Amblin'

Amblin' is a short film released in 1968. It is the first completed film shot by Steven Spielberg on 35mm. The film is a short love story set during the hippie era of the late 1960s about a young couple making their way through the desert to a paradisiacal beach. In later years Spielberg named his successful company after his first movie — Amblin Entertainment.

Plot

A young man carrying a closely guarded guitar case befriends a free-spirited young woman while hitchhiking across the desert in southern California en route to the Pacific coast. Along the way, the man engages the woman in an olive-spitting contest, and then she introduces him to the joys of smoking cannabis and having sex in a sleeping bag. Following the scene alluding to sexual intercourse, the young man is seen walking on the median of a road, which is perhaps symbolic. As the pair reach the beach, the man frolics in the surf, while the woman covertly inspects the contents of his guitar case: a suit and tie, toothpaste, mouthwash, a roll of toilet paper and a copy of Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars. The woman smiles in bemusement, perhaps sensing all along that her companion was not the quintessential hippie that he appeared to be. She then proceeds to stand up and leave the beach, leaving the man behind.

Amblin Entertainment

Amblin Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1981.

Overview

Amblin is named after Spielberg's first commercially released film, Amblin' (1968), a short independent film about a man and woman hitchhiking through the desert. The film, which cost $15,000 to produce, was shown for Universal Studios and won Spielberg more directing roles. Although Amblin is an independent production company, Universal distributes many Amblin productions, and Amblin operates out of a building on the Universal lot.

Its logo features the silhouette of E.T. riding in the basket on Elliott's bicycle flying in front of the moon from the 1982 movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

In addition to various Spielberg films, Amblin has produced movies by other directors such as Joe Dante (Gremlins, Small Soldiers, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Innerspace), Robert Zemeckis (the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Brian Levant (the Flintstones duology), Matthew Robbins (*batteries not included), Barry Levinson (Young Sherlock Holmes), Penelope Spheeris (the 1994 film remake of The Little Rascals), Brad Silberling (Casper), Don Bluth (An American Tail, The Land Before Time), Clint Eastwood (The Bridges of Madison County, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Hereafter), Gil Kenan (Monster House), Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro, The Legend of Zorro), Richard Donner (The Goonies), Jan de Bont (Twister), Barry Sonnenfeld (the Men in Black trilogy), Martin Scorsese (the remake of Cape Fear), Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III), J. J. Abrams (Super 8), The Coen Brothers (True Grit), and Simon Wells (An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Balto).