Shampoo

Starring: Julie Christie, Warren Beatty Director: Hal Ashby Dvd Release: 16th February, 2004 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Region 2 Encoding

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A modish creation teased into life by Warren Beatty, Shampoo was an offbeat Hollywood hit back in 1975. Made after Watergate, it reflects on the hedonism of late-60s Los Angeles with a sad, somewhat cynical eye. Basically a bedroom farce, fuelled by some famously raunchy dialogue, its comedy is nevertheless underlain with melancholy. Screenwriter Robert Towne was inspired by Wycherlys Restoration comedy The Country Wife, wherein a wily fellow convinces friends of his impotence even while he is merrily seducing their wives. Hence, Towne invented handsome Beverly Hills hairdresser George Roundy , who ought to be gay, but emphatically isnt. Shampoo begins on US Election Day, 1968, as Nixon is trouncing McGovern at the polls, & George Roundy is trying to sort his life out. An earnest advocate of sensual pleasure, he beds most of his female clients, from the fretful Jill to the wealthy Felicia . Yet George is himself unfulfilled, & imagines that owning his own salon will satisfy him. He asks Felicias husband Lester to back him, but first Lester coerces George into squiring his mistress Jackie to a Nixon victory party. Inevitably, Jackie is another of Georges girls and, having seduced Felicias vivacious daughter earlier that day, George has much to conceal from Lester & Felicia as the evenings festivities unravel.

Shampoo shows the 60s turning sour. The characters are rich hippies, superficially liberated but deeply unhappy, & blandly indifferent to the dawning of the Nixon era. The excellent Lee Grant won an Oscar, but Shampoo is Beattys film. He produced it, had a substantive hand in Townes script, & deputised the nominal director, Hal Ashby. The film mildly exploits legends of Beattys real-life sexual prowess, but mainly it embodies his commitment to making thoughtful movies for grown-ups.

Julie Christie is a British actress, winner of an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the 1965 film, Darling. Ms. Christie was born in Chabua, Assam, India & studied at the Central School of Music & Drama before getting her big break in 1961 in a science fiction series on BBC television, entitled A for Andromeda. The full recordings have now been lost, although a section of material from the final episode, featuring Christie, does survive. Her first major film role was opposite Tom Courtenay in Billy Liar. She played Lara in Doctor Zhivago & Bathsheba in Far from the Madding Crowd. Christie was a leading figure in the glamorous London of the 1960s & continues to make movies including those in the French language with Sophie Marceau in 2001s Belphegor - Le fantôme du Louvre. Posters Of Julie Christie

Editors Choice: Demon Seed, Shampoo, Dont Look Now, Far From The Madding Crowd, Mccabe And Mrs Miller, Doctor Zhivago, Fahrenheit 451, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, View DVDology

Henry Warren Beaty, now known as Warren Beatty, is an American actor, producer, screenwriter & director. He long had a reputation as a womanizer & playboy, but this reputation seems to have faded since his 1992 marriage. The Academy Awards honored him with the Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award in 2000, while in 2004 he received the Kennedy Center Honor. Beatty got his start in film under Elia Kazan s direction & opposite Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass, though he had previous television experience in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. At age 30 he achieved critical acclaim as producer & star of Bonnie & Clyde, which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. Subsequent Beatty films include McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Parallax View, Shampoo & Heaven Can Wait. His historical epic set at the start of World War I, Reds, won Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Cinematography & Best Actress in a Supporting Role while losing Best Picture to Chariots of Fire. It was nominated for eight other Oscars & joined a handful of films to win Best Director but not Best Picture. Posters Of Dick Tracy

Editors Choice: Town And Country, Bulworth, Bugsy, Dick Tracy, Ishtar, Heaven Can Wait, Shampoo, The Parallax View, View DVDology

Hal Ashby was an American film director & Academy Award winner. Ashby grew up in a Mormon household & had a tumultuous childhood which included the divorce of his parents, his fathers suicide & dropping out of high school. In his late teens, Ashby married but soon after divorced. As Ashby was entering adult life, he moved from Utah to California where he quickly became a film editor. His big break occurred in 1967 when he won the Academy Award for Film Editing for In the Heat of the Night. At the urging of its director, Norman Jewison, Ashby directed his first film, The Landlord, in 1970. Over the next 16 years, Ashby directed several acclaimed & popular films, including the off-beat romance Harold & Maude & the social satire Being There with Peter Sellers. Ashby died of cancer on December 27, 1988 in Malibu, California.

Editors Choice: Being There, Coming Home, Shampoo, Bound For Glory, The Last Detail, Harold And Maude, View DVDology

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