In the summer of 1965, strict high-school Westwood's senior class in its privileged white suburb of L.A. graduates. Their relief to get out of the oppressive model of 'good American' behavior none actually adopted is soon spoiled. Surfer boy George Jr. 'Stick' is enlisting as volunteer for Vietnam, which is portrayed as a 'police action', panics on his last evening. Academic weakling Pirate, who intended to dodge a draft as drifter, suddenly faces the pregnancy of his lifelong true love Sunny. A spoiled 'princess' (also narrator) bitches because her parents want her to attend UCLA, not 'revolutionary' Berkeley. Calvin, the only black mate, lives in the poor quarter Watts, where the majority of his race plunders and attacks everyone, including class poet Michael Finnegan, whose family treated Calvin as an adopted son. Finnegan decides to symbolically deal with the hated school principal's patriotic pride, the Soldier statue...

Anachronisms: At one point the narrator in talking about the Watts Riot speaks of the assassination of President Kennedy happening the year before. The Watts riots happened in August 1965 and the JFK assassination happened in November 1963, which would place it almost two years earlier, not one as stated.

Written by Jerry Leiber, Ben E. King (as Benjamin Nelson), Lover Patterson,
Mike Stoller and George Treadwell
Performed by The Drifters
Published by Chappell & Co. (ASCAP), Unichappell Music, Inc. (BMI) & Jot Music (BMI)
Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products