When Fast Times at Ridgemont High was released in 1982, Universal didn’t have high hopes for its success. But from its initial limited release, it grew to take on a life of its own and went on to become one of the most celebrated high school movies of all time and helped launch the careers of several actors. Fast Times was based on a book of the same name by Cameron Crowe, but while the movie has cemented its own place in film history, the book is considerably more elusive.
In the fall of 1979, 22-year-old Cameron Crowe enrolled as a student at Clairemont High School in San Diego so that he could spend a year undercover and turn his observations into a book that gave an honest look at what being a teenager at the time was really like. Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story was published in 1981 and despite the success of the movie, the book did not stick around on store shelves for very long. It hasn’t been in print since around the time the movie came out, so for fans of the movie, copies of the book are very hard to find — and typically very expensive when they can be found. I’ve long been curious to see how the book compared to the movie, so when I found a beat-up copy for a fair enough price, I couldn’t resist checking it out.
As far as film adaptations of books go, Fast Times at Ridgemont High largely stays close to the source material. Some creative liberties are made, but pretty much everything that happens in the movie does happen in the book. At times, the movie follows the book closely enough to feature small details described in the book, such as some of the graffiti seen in certain scenes or the fact that Mike Damone explains his five-point plan to Mark Ratner by demonstrating with a cardboard cutout of Debbie Harry in front of a music store. And while there are scenes in the book that weren’t in the theatrical cut of the movie, some of them were filmed and included in TV edits of the movie. (As of this post being published, some of these scenes can be seen on YouTube.)
For the most part, a lot of the differences between the book and the movie aren’t hugely significant. For example, in the book, Stacy and Linda work together in an ice cream parlor, not a pizza restaurant, and Ratner and Damone had met while working at some Sea World-type park. Damone isn’t even a ticket scalper in the book version; a separate character named Randy Eddo is. But Randy Eddo is a pretty minor character in the book so combining the two characters doesn’t change a whole lot. In another minor change, nobody at Ridgemont High had cultivated the Pat Benetar look in the book. The book version mentions some people copying the look of Robin Zander from Cheap Trick, but considering that Pat Benetar is now most decidedly better remembered as a style icon of that era, it’s a change that aged well.
Spicoli’s interview dream sequence is featured in both the book and the movie, but in the book version, he’s being interviewed by Johnny Carson, not Stu Nahan. However, you can’t say they didn’t try to stick to the book on this detail. Johnny Carson was approached to be in the movie, but turned down the offer.
In some cases, there are scenes in the book that also happen in the movie, but they involve different characters. The scene where Spicoli has a pizza delivered in the middle of Mr. Hand’s class is easily one of the most famous scenes in the movie, but in the book, it’s Damone who has pizza delivered in the middle of class. Mr. Hand isn’t involved in the scene, either; the pizza is delivered during a biology class with Mr. Vargas, who is only mildly fazed by the stunt. During the movie version of the scene when a robber comes into the convenience store while Brad is working, Brad and Spicoli have a brief conversation just before the hold-up, but in the book version, Spicoli has absolutely nothing to do with this part.
One of the most interesting things about reading the book version of Fast Times at Ridgemont High is that it gives you a chance to learn more about certain character backstories in ways that the movie doesn’t get into. Linda is the biggest example of this. In the movie, Linda shows a lot of disdain for high school boys, but it comes across like her character just thinks she’s too sophisticated for them. The book explains where her loathing of high school boys comes from and that story is surprisingly dark. In junior high, Linda got into dealing drugs and partying with guys in high school, who left her in a mall parking lot one night after she overdosed. After that, she realized how immature high school boys really are and started hanging around with Stacy because she was much more straight-laced than her old friends. Charles Jefferson also plays a bigger role in the book than in the movie and has a pretty wild story that involves events like commandeering a public bus and being involved with a robbery at a Radio Shack.
Even though the movie does a good job of sticking to the book, there are some big differences in how certain storylines are carried out, such as Stacy’s pregnancy. In the book, Damone flakes out giving her a ride to the abortion clinic at the last minute, so Stacy reschedules her appointment and he flakes out on her again the second time around. The only person she is able to find who can give her a ride at the last minute is Ratner, who doesn’t catch on to why she really needs a ride until much later. After that, Stacy has an opportunity to call out some of Damone’s character flaws during a classroom exercise. Damone also later ends up working at the same ice cream parlor as Stacy, who gets promoted to manager and seems to enjoy getting to have the upper hand on him at work.
If you’re enough of a Fast Times at Ridgemont High fan that you want to feel more immersed in the world that these characters exist in, it may be worthwhile for you to track down a copy of the book. Even though the movie does follow the book pretty closely, the book does include plenty of scenes that were completely left out of the movie, like a school trip to Disneyland for Grad Night and Brad’s after-prom party. It also goes into quite a bit of detail about the student culture and social hierarchy at Ridgemont High and some of the more peripheral characters in the movie. There are also a few more characters mentioned in the book who are not featured in the movie at all, so the book might give you the wider look that you’re looking for.
