Though it claims a literary pedigree via Paul Diamond's 1976 novel (Diamond adapting the screenplay here), this youth-oriented dramedy hit theaters in 1977 as a second-tier sex-drugs-slob romp - soon to be completely eclipsed by a first-tier sex-drugs-slob romp, "National Lampoon's Animal House." The setting here is affluent Southern California in 1969 (never mind that everything onscreen screams mid-1970s). With an annoying brother and rich parents who only communicate with him via electronic home devices, high-school senior Dave (Steve Guttenberg, making his debut, yet looking a decade too old for the part) tries to publish his anti-Vietnam War editorials in the classroom newspaper. And he strives to lose his virginity by graduation, preferably to his bitchy blonde cheerleader girlfriend, though, in a genre cliché, a smarter, dark-haired, best-pal classmate offers a far better deflowering option in the end. Despite the Beverly Hills milieu, Dave earns money working with a few misfit classmates of different social castes in a fast-food chicken joint, whose cranky, dirty-minded manager is played by legendary comic Phil Silvers. Silvers has a few good scenes, and occasional moments provide a smile or too, but it's only a casual assembly of pre-John Hughes high-schooler angst (minus the angst), with mild swearing, reefers, drinking, and bedroom references that could still have fit into a PG rating of the era. Classic cars on view have attracted attention from auto enthusiasts (but on that score "The Chicken Chronicles" has nowhere near the following of 1980s "The Hollywood Knights"). Kino Lorber's release has a commentary track by Australian pop-culture historians/authors Lee Gambin and Emma Westwood, who elaborate on the place of "The Chicken Chronicles" in the pantheon of losing-virginity cinema, plus the curiosity that director Francis Simon is better known for documentaries such as the drag classic "The Queen." Even so, it's a mild movie snack at best. Optional. (C. Cassady)