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R.P.M.

1970

R.P.M. stands for (political) revolutions per minute. Anthony Quinn plays a liberal college professor at a west coast college during the hedy days of campus activism in the late 1960s. Radical students take over the college, the president resigns, and Quinn's character, who has always been a champion of student activism, is appointed president. As the students continue to push the envelope of revolution, Quinn's character is faced with the challenge of restoring order or abetting the descent into anarchy.

Anthony Quinn Ann-Margret Gary Lockwood Paul Winfield Graham Jarvis Alan Hewitt Ramon Bieri John McLiam Don Keefer Donald Moffat Norman Burton John Zaremba Ines Pedroza Teda Bracci Linda Meiklejohn Bruce Fleischer David Ladd John David Wilder Henry R Brown Jr. Frank Alesia Robert Carricart Jr Raymond Cavaleri Bradjosé Tol Avery Lauren Gilbert Joseph Bernard Ronald Long Bob Okazaki Bartlett Robinson Show All…

Alternative Titles

Kampf den Talaren, R.P.M. Revoluciones Por Minuto, Революция в минуту, R.P.M. - Revoluções Por Minuto, 风暴狂潮

Genre

Drama

Theatrical

16 Sep 1970

USA

16 Sep 1970

Theatrical

92 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Filipe Furtado ★★½

On the things that time forgot; a 1970 Stanley Kramer dramatic comedy about campus uprising titled Revolutions per Minute written by Love Story’s Erich Sagal. The students succeed at a coup and get the university president fired and replaced by Anthony Quinn, hip superstar sociology professor with the motorcycle, cool jacket and young girlfriend and Quinn proceeds to learn that he lost the moment he decided to serve as middleman between a calcified establishment and radical students who won't bulge an inch. It is all very dishonest, one knows it will end in violence, later on Quinn gets angry with his girlfriend (Ann Margret, settled with every one of the movies' worst scenes) for setting an impossible argument about how…
Review by Nathaniel Thompson ★★★

Stanley Kramer's usual sanctimonious approach takes an odd turn here as you can feel him panicking about losing touch with the activist youth movement of the late '60s, something that makes this film wildly unstable but also weirdly compelling today. Anthony Quinn and Ann-Margret anchor an unusually qualified cast in one of the of the numerous campus unrest films of the era, buoyed by a fine pop soundtrack and some really odd attempts at surrealism. This will never be considered a classic or the best work of anyone involved, but it deserves a bit better than the obscurity it's been languishing in since Columbia barely bothered releasing it in theaters back in 1970.
mondo-digital.com/rpm.html
Review by Wilson ★★★ 5

I feel I have written this before, but I like the idea of Stanley Kramer more than the films of Stanley Kramer. His films are my politics, progressive, well-intentioned, decent. But they aren't my films.
They are mostly stolid, preachy, overly lengthy and under paced. He has made good films, On the Beach may even be a great film, but he has not made many vital films.
R.P.M is both another well-mannered, inclusive, interesting film, that somewhat lacks greatness, and unlike Kramer's typical liberal epics. For a start it is 91 minutes, for another it is about how left-wing 'revolutions' eat themselves. The ideas may be correct, but the performative demonstrations don't work. It is Kramer raging against the late-1960s…
Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★

Stanley Kramer ought to have guessed he'd be on a hiding to nothing, after all, the clue is in the title. R.P.M., aka Revolutions Per Minute, is both a reference to the variable speeds on a record player and an ironic statement on the rapidly changing dissent that shaped youth/student movements worldwide from 1968 onwards. Kramer wrapped his film in November 1969, but Columbia sat on it for almost a year. By the time that it finally appeared, the revolution had yet again mutated into something else, rendering this depiction obsolete and Kramer's waning reputation as Hollywood's most liberal filmmaker was confirmed.
In many ways it's ironic that this sealed Kramer's fate, as R.P.M. is chiefly about the demise of…
Review by 8BeanSoup ★★★

