Did Corvette Summmer Derail Mark Hamill's Acting Career?

I mentioned in my first post here that there are several possible explanations for the disparity between the post-Star Wars career paths of Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford.  Though I'm far from the point of drawing any conclusions, I've long suspected that Corvette Summer played a role in Hamill's disappearance from the on-screen world.



I saw Corvette Summer at the drive-in shortly after its release, and I liked it.  I'd just turned 12.  It was the second-billed movie of a double-feature, and my parents really wanted to leave ten or fifteen minutes into the movie.  That's saying something given that my dad is something of a collector of antique automobiles and my mom had recently traded in her 1968 Firebird convertible for a 1974 Camaro.

I ran across the movie on late night television several years ago and I was very surprised. I was kind of excited to see it, but once I didn't make it very far.  Whatever appeal Corvette Summer had once held for me was either a product of the story line being well suited to a 12-year-old or of Mark Hamill's presence at a time when I was firmly in the Luke Skywalker camp.

In fairness, the  movie didn't bomb--its box office was about $15 million at a time when the top grossing films weren't even approaching $100 million.  And it maintains a faithful following to this day: 50% of its Amazon ratings are 5 stars and it has a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's worth noting, though, that virtually all of the strong positive reviews mention having first seen this movie in adolescence.  It's impossible for me to discern how I'd see this movie (or how any of those reviewers would) had we not been Star Wars-struck adolescents in the day.

And that, I think, was ultimately the problem with Corvette Summer.  Annie Potts was an unknown at the time. The film had two big draws: the car and Mark Hamill. But Hamill's fan base at that time was largely comprised of the very young--with two male leads in Star Wars, there were definite camps, and Hamill's camp seemed to skew toward those in my middle-school age bracket.

However, not every 12-year-old girl had parents as liberal as mine. The film was a shade on the risque side for middle-schoolers in the 70s--the female lead was an aspiring prostitute.  So, the movie wasn't necessarily available to the bulk of the audience it would naturally have garnered by putting Hamill in the lead.  And the grown-ups...well, I have only the reactions of my own parents to judge by, but I also noted that none of those nostalgic reviews I read started out, "I first saw this movie the summer I turned thirty..."

Though starring in a very different film that broke the Luke Skywalker association early on was a smart move for Hamill, this might not have been the film to make it work.