Czech director Milos Forman established his reputation in Film with a pair of bracing comedies, Loves Of A Blonde (1965) and Firemen's Ball (1967) that featured characters and situations taken from everyday life and that reflected, with poker-face and tongue-in-cheek, the jaundiced reality of their place of origin. When the Prague Spring is shattered by the Soviets in 1968, the New Wave comes to an end and Forman lavest for America where he thrives making high-profile Hollywood blockbusters like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,Ragtime and Amadeus. Lost in the shuffle is Forman's American debut, a lustrous indie gem, Taking Off, produced by Michael Hausman for a paltry $800K. In it, we find the same acute social observation that made Forman's initial comedies landmarks of world cinema. Buck Henry and Lynn Carlin are distraught parents of runaway teenager Linnea Heacock who join SPFC, the Society for Parents of Fugitive Children, in order to cope with their situation. Among the movie's many joys are rubber-faced Paul Benedict and ditzy blonde Georgia Engel as natural born swingers. Unknown Carly Simon and Kathy Bates appear in a record label audition. Forman regular Vincent Schiavelli coaches elders on the art of smoking marijuana … .It's all brought into sharp focus by Forman's inseparable director of photography, Miroslav Ondricek, who passed away last year. Unavailable in home video, Taking Off is an essential film from the 70s, America's great movie decade. And not to be missed.