Skip to main content

Shampoo (1975)

Monday, March 30, 2009

Shampoo. Feature film. (1975, 109 mins) IMDB

...no do-overs in life...

W

arren Beatty plays George, a pretty-boy hairdresser in Hollywood. Not only is George not gay, he's a womanizer who will jump into bed with just about any women. Hell, he'll jump out of one bed to jump into another. He's completely flighty and irresponsible. A bachelor forever.

His girlfriend is Jill (Hawn). She's in love with him and is too stupid or naive to see what's going on. At the end of the second Act, she finds him screwing Jackie (Christie), her best friend and his former lover. The shades are off Jill's eyes and the relationship is over. Jill moves on.

Jackie is a kept woman. She'd be with George if he wasn't so irresponsible. She didn't want to wait while George grew up. Her lover and keeper is Lester (Jack Warden). He's older and loaded with money, but he's also married to Felica (Grant). Their marriage is dying. Felica has George do her hair and her plumping.

At a dinner banquet to watch the presidential results (Nixon in 1968), all the couples come together in the same room and all the relationships are torn at the seams.

Felcia wants a divorce.

By the end of the movie, George has learnt the errors of his ways, realizes he's in love with Jackie and asks her to marry him. The problem is, since Lester left his wife, he's free to marry Jackie. She said yes and they plan a trip to Mexico.

You'd wouldn't think Warden would end up with the girl and not Beatty, but that is precisely want happens. From a Hollywood hill, George looks down as a Bentley (or Rolls Royce) pulls out of Jackie's drive way and down a long road toward the airport. Inside is Lester and Jackie and her luggage. As the camera tracks the car over the shoulder of Beatty, the anticipation grows. When will we see the glow of break lights?, but they never come. The car disappears into the distance, cut to black and the movie is over.

Sometimes we realize what we have when it's too late.

Posted 2009/03/30 at 20h07ET in Movie Commentary.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If Only We Could Agree

Monday, June 11, 2012 ... have you been accused of misspelling a word you know is correct ... S usanne O’Leary wrote an interesting article on her experience with the variations of the English language in different countries. You know the obvious ones like colour with or without a “u” but less obvious ones like travelled versus traveled. Growing up in Sweden she learnt English in school—the UK variation. In publishing her books, she read reviews where she was criticized for improper spelling. False accusations as it turns out. While I write tire and cozy, it’s not incorrect to write tyre or cosy. Same language. Both accepted. Just different. You can read her write-up here along with the numerous comments posted by readers. I found it interesting, but that’s me. As a Canadian I deal with this issue everyday. I feel her pain when she’s criticized for something based on ignorance. No fun. I was told by a boss that “data are” isn’t correct. It should be “data is.” Read
2 comments
Read more

Days 9-108: Writing a Novel—The Deep Blue Hold

November 25th, 2016 to March 5, 2017 Note: Unedited writings from my notebook for this novel. Square bracket items represent added comments. At 15:53 Office ... And so began a three month odyssey away from writing this novel, The Deep Blue Hold. ... W herein I try to explain why I stopped working on this novel. The shortest answer is I gave up. The short explanation is I struggle with mental health issues (MDD, GAD, PTSD) that paralyse me at times. When it happens, I’m not able to do much of anything. Don’t want to do anything and that includes things one might expect to enjoy. For a while I spent time trying to create some thirty-second videos that would play a word puzzle like a crossword. Here’s the clue. Here’s the blank spaces. And after an interval, one of the letters would appear until all the letters appear. A bit of a crossword puzzle in that sometimes you come to a word where crossover words give you certain letters and you have to fill in the rest. A
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 8: Writing a Novel—The Deep Blue Hold

Thursday, November 24th, 2016 Note: Unedited writings from my notebook for this novel. Square bracket items represent added comments. At 15:53 Office ... This was a Chinese ship with Chinese officers. He didn't need some damn Dutch sailor to tell him how to run his ship. ... Y esterday was a day of distraction and writer’s block as I didn’t get too far. No new pages and nothing new on the story. Right now I’m stepping back to Tuesday, trying to get my mind around this story. Would it help if to read what I have. [Draft pages of the novel.] ____ Later. What I have is okay. It’s working. Of course it needs edits but that’s for another day. I think I worked out the broad strokes for Chps. 4, 5 & 6. Chp. 4 Captain on ship Chp. 5 Family back home Chp. 6. Leanne tending to her wounds Time to brainstorm some ideas for Chp. 4. It’s dawn. People getting up for morning routine. There will be a change of watch. Cross checking containers… The captain w
Post a Comment
Read more