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Between the Lines main poster

Between the Lines

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5.3/10 • 22

1977-04-271h 41m

ComedyDrama

Fun, Adventure, Romance on $75 a Week

The staff of the Back Bay Mainline, a Boston underground newspaper that rose to prominence in the 1960s, struggles with the shifting social climate of the '70s amid rumors that the paper is about to be sold to a media giant.

Directors
Joan Micklin Silver
Editors
John Carter

Top Billed Cast

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  1. John Heard

    John Heard

    Harry

  2. Lindsay Crouse

    Lindsay Crouse

    Abbie

  3. Jeff Goldblum

    Jeff Goldblum

    Max

  4. Jill Eikenberry

    Jill Eikenberry

    Lynn

  5. Bruno Kirby

    Bruno Kirby

    David

  6. Gwen Welles

    Gwen Welles

    Laura

  7. Stephen Collins

    Stephen Collins

    Michael

  8. Lewis J. Stadlen

    Lewis J. Stadlen

    Stanley

  9. Jon Korkes

    Jon Korkes

    Frank

Reviews1

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CinemaSerf Avatar

CinemaSerf

Apr 20, 2023

6/10

The twenty-something staff of the erstwhile quite radical newspaper "Mainline" are struggling to keep their work relevant as the 1970s give way to the 1980s. I don't know if anyone remembers a television drama called the "Paper Chase" (1973) but a lot of the style and characterisations of that film are reminiscent here. Young people trying to make their own way, defiantly trying to hold on to values and commitments that may be largely on the wain. The thing with this, for me anyway, was I found them all rather shallow and selfish. The combination of their working and social lives are presented in a fashion that is very, very, verbose. Why use one word when you can use eight? As the story drifts along, I felt less and less interested in the characters and their semi-comic antics and started to notice silly continuity errors - that wouldn't ordinarily matter - and to focus more on the tangential aspects of the film - the big collars, bell-bottom jeans - all the things I used to remember from "Starsky and Hutch". Maybe the fact that I'm not an American means that this Bostonian story of intellectual maturity and liberating camaraderie doesn't resonate in the same way - because I found this all rather dull. Will their newspaper be subsumed into a bigger, commercial, enterprise? Well at the start I hoped not, but by the middle I was indifferent.

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
newspaperboston, massachusettsnewspaper officewoman director