Shampoo (1975)
George Roundy is a Beverly Hills hairstylist whose uncontrolled libido stands between him and his ambitions. He wants the security of a relationship. He wants to be a hairdressing "star" and open his own salon. But the fact that he beds down with the wife, daughter and mistress of a potential backer doesn't help. It also does little for his relationship with his current girlfriend.
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Good , But It Is Overrated By Some
It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Warren Beatty played a Beverly Hills hairdresser who enjoys cutting his female clients hair and sleeping with them on the side. He has a girlfriend, Jill, played by Goldie Hawn. He seduces unhappily married wives like Lee Grant and even girlfriends like Julie Christie. The film is about sexual mores of the late sixties. Los Angeles, California seemed to be the place for free love, money and wealth. There is a massive amount of excess in money and sexuality in this film. The movie is not for the prudish. The film is set around the election of 1968 and filmed in 1974. There are great performances by a stellar supporting cast like Lee Grant, Jack Warden, George Furth, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and a young Carrie Fisher. It's worth a viewing or too.
"Shampoo" is like a shampoo bubble, or a bubble bath - highly enjoyable. You want to stay in it forever, and you keep looking for similar films of that era afterwards. Life was so carefree. Sex was so uncomplicated. Women had great hair. Julie Christie's black sequin backless dress and swing cut are unforgettable. I'm a big fan of Warren Beatty and his relaxed attitude. Goldie Hawn is hilarious and gorgeous, as always. But, Carrie Fisher steals the show. The scenes with Warren and her are the funniest. And Tinseltown seems like any small town.
It's the day before the 1968 election of Richard Nixon. George Roundy (Warren Beatty) is a popular womanizing Beverly Hills hairdresser. He is tired of salon owner Norman and wants to start his own place. His meeting with the banker goes badly. His actress girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn) is conflicted about going to Egypt for a job. His sex partner Felicia (Lee Grant) recommends his business to her unsuspecting husband Lester (Jack Warden). Lester has an affair with Jackie (Julie Christie) who happens to be George's ex and Jill's friend.These are self-obsessed needy people. George especially is not appealing. Warren Beatty has the pretty bad boy persona which only adds to the sad nature of these characters. From his first outburst against the banker, it's hard to root for George. He is always distracted by the next pretty thing. This does have an interesting short scene with an unknown straight-talking Carrie Fisher as Felicia's rebellious daughter Lorna. Overall, I don't want to spend two hours with these people. The movie could have savaged these people and their lives but it fails to push the envelop. The talents are top-notch but I don't care about these characters enough to like this movie. They are also not ugly enough to hate. It's probably trying to connect them to the Nixonian era.
It is a 1975 film directed by Hal Ashy (BEING THERE 1979, 8/10), stars Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, and his then-lover Julie Christie, with an Oscar winning performance by Lee Grant and an Oscar-nominated turn by the perpetual character actor Jack Warden, sounds appealing to any cinephile, right? Yet SHAMPOO, not unlike its characters' utterly outmoded hairstyle, is a mediocre downer, which makes Grant's Oscar triumph looks like a fishy consolation prize for the sake of her career achievements. It is 1968, in the eve of the President Election, George (Beatty), a Beverly Hill hairstylist (by the way, no one dares to advise him to get his own flurry hairdo a neat trim), an inveterate womanizer and sex-addict, gyrates around his girlfriend Jill (Hawn) and the cougar patron Felicia (Grant), with other casual dalliances not included. Dreaming of open his own salon but rejected for a bank loan, George is introduced by Felicia to her wealthy hubby Lester (Warden), who might be interested in the investment, meanwhile, he encounters Jacky, his old flame, and discovers she is Lester's mistress. Inevitably Jacky and George rekindles their romance, and everyone involved needs an egress out of the sticky situation. Eventually, the obvious loser is George himself, but as we can envision, 30 minutes after the ending, he is back in his habitual mode to seduce another predator in the jungle of voluptuous creatures, it is hard to deny a self-revealing aspect of George's character is based on Beatty himself (oo who is the co-writer here).More like a personal project for Beatty and Christie, they are not at all in their top form, it it their pillow talk which leaves audience in a state of dumbness and aloofness. Goldie Hawn actually pulls off a renascent awareness of her own worth through maturing from a wide-eyed ingénue to a woman knows what she wants and feels pity on George's addiction. Lee Grant is ferociously acrid as the lust-driven middle-aged wife encircled with desperate loneliness, an Oscar-win is too much for the role nevertheless; Jack Warden is the token of a winner in a male-chauvinistic world, which proffers a rare showcase for this perpetually sidelined character thespian, in the end, he even dissipates some of the antipathy, which presumably aims towards Lester's shallowness and the stink of money, with an inherent affinity borders on visceral humility and drool naiveté, his adventure in a hippie party draws the best eye-sensational revelry in the entire film. But after all, SHAMPOO doesn't live up to my expectation and the ghastly dreadful coiffure, hope no retro vogue will tread back into that era, ever.