This was the film in which Kevin Costner first showed star quality - but then he had ended up on the cutting-room floor in his previous two efforts, The Big Chill and Frances.

He was to forge a good relationship with director Kevin Reynolds and chose him to direct him in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves six years later.

Costner is a dynamic presence at the heart of this rites of passage picture set in 1971 when the Vietnam war and the draft were still loming large in students' lives.

The rest of the good cast are up to the material's demands, even if they don't have the same assured confidence with the script as Costner.

The film was only made at all thanks to Steven Spielberg, who agreed to finance a feature-length version of a short film made by Reynolds while he was a student at the USC film school.