Shampoo [DVD]

 

 

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'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.

Shampoo. The lead is based on famous hairdresser Jay Sebring except the lead doesn't sell drugs or do occult stuff or pick up teens off Sunset Blvd and take them back to Polanski's swinging pad for LSD orgies that are filmed by Hollywood kooky elites who trade their home sex films with other famous beautiful people and think they're above Joe SixPack's hard earned sense of provincial morality and everything is swept under the rug with payoffs and casting couch favors and cops who know where their fancy croissants are buttered well anyway so back to Shampoo yeah Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn don't get stabbed though at the beginning of the movie Hawn at night in the hills calls the hairdresser and says she hears burglars not because there were killings around but probably a booty call ploy on her part but he's cool with it so he shags her and later he shags and reshags Julie Christie rotten except she never really gets rotten - sweet as an angel that one - ever and Christie and Hawn have beautiful hair not straight and parted down the middle and they're soft pretty so they don't have x's on their heads or anything. The movie takes place before that shampoo called Gee Your Hair Smells Terriffic came out and even before the Dorothy Hamill Short And Sassy shampoo -- but you better believe that even without that technology that Christie and Hawn's hair smells good and is sassy as all getup even when the hairdresser shags Christie right when she steps out of the shower before her hair even has fancy "product" is what the elites say - added to her hair. The film is enigmatic because the hairdresser can't say no but why should he say no to all the ladies and then he realizes he just wants to say yes to Christie only (even though Hawn is perkier and more sunshine and more exclusive and Christie is comfort food I guess but I'll be darned if Hawn isn't meatballs on a bright toothpick with Pop Rocks and Red Bull cocktail apertif through dessert with bluebirds circling her head but hey the bro wants Christie don't lay any heavy trips on him for that don't judge man you do your thing and he does his thing so anyway) but he bangs everyone because ladies get randy when their hair is done pretty and it's his downfall because the 60's are ending and he keeps shagging it's deep and heavy and confusing like Three's Company but more. It all takes place in 1968 on the day Nixon is elected, which is ironic or something because Nixon had average hair at best and still won. The movie doesn't explain that part. It's art, open to interpretation. The morning after the election the characters act like nothing changed (even though you imagine in your mind's eye the sixties are coming to an end and all that entails - you guessed it - the ladies are just a few years from bouncing all liberated in pink and turqoise leg warmers -- plus you can say goodbye to swirly 60's drugs that hurt society and hello to high achievement drugs you can hoove off the ladies' healthy hardbodies and be superproductive and pulse pulse want more more more more more). Oh yeah! Except everything HAS changed because Julie Christie got engaged to a Republican fundraiser and the hairdresser - it's hinted at - probably won't get to shag her as much as he wants. Heartbreaking. When the credits roll *SPOILER ALERT* everyone still looks good and has full sunshine hair.

It's definitely a film that makes you think about things. Like Goldie Hawn in miniskirts and hairstyles and politics and what not.

Thank you for your time and consideration of Shampoo.

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4.0 out of 5 stars I like, enjoy and respect "Shampoo", I just wish I loved it
While I'm a huge fan of Hal Ashby - Harold and Maude is one of my favorite films - Shampoo is a film I really like and respect, but can never quite take the leap to loving... Read more

Published 8 months ago by K. Gordon

3.0 out of 5 stars better when I was younger, could drink and admire the hippies
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... Read more

Published on 14 Oct 2008 by E. Coolican

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