The Paper Chase Rating: Release Date: 03 June, 2003 Retail Price: $9.98 OUR Price: $9.98 You SAVE: $0.00! Cast: Timothy Bottoms Lindsay Wagner John Houseman Robert Wagner Complete Cast (13 total)

The Paper Chase Reviews

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A Classic (especially for Lawyer Wannabees)
I just watched this movie again, 20 years after I first saw it. I was in law school (not Harvard!) when it was released and I also had a Professor Kingsfield-type for contracts. The types of students, the competition, the panic about grades and exams, it's all here. I've asked some newer lawyers, and the majority said that it still reflects their law school experience. There may be some schools out there that are different, but I still think that anyone thinking of a legal career should watch this movie. One of the messages for Lawyer Wannabees is that even brilliant people may not have minds suitable to succeed in the law (Timothy Bottoms comments that a friend was really smart and wanted to go to Harvard Law but didn't do as well on the LSATs...lawyers all know someone similar, and can tell you about people who got into law school and then either fail on the curve or drop out -- there's a lot more to getting a J.D. than just being smart enough to get into a law school). Surprisingly, the age of the movie doesn't get in the way of the messages described so well in the other reviews. If I didn't know it was released in 1973, it would still appear pretty current (except for typewriters instead of computers and no cell phones!). No funky 60 cars, the clothes are pretty much back in style, and there are even similar hairstyles in my kids' high school and colleges today. Definitely recommended.

Pre-Paper Mill
Not having attended an Eastern preppie school, this film resonates long after seeing the movie. It represents the ideal college experience, before racial quotas and forced equality spread mediocrity to academia. Tim Bottoms plays the Horatio Alger figure, rising on his own efforts. John Houseman, depicts the hard-nosed Establishment professor to perfection. The lovely, appealing Lindsey Wagner as Prof. Kingsfield's daughter, plays a sort of siren of a girlfriend, always beckoning Bottoms closer to self-destruction or freedom.The study group was comprised of various grades of intelligence and cunning with a common goal, with edges of "Animal House" lurking. This adaption of John Jay Osborn's novel will stand for that period when achievement was earned according to one's merit or effort, not artificial, arbitrary quotas. Sure, it's a bygone, innocent time, but no one leaves this film without a few lessons about education and learning.

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