R.P.M. is an interesting slice of early 1970's attitudes starring Anthony Quinn and Ann-Margaret.
The movie begins with a college president walking across campus. He encounters a group of radical students occupying a building. Their first demand is that he resign. Surprisingly, he does. The board of trustees—a collection of old, white, conservative men—is shocked by his decision. The radical students say they'll accept Che Guevara, Eldridge Cleaver, or Professor F.W.J. "Paco" Perez (Anthony Quinn) as the new president. The board doesn't want Paco as the acting president—he's a radical who is well known for sleeping with undergraduates—but they reluctantly agree.
Paco becomes the acting president, much to the surprise of his undergraduate girlfriend (Ann-Margaret), not to mention the radical…
Review by Luke Thorne ★★

Stanley Kramer’s drama in which student radicals make strains, grasp the computer building and drag the new college president (Anthony Quinn) to an extra limit. Also starring Ann-Margaret.
The story concerns R.P.M. which stands for (political) revolutions per minute. Paco Perez (Anthony Quinn) is a liberal college professor at a west coast college throughout the impressive days of grounds activism in the late 1960s. Radical students conquer the college, the president steps down, and Paco, who has continuously been a champion of student activism, is selected president.
Anthony Quinn gives an okay performance in his role as the liberal college professor turned president who doesn’t show a great deal of determination in terms of what to do with himself, while…
Review by 𝔸ℕℕ𝔸 ★★

I've been fighting the establishment for 30 years and I'm stlll not sure what the hell it is.
Maybe because it's you.
R.P.M. had glimpses of promise. It's a story about college students holding a building with their computer hostage while they negotiate their demands, or rather, it's about Anthony Quinn, one of the professors, who is tasked with being negotiator, because of that cool factor. Which seems to be a degree in sociology but also because he can sleep regularly with Ann-Margret who is like half his age.
Stanley Kramer's attempt at revolution was largely a miss. I half-slept through parts of the second half, which strangely really added to the whole experience from the sheer chaos of trying…
Review by Lou ★★★½

When we are young we think we can change the world but as we get older we either give up or just become hypocrites to those beliefs we once had. It’s funny to see all these boomers fighting for what they thought was important, revolution, blah, blah, in the end they turned out just like their parents, in the end it always ends up about one thing, greed. Nothing ever really changes, we just go around in circles.
That’s the kind of stuff this movie made me think about, so I guess you can say it’s a good movie, I thought it was, I like the ones that make you think and also entertain, this was one of those for me.
Review by Timothy Evans ★★½ 3

A progressive liberal getting long in the tooth and behind the times. Once at the vanguard, now left behind. Once socially relevant, now very apparently struggling for relevance.
In the case of producer-director Stanley Kramer, this is a case of art imitating life, painfully obvious to everybody except the artist themselves.
Review by Kevin Jones ★★★½

Indicator Challenge, 96/100
1970 Ranked
Often written off as lesser Stanley Kramer - and considering modern thoughts on Kramer, that is quite lesser - R.P.M. is a captivating film. One can feel Kramer himself pouring himself into the role of Paco Perez (Anthony Quinn), a sociology professor, outspoken liberal, and one-time revolutionary now thrust into a position of power. Two groups of student revolutionaries - one white, one black - have overtaken an academic building that houses the university’s costly computer system. They have outlined 12 demands, of which the Board of Trustees hope that Perez, as Acting President, can pour over. He is, effectively, a translator between the two worlds, one of idealism (the students) and one of stodgy…
Review by johnlease ★★★ 2

Anthony Quinn is a social science Professor and "fifty year old fanny pincher", clad in tweed jacket and turtleneck, who emerges as a compromise candidate for the presidency of a university experiencing the unrest of the 1960s. As he enters the Administration building a swinging co-ed says, "Hey, look what the revolution dragged in!" This is a pretty entertaining time capsule, you'd probably like it if you were a fan of the 'Doonesbury' comic strip, but it starts to run out of steam a little more than halfway through. Swedish strawberry blonde bombshell Ann Margaret provides the cheesecake. Not bad.
Review by MultitasKing ★★★

In 'R.P.M.' widmet sich Regisseur Stanley Kramer einem Aufstand von Studenten eines Uni-Campus und schafft es wie immer, relevante Konflikte zu thematisieren und die richtigen Argumente zu liefern.
Trotz Anthony Quinn in der Hauptrolle konnte mich der Film aber leider wegen seines schleppenden Pacings nicht so ganz überzeugen.

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Theatrical

16 Sep 1970

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USA

16 Sep 1970

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Theatrical

16 Sep 1970

USA

16 Sep 1970

Popular reviews

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