Shampoo

'Shampoo' was directed by the late, great Hal Ashby in 1975 from a script written by Robert 'Chinatown' Towne and Warren Beatty (who would go on to co-write 'Reds', which he would also direct)...The film is located in 1968, set over the night of the election that would bring Richard Milhous Nixon to power. It is significant that Beatty wrote speeches/orated for Robert Kennedy. 1968- the year of the barricades, the continuing civil disorder, Vietnam, Woodstock, Altamont, Cielo Drive/Manson family; the end of the hippie dream. 'Easy Rider's final lines by Fonda and Hopper: "We blew it".

Nixon's election is the backdrop to the incestual, venal set of relationships between the characters here. This is an extension of the worlds found in 'Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice' and 'The Graduate'. The utopian possibilties of the Sixties 'counterculture' (Lester believes George is 'anti-establishment'). This is a precursor of Lawrence Kasdan's 'The Big Chill'- which presents the counterculture as really, when it comes down to it, just as corrupt as their previous generation. Coincidence that Ashby's film is at the centre of the American film renaissance of the Seventies, as captured in 'Easy Riders,Raging Bulls' (which refers to this film). The pursuit of hedonism, the "no regrets" George declares to Jill, is the moral abyss of cocaine and business interests and provides a potent allegory for the corrupt nature of Nixon's Presidency. The Nixon themes are as potent as the Watergate backdrop in Ang Lee's 'The Ice Storm' (based on the Rick Moody novel)- which also parallels the hedonism and moral-digressions at the heart of the American philosophy.

All this is of interest, but shouldn't get in the way of what is a highly amusing satire- with some great comic moments and lines. Beatty could very well be playing with his Lothario/Don Juan star quality (why is so little critical material written on him- when films like 'Bulworth', 'Heaven Can Wait', 'Bonnie & Clyde', 'Reds' and this are so subversive- in a leftist sense? Is it because he is not as heavy-handed as Oliver Stone?). Look at the weak drivel that passes as comedy these days, there are not films like this- 'Swingers' might be close- but is far too rose-tinted...

The soundtrack is fantastic, The Beatles publishers must have been more accesible in 1975- as we get 'Sgt Pepper' & 'Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds'- as well as Jimi's 'Manic Depression', Buffalo Springfield's 'Mr Soul' and The Beach Boys 'Wouldn't it Be Nice?' for the start/end credit sequences. This song captures the 'innocent' ideals of the Sixties, yet, when you see what happened to Brian Wilson- the dream has failed. As Neil Young sang in 1986: "the wooden ships are just a hippie dream".

It is also significant that Pope looks very similar to George. The performances are great, from a puppy-fat Carrie Fisher (who gets one of the best lines, but is nowhere near on-screen enough-a metaphor for her future career), to Jack Warden, to Julie Christie, to Lee Grant, to (even) Goldie Hawn (the hour or so of 'Bird on the Wire'I endured is still a painful memory).

Hal Ashby is the most unappreciated of New Hollywood directors- when he made such classic films as this, 'Harold & Maude', 'Coming Home' and 'Being There', you wonder why. This is a film that has guts and deserves to be seen by many in the future. A seminal Seventies film; the American dream as farce. Nixon's TV proclamation of "an open government"- one that will "bring the people together". Well, here's what happens when you bring the people together. Required viewing by anyone serious about cinema and/or contemporary existence!

Robert Towne, who has written a number of popular movies and at least one critically acclaimed one--Chinatown (1974)--and Warren Beatty wrote this satire of Hollywood. Beatty plays George Roundy, a not entirely bright but nimble hairdresser on a motorcycle who is much beloved and desired by woman. The women doing most of the desiring are Lee Grant (Felicia), Julie Christie (Jackie), and Goldie Hawn (Jill). Jack Warden plays Lester a successful investor who, to his chagrin and ultimate amusement, learns that his wife, his mistress, and his daughter Lorna (Carrie Fisher) are being bedded by the guy he thinks is gay. (Shades of the sham eunuch in the harem!)

This is a premise that many in the Hollywood Hills could not resist, the irony cutting so beautifully through the canyons and swimming pools and the lavish parties. Most of the action takes place on that November day in 1968 when Nixon and Agnew were swept into the White House by the "silent majority." Lester and his friends are quite pleased and are celebrating as the election returns come in. Meanwhile George is trying to raise money so he can open his own shop since he's got the "heads." Keeping the heads though turns out to be more than he can handle--and to be honest jumping from bed to bed several times a day with several different women might be too much for any man.

Will Georgie-Porgie, puddin' pie (who kissed the girls and made them cry) get the money for his shop and the girl he loves--and which girl is it, that he loves? Goldie Hawn wears a micro-mini (but there's no peeking!) and Julie Christie sports a short pony skirt with boots while Lee Grant has to play the eldest woman. Now, who gets George and would she really want him?

Some nice sixties/seventies Hollywood decadence graces the screen along with free love and don't bogart that number. In the background there are a lot of mug shots of Nixon and Agnew in juxtaposition as a kind of joke since the movie was made in 1975 not long after Watergate.

Beatty, playing a role said to be patterned after makeup artist Jay Sebring, is competent and wins our sympathy, maybe because we know he's never going to amount to much. Or does he? Lee Grant won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress, but to be honest I thought Julie Christie was better, although they both were good. Actors carried this with Warden and Hawn also putting in strong performances.

Shampoo is not so much funny as it is amusing. It's like a superior sit-com without the laugh track, but in no way is it a "defining" Hollywood film.

See this for Warren Beatty, one of the Hollywood royalty, brother of Shirley MacLaine and husband of Annette Bening.

This was a five star film when I was twenty, and genuinely cried at the end feeling my hero had a hard time of it and wern't women cruel and wasn't that the best party ever...now I saw it, laughed a bit, once, and found it horribly dated...but dear viewer, if you are twenty, and sexually inexperienced, you'l probably think it is brilliant..like the Doors really, and there is nothing wrong with that, I just dread watching the Hair film by milos forman again, to find it's lustre gone(do I dare?)