Believe in Me *** (1971, Michael Sarrazin, Jacqueline Bisset, Jon Cypher, Allen Garfield) – Classic Movie Review 9425

Director Stuart Hagmann’s 1971 drama Believe in Me stars Michael Sarrazin and Jacqueline Bisset. Sarrazin was in a relationship for seven years (1967–1974) with Bisset, whom he met while making The Sweet Ride (1968).

Hagmann, the director of The Strawberry Statement (1970), gets another chance with this second youth statement about a young couple (Sarrazin as hospital medical student intern Remy and Bisset as children’s book publishing company worker Pamela) who try out drugs (this was 1971, remember), get hooked on speed and barbiturates, and even heroin, and soon fall from wedded bliss to degradation.

Michael Sarrazin stars in Believe in Me (1971).

We believe in the sincere and earnest performances of the young and sweet-looking Sarrazin and Bisset, Jon Cypher and Allen Garfield are good in support as Alan and local drug dealer Stutter, and the screenplay is pretty convincing. But the downbeat script doesn’t seem to have a lot to say, and the resolution seems too pat and false.

Believe in Me is very much of its time – and, arguably, interestingly so. It has the same writer Israel Horovitz and producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff as The Strawberry Statement.

Michael Sarrazin (May 22, 1940 – April 17, 2011).

Also in the cast are Kurt Dodenhoff, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Kevin Conway, Roger Robinson, Antonio Fargas, Milt Kamen, Susan Doukas, Elizabeth Brown, Katherine Helmond, Tom Lacy, Barbara Thurston, Ultra Violet and Larry Weber.

MGM got John G Avildsen to direct a few re-shoots.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9425

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Michael Sarrazin and Jacqueline Bisset in The Sweet Ride (1968).