Shampoo
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Movie Reviews of Shampoo
Movie Review: Shining, Gleaming, Streaming, Flaxen, Waxen
Summary: 5 Stars
SHAMPOO harks back to the glory days of Hollywood to the famous incident at Ciro's (the night club) when Paulette Goddard added spice to her career by slipping under a table to give an evening's worth of excitement to director Anatole Litvak, thereby sealing her reputation as a party girl who really didn't care what anyone thought. (In another version of the story, Goddard and Litvak both vanished under the table simultaneously and had sex on the nightclub floor on the feet of their friends.) In any case, SHAMPOO recalls this incident by having Julie Christie slide out of her banquette to take care of the hairdresser, George Roundy (played by Warren Beatty) even though her "boyfriend" (Jack Warden) is hovering dangerously close by.
SHAMPOO also takes its cues from British Restoration comedy like Wycherley and Congreve, a world of cuckolded gentlemen, odious bourgeoisie, discontented wives, and boys on the make, re-locating the center of the gilded universe from London to Los Angeles in the late 1960s. As in Congreve, the husbands believe it's safe to leave their wives and daughters alone with George because he's a dandy/aesthete/hairdresser. That suits him down to the ground, for on the bodies of these ignorant women he can have his revenge on the men who treat him as a tradesman, a social inferior. The picture has a slightly dated air, as if to say, we're different now than when the action of this film is laid, which might be difficult to apprehend today.
Beatty is fine, though his haircut doesn't recall the 1960s as much as the mid 70s when the film was produced. As the typically 60s sex objects George dallies with, Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn are perfectly cast, almost too perfectly, they hardly seem to be acting at all; their haircuts and their clothes set the scene and call "cut" at the end of each take. Kathryn Blondell, the insanely talented Hollywood hairdresser, did the real hair work here, at the beginning of a long career which has included just about every movie Goldie Hawn has done since (Kate Hudson too!), as well as such period pieces as APOLLO 13 and BIRD. She is the master at making women look great on screen, and not just leading ladies, but supporting players and extras too. But this might be her best work-other than the futuristic styles she gave to Paul Verhoeven's STARSHIP TROOPERS.
Movie Review: Better with age
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Movie Review: He's just a boy who can't say no.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Shampoo" is probably the most sophisticated sex comedy ever made in this country. It's a very clear-eyed (and very funny) look at how love and lust get inextricably mixed up with up with power, money, position, and politics. Of course, contrary to almost every critique posted here, George (Warren Beatty), the philandering Beverly Hills hairdresser, is the primary victim of the rules of the game, late-60s Southern California-style. Unlike the protagonist of the great Renoir movie, George doesn't end up dead, but he's left alone, abandoned by all the women he's bedded, looking like a naive fool. And that's George's sin--he's an uncynical romantic in a world that doesn't know the difference between felt emotion and deliberate calculation. He sleeps with women because he genuinely likes them. For him, taking a woman to bed is an extension of doing her hair--it's an intimate act in which he makes her look and feel better. All the other characters in the movie use sex as part of a larger plan--they each have some separate goal on their mind, which they achieve in one way or another, and George is left behind with his silly emotional and sexual vulnerabiliy. He's Don Giovanni in reverse--the boy who can't say no because he actually gives a damn--and he pays a steep price for his availability. Playing a slightly out of it dupe, Beatty has never been better or more dazzlingly glamorous. And he's surrounded by a flawless ensemble cast--Lee Grant is simply astonishing as a deceived and deceiving Beverly Hills matron, and Julie Christie, in her flared pants and mini skirts, is peerlessy sexy as the 1968 version of a Rodeo Drive courtesan. Thanks to Robert Towne, "Shampoo" also has some of the most natural, unforced, yet revealing dialog ever heard in an American movie--nothing is stylized or italicized, but every nonchalant remark hits target like a polished Wilde epigram. Delectable.Movie Review: Blow-dry
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Movie Review: screwball drama
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is a modern time libertine drama with a satirical/screwball tone - its somewhere in the continuum between Paul Morissey's screwball dramas Heat/Trash and the comedy Flirting with Disaster.
The acting and directing is very believable and well done. I thought the plot was tight and well crafted; they did an excellent job of dramatizing the theme, and articulating the main characters psyche. This film is obviously based on life experience.
WHile much is said about the historical place of this film; its worth noting that the film has a timeless quality - it does a brilliant job of dealing with love, lust, realtionships, overlapping relationships, trust, human nature, the meaning of life etc. In the same way classic greek and roman comedies show that as things change things stay the same.