Jane Fonda before "Barbarella", Anthony Perkins the same year as "Psycho", Tom Laughlin before "Billy Jack", Ray Walston doing the same professor bit he utilized in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", and still the flick's a dud! Set on some mythical college campus, one inhabited with well-scrubbed students who look as if they're about to burst into song a la "Good News", "Tall Story" comes up short on realism, with a forced-friendly atmosphere masking wispy story of a basketball player targeted by a pretty co-ed who really wants a Man! Debuting Fonda is alternately coy and coquettish--not a credible mix--though she does look cute in her chemistry glasses; Perkins fares worse, with a voice that sounds dubbed by a 12-year-old boy on the verge of puberty. It's not a complete loss--the director is Joshua Logan, who knows how to put a picture together--but the results are still pretty tired. *1/2 from ****
Review of Tall Story
