User Reviews

I haven't seen this movie in 25 years. If only some cable channel would wise up and have a Lance Kerwin Marathon perhaps a new generation of young people could be turned on to this classic cinematic gem. I remember Scott wetting his pants. If you were a teenager and that scene didn't inspire you to never become an alcoholic (pardon my double negative), then it was only because you'd already had one too many lost weekends. Ironically Lance Kerwin played a bed wetter in an earlier TV movie called "The Loneliest Runner" so maybe he gave some pointers to Scott on how to play the scene. Sadly Lance would succumb to his own demons of addiction which would lead him out of show biz and into the religious biz as a clean and sober youth pastor.

Apparently there were several of these type of films with Scott Baio. I only saw and remember this one. I believe it was aired at night by CBS so I do not know if it was an "afterschool special" or not but it was VERY well done. Scott definitely played a high school hockey player in this one with Lance Kerwin as his very understanding teammate and friend.

What no one has mentioned is that it was one of my favorite actors from that era, Don Murray who did a great job of portraying Scott's dad, also an alcoholic. As I recall the movie made some really good points about how alcohol was poisoning the relationship between father and son.

This is one of many excellent made for TV movies that came out in the 1970s...Brian's Song, The execution of Private Slovick,Sweet Hostage, Son-Rise, The Jericho Mile. The Lonliest Runner, Leave Yesterday Behind, and Helter Skelter just off the top of my head. As someone else mentioned, it is too bad there is not a cable channel that features these and other movies and miniseries from that era. The encore channels have dabbled in showing some of them but there is room for many more.

Having done volunteer work in this area, this movie is a fantastic portrayal of teenage alcoholism and how best to treat it. 15 year old Buff Sanders (Scott Baio) is a champion ice hockey player and son of a hard drinking former professional hockey player Ken (Don Murray). The mother/wife had been killed in a tragic car accident six years earlier and both father and son were struggling with unrequited grief both medicating it by drinking to excess. Buff's friend and teammate Billy Carpenter (Lance Kerwin) begins to notice the impact Buff's drinking is having on his game and his life. After an evening of drinking so much that he almost passed out and after being severely beaten by his father, Buff is admitted to hospital and then put into a rehab clinic.

His father has too much denial and anger to attend the nightly group counseling sessions and so Billy volunteers to ride the bus every evening and be that support person. Like treatment of many alcoholics, the process of recognizing the extent of the drinking problem takes time and this movie accurately explores the ups and downs of supporting an alcoholic in recovery. Eventually there is a reconciliation with his father as the true reasons of his mother's death comes out rather than the incorrect version of events that had fueled Buff's anger.

Scott Baio and Lance Kerwin were 18 when the movie was filmed and were both already teen superstars and both do a fantastic job in this movie. Kerwin was no stranger to intense and empathetic roles so his was the better performance but Baio did surprisingly well given his fame to this point had been built on more easy going characters. In a final irony, Kerwin plays the loyal, upright, responsible friend and always came across as the clean cut blond all American boy and yet struggled with drug addiction through his teens and yet Baio, playing the rough, rebellious and hard drinking kid had in fact, by the standards of many Hollywood teen heart throbs, a stable career free from chemical dependency.