Shampoo | Warren Beatty, Julie Christie

Shampoo | Warren Beatty, Julie Christie | Better with age

DVDs:

Shampoo

	Shampoo Warren Beatty, Julie Christie Sony Pictures, 2003 average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

For those who consider Bulworth to be a savage and unprecedented political send-up, it's worth revisiting Warren Beatty's first, and best, attempt at outrageous social criticism. Mercilessly exposing the essential vacuity of both the sexual revolution and conservative alarmism over cultural permissiveness, Shampoo remains the best movie ever made about Nixon's America, and one of the very best about the tragic and disappointing conclusion to the 1960s. Set on the eve of the 1968 presidential election that elevated Nixon to the Oval Office, Beatty's uproarious satire follows a hairdressing Lothario (played by Mr. You're So Vain himself) in and out of the beds of several women, including the wife of a wealthy businessman, his mistress, and his young daughter (Carrie Fisher, in her first screen role). Juxtaposing tropes from Restoration comedy with Southern California dialogue and a healthy, hilarious dash of running commentary from election returns, Beatty's ruthless awareness cuts through the film like a scalpel. The performances are uniformly excellent and surprisingly ego-free; though Jack Warden's portrayal of Lester, the twice-cuckolded businessman, stands out as a model of sensitive, nuanced parodic acting. Released in 1975 during the messy cleanup at the conclusion of the Watergate era, Shampoo neatly bookends the Nixon presidency, and concludes with the frightening finality of an iron door slamming on a cell. Commended for including the live version of Jefferson Airplane's Plastic Fantastic Lover. --Miles Bethany

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Blow-dry

The time is the eve of the 1968 election --actual TV footage of Nixon and Agnew is interspersed with the fictional account of one womanizing straight hair dresser (Yes, Virginia, there really is a straight hair dresser), George Roundy (Warren Beatty of "Bonnie and Clyde," "Reds," "Splendor in the Grass," etc. fame)who does women's hair in the beauty shop and takes care of their other needs outside his place of employment. Included among his "clients" are Felicia (Lee Grant), her daughter Lorna (Carrie Fisher), Jackie (Julie Christie who delighted us with "Darling," "Doctor Zhivago" and her latest "Away From Her"), and his live-in lover Goldie Hawn ("Cactus Flower, "Death Becomes Her), as Jill. Of course Felicia's husband Lester (Jack Warden) is having a fling with Jackie as well. The musical beds get as complicated as a John Updike novel. COUPLES comes to mind.

Beatty, Hawn, Christie, Warden and Grant give hilarious good performances in this satire of the sexual excesses of the late 1960's and the politics of Nixon et al. Co-written and produced by Mr. Beatty, "Shampoo" is directed by Hal Ashby who gave the world "Harold and Maude" as well as "Coming Home." The clothes and furnishing are just right: bell-bottomed trousers, form-fitting shirts and gaudy jewelry everywhere for Beatty and a dress so short for Goldie that it could almost pass for a long shirt. Surely the scene where Julie Christie, while in a restaurant, dives under the table to perform oral sex on Mr. Beatty before a crowd of witnesses has to be one of the all-time famous sex scenes in movie history. The soundtrack contains music by Paul Simon, Jefferson Airplane and some beautiful cuts from the Beatles' wondrous "Sergeant Pepper" album.

Released in 1975 after Watergate, "Shampoo" has held up well with time.

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Better with age

I always wonder, when I look at old films that I once liked a lot, whether they will hold up in time. I really don't remember any strong my reaction to Shampoo, which I saw shortly after it came out. I think I enjoyed it but dismissed it as kind of silly.

Now I think I enjoyed it a lot more. The script is very smart and manages to be both hilarious and serious. The cast is stellar in every sense of the word: Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn, both at the height of their physical beauty (although they have both aged remarkably well) are a sheer delight just to look at. Warren is awesome, as always, despite the most ridiculous hairdo ever to be plopped on the head of a leading man. (With the possible exception of Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking.) Lee Grant gives one of her many sensational performances, Jack Gilbert takes what could have been a stock character and gives an added dimension to it, and Carrie Fisher shows her intelligence and presence in her first film appearance.

Others here have likened the film to French sex farces and there is certainly an aspect of that, which gives us the hilarity. It is so much more, though...a comment on the times, a perceptive picture of an obsessed Casanova (without dwelling too much on the psychological wierdness of it). It's greatly entertaining, with the costumes, the parties and the many, many great scenes. The scene with Warren and Julie in the bathroom, as he does her hair, is hot, hot, hot. There were certainly sparks flying between them in those days. It looked like they had all they could do to keep in character. The scene where she disappears under the table in the restaurant is also hilarious.

Yes, it's definitely a film of its time. I recently saw Blow Up again, Antonioni's film which portrayed the London version of the same swinging 60's. It captivated me the time it came out, but bored me now. But Shampoo, which was not as highly regarded as BlowUp strikes me as a film which will endure for a long time. Warren Beatty is one of those people whose glamour and great looks hides the fact from many that he is one highly perception and intelligent person. He knows how to make a smart social commentary that is also great fun.

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Cool Movie; Anachronistic Fashions

This movie remains a bittersweet, vital thing, and is well acted, but the production has a fault that galls me in any "period" movie--the clothes are often of the moment of the film's making, NOT from 1968. Why would it have been difficult to make the wardrobe consistently 60s--and what better expert on what 1968 should look like than Goldie Hawn, a co-star in the film? They got cars and women's skirts right, but most of the male clothing (including bizarro, button-pocket jacket-shirts) and accessories (giant, translucent sunglasses, e.g.), and male hair (Beatty's semi-believable Morrison-quoif excluded), and some of the women's clothes, e.g., Julie Christie's pants outfits, scream "spring of 1975." The Shampoo production people forgot that 1968 fashions looked a heck of a lot more like the mid 60s than the mid 70s. I am sure they were blind to this at the time--it can be hard to recognize the "historical" quality of one's current haircut or clothing. But the hair knows. If you want to see actual 1968 . . . everything, see the (also bittersweet) film Medium Cool, shot at the time this film is set.

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I'd forgotten...

...how great Shampoo was. Hal Ashby had a string of wonderful movies in the '70's, and, while his films are remembered, his name is not.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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