Shampoo

Set on the eve of the presidential election that put Richard Nixon in the oval office, Shampoo revolves around George Roundy (Warren Beatty), a successful, Beverly Hills-based hairdresser, who has ostensibly skated by in life solely on his good looks, charisma, and easygoing charm with women. Despite living and committing to his girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn), George still seeks sex from many other women, often his regular clients.

One thing George has consistently wanted to do is open his own hair salon; one day, he turns to Lester and Felicia (Jack Warden and Lee Grant), a wealthy, local-area couple. However, another problem emerges for George and that is the fact that Lester's current mistress (Julie Christie) is one of George's former girlfriends. Lester just outright assumes George, because of his appearance and choice of occupation, is gay, and doesn't see him as any legitimate sexual threat. It isn't until George becomes closer to Lester, meeting his wife, rekindling things with Lester's mistress, and even becoming entranced with select other women that George succumbs to furthering his pedigree as a sexual deviant.

Shampoo subtly evokes the breakdown of the limiting and often sexually regressive sexual politics and standards of the 1960's; it plays similar instruments as Paul Mazursky's brilliant and underrated Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice where the very nature of its plot is subversive because it takes a sensitive, introspective camera into characters' bedrooms rather than simply closing the door on it. It's a period of time in American cinema that I cheekily bill "what I do in the bedroom is all of your business," due to the liberal mindset and furtherance of sexual freedom, orientation, and behavior in public. In the contemporary, sex is still a social taboo in America, but with each year, be it what is accepted by the MPAA, or what is casually discussed by young people in a serious, social setting, the stigma of sex is continuing to be broken in many ways.

Shampoo looks at the social mores by picking a character who is contemptible not because he loves his sex but because of how dishonest he chooses to be. There's nothing wrong with having multiple sexual partners, nor is there nothing inherently wrong with practicing polygamy or sleeping around. There is something wrong, however, with being dishonest or deceptive about it, which is what George consistently is. With that, screenwriters Robert Towne and Beatty seem to recognize this, and Beatty himself seems to recognize it as he's playing the character. Nonetheless, he challenges you to like him largely by the quick-witted and zippy way he moves and conducts himself, as well as the way he works and entertains his clients. He may not be an easy character to like, but he's not an easy character to write off.

With that, Beatty gives an entertaining performance and effective turns an ensemble film into what could easily be mistaken as a one-man show, if it wasn't for the significant presences of Goldie Hawn and Lee Grant, specifically Grant who winds up having some strong scenes with Beatty during more pivotal moments of the film. These inclusions make Shampoo more likable throughout all the contemptible attributes of the film, and the film winds up addressing sexual politics in a way that doesn't tell the audience, but show them. It sort of walks in circles, not always coming to a clear point, but Beatty's performance and its more subtler approach to the material is enough to make it, if nothing else, a thematically and fundamentally interesting piece for the time.

Starring: Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, Jack Warden, and Lee Grant. Directed by: Hal Ashby.

Beatty says he approached Towne to do a modern version of the classic restoration comedy called The Country Wife (hilarious by the way). In the original play, the hero beds all the wives by confessing to their husbands that he's impotent so the husbands make fun of him and think nothing of leaving their frustrated and underappreciated wives in his care.

Here in the updated "Shampoo", Beatty and Towne make the hero an assumed-to-be-gay hairdresser (instead of impotent)and the results are inspired bedroom farce mixed with social satire.

Younger viewers may find the film a little dated but it was a "period" film when it was made (set in 68 when it was shot in 74) so Ashby consciously gave it that dated look. For me this and Heaven Can Wait are Beatty's best work. Walks a fine comic/tragic line. And this really feels like the closest character to Beatty's heart. It was after this that I went back and saw Splendor in the Grass and began to appreciate Beatty as an actor rather than just a gigolo celebrity.

Great dialogue by Towne, Jack Warden's hilarious and Julie Christie is stunning.

A day in the life of a Southern California hairstylist (Beatty) as he beds three women (Christie, Hawn and Lee Grant) while at the same time trying to seek a loan from businessman Lester (Oscar nominee Jack Warden) to help him open his own salon… His world soon starts to fall apart as he realizes what he fervently wishes in life and the limitations of his cheerful posture toward others…

Lee Grant won an Oscar for playing Lester's bored wife who can't seem to take her eyes off Beatty, and even her nymphet daughter (a young Carrie Fisher) desperately wanted him to be engaging in reciprocal sex… Grant's actually quite jovial and adorable in her role as we heartily feel for her character near the climax…

Warren Beatty appears either excitable or distracted through most of the story… He lies, hides, and denies facts, doing whatever it takes to make everyone happy...

If you like to see Julie Christie notoriously fellating Beatty underneath an elegant dinner table… well don't miss this funny sex comedy which received four Oscar nominations

'Shampoo' is quite an interesting period black comedy set in the late 60s during the sex revolution. In one sentence, it's about a Casanova hairdresser who sleeps around with every woman he meets but there is one whom he loves and she happens to be the mistress of a not-to-mess-with businessman. Ashby does a splendid job in bringing out the 60's look but it is Towne and Beatty who bring the feel especially through the dialogues and use of language. Not to mention, the make-up department that does an equally fine job. The humour is somewhat different from other films and traditional viewers may find the jokes somewhat vulgar but that doesn't bother me as long as they manage to draw chuckles and at least make me smile. The actors, that include a vivacious supercute Goldie Hawn, a sizzling Julie Christie, a hilarious Jack Warden, a fiery Lee Grant and a very young Carrie Fisher. But, it is Warren Beaty's film. He demonstrates George's wildness, passion, vulnerability and despair with effective skill. In my humble opinion it is one of his best works, both as actor and writer. I don't understand why people call it outdated. It is set in an older time and if the humour still works, why is it obsolete? I got the movie randomly and now I'm glad that I picked this one.

In a recent interview in Cineaste magazine, celeb film critic Pauline Kael described the 1970's as the greatest decade of American movies. She then laid claim by listing her seven favorite films from that period. One of the films mentioned was Shampoo. I couldn't agree more with Pauline. Aside from the lighting and some of the camerawork, everything in the film is about as good as it gets---Robert Towne's ear for common parlance, Beatty's understated charisma, and Ashby's whirlwind direction.

It's strange that more people haven't written about this movie. In many ways, Shampoo seems to have been forgotten, floating somewhere in film history heaven. I live in Los Angeles and have never heard about it being screened anywhere. Dave Kehr and the critical establishment in general have all written it off as a film that hasn't aged well. And I've never seen a book written about either Shampoo or Ashby. Am I living in a vault or is this really the legacy of Shampoo? If you don't like this movie, I urge you to write or contact me. My e-mail address is listed above. I simply don't understand why more people don't