls for coed Caroline (Susan Dey, light-years removed from The Partridge Family), despite Caroline's deep involvement with an older man. 1950s leading lady Virginia Leith makes a comeback appearance in a minor role. Critics applauded the sensitive direction by Joan Darling, even while carping that the title First Love seemed to be a misnomer: neither Katt nor Dey appear to be inexperienced in sexual matters.


College romance set in an unspecified American institution. Katt, alternately called 'sweet' or 'a very special person', takes love seriously and loses his marbles over Dey. He describes her as 'fragile', but she seems surprisingly resilient, having been involved with a charmless older man (Loggia) for three years, no doubt a surrogate for the father who shot himself. Through this ogre the relationship sours, but they adapt and life goes on. Not a bad story, but a pity that director Darling spends so much time setting up such a condescending approximation of contemporary college life, full of merry japes, poignant incoherence, and all those clichés about sex for the under 21s. Don't rate Cat Stevens' mood music much either.

Release Date: November 4, 1977 @ Baronet and Little Carnegie

Distrib: Paramount