SHAMPOO (1975)

By all rights, Shampoo should have been masterful. With the director of Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby), the screenwriter of Chinatown (Robert Towne), and iconic leading man Warren Beatty all involved, this satirical comedy seemed destined for success. Its supporting cast is just as impressive, with Judi Christie, Goldie Hawn, and Lee Grant rounding out some of this ensemble’s key players. But this bedroom farce is as tame as it is forgettable.

Following George Roundy (Beatty), a promiscuous Beverly Hills hairdresser with a host of female clients and girlfriends (the two labels are often interchangeable), Shampoo largely takes place on the eve of the 1968 US Presidential election, where candidates Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and George Wallace battle for control of the nation. Not that you might even recognize that all three were running from this film, as its main topic of conversation is purposefully left out of discussion by its nonsensical characters. These include George’s girlfriend Jill (Hawn), his sexual partner Felicia (Grant), her husband Lester (Jack Warden), and Lester’s mistress Jackie (Christie). These pairings are just the start of this convoluted series of intertwined relationships.

The film’s satirical edge is dulled to the point of banality. Shampoo has no real interest in its characters or their goings-on, but instead in exposing how painfully shallow their inner and outer worlds are. They spend the almost two-hour runtime hopelessly chasing after one another, their relationships never amounting to anything beyond casual sex and emotional hang-ups that are never worth the trouble they cause. Aside from a final (and far too late) burst of passion by the film’s conclusion, none of these characters have a substantive connection with one another. There are points where they delude themselves into thinking their relationships are more meaningful than they really are, but not only are the characters unconvincing in this regard, Shampoo itself fails to give a sense of authenticity to a single one of their pitiful desires.

Instead, the movie’s focus is intentionally out of sight, earshot, and mind. These hare-brained characters are aware of the ongoing election, but lend little thought to it throughout the fateful night when its votes are counted up. Are they better off because of their ignorance? Evidently not, given how gleefully Shampoo makes fun of their frivolity, where they are less like human beings and more akin to a group of lovesick rabbits racing from one potential mate to the next. This is the total of the film’s political commentary; an absence of thought in favour of sex. This key subtext is a giant hole in the narrative that the rest of Shampoo tumbles out of, betraying the shallowness of a movie that sincerely believes it’s only exposing that quality in its characters.

As for the love-making, notes of eroticism aren’t to be anticipated in Shampoo either. These relationships aren’t passionate, they’re obligatory. It’s always about the chase with these characters, never the satisfaction in attainment (however temporary). George is a lothario, and though he isn’t a particularly convincing one (granted, observing Beatty’s horrific hairdo decades after this period’s hairstyles have gone out of fashion contributes to this feeling), there’s no denying his success. One gets the sense that even the women pursuing him would grow tired of his presence if he was in their life for too long. By always chasing a new partner, he keeps each of them waiting, his absence making them pine for him even more. If George were to simply sit still for a moment, it’s possible that almost all of these key players in Shampoo would experience whiplash. For the women, it would come through the realisation that the only thing that makes this talented multitasker interesting is his momentum.

And as for George, if he were to experience a night of calm it’s possible that his personality would change for good, or that it would turn out there never was a personality underneath the voracious pursuit of his lovers. If the latter were to come true, would the tragedy be for George to recognise this deficiency in his lifestyle and identity, or if only we viewers did? This isn’t a question that can be answered, since Shampoo is a farce, not a drama; it has no interest in entering deep waters, or even murky ones. That’s why you could take Jill and Felicia, say, and swap both characters’ personalities around for a half hour, and audiences would be unlikely to notice. Some members of this ensemble are too distinctive for that treatment; George is enjoyably silly at points, while Jackie becomes genuinely entertaining to follow once she sheds any inhibitions.

Overall, it feels less like the characters are ridiculous to prove a point, and more that this movie trots them out and forces them to trudge towards one another, all so it can laugh behind their backs at these gleeful idiots for not taking more of an interest in politics. Though really it’s more like this ensemble is racing headlong down this path; most of Shampoo’s scenes feature George in a constant state of motion. When he’s not zigzagging between clients or running from one end of a large house party to another to talk to his numerous lovers, this protagonist’s brain is working a mile a minute trying to keep up with his many relationships, which often seem to undercut one another at the worst of times.

There’s an enjoyable rhythm in these moments, which Ashby is more than capable of depicting smoothly, but the director’s talents are largely wasted here. There’s little visual appeal, or even a distinct voice, in Shampoo’s camerawork. Towne and Beatty’s writing is also lacking in these snappy scenes, which for all their momentum, fall flat given the distinct lack of bite in the dialogue. Plenty of things are happening, and all are vaguely interesting, but this film is never absorbing or hilarious. It rides a consistent high of mild but unfulfilling entertainment, which is also what appears to motivate George in life.

If the experience of watching Shampoo is like viewing a skit with great potential spread far too thin, perhaps that’s because the concept behind the film made this a necessity. Towne first toyed with ideas relating to this protagonist in the 1960s, after a former girlfriend revealed that she had been married to a hairdresser. Surprised, the screenwriter soon became shocked when he visited the hairdresser’s salon, witnessing beautiful woman after beautiful woman being attended to there. That a male hairdresser could be heterosexual, let alone attract gorgeous women so easily, was incomprehensible to Towne. Like George, this man was flighty and impulsive; as if on a whim, he had declared to Towne’s then-girlfriend that he suddenly had no interest in marriage not long after their wedding ceremony.

This interesting anecdote aside, in a storytelling sense it amounts to little more than a mild curiosity. Straight male hairdressers that focus on women’s hair aren’t exactly commonplace, but a figure like George isn’t all that shocking to envision, either. And even if he would be an anomaly in real life, greater thrills and more compelling identities are needed in fiction.

To the film’s credit, it is rarely dull, even if it’s unlikely to produce raucous laughter. Shampoo’s main drawback is that it keeps presenting voids in place of its core elements, whether that’s a sense of whimsy, sensuality, or political subtext. On this last front, a noticeable missed opportunity can be found in the film’s black characters. The only character of note who fits this demographic is Mary (Ann Weldon), a co-worker of George’s. She works at the very back of the salon, with George either traversing past the other clients and employees to get to her, or who is called by these more important characters away from her station. In just a few sentences one learns that Mary is married to a military man far away; before that viewers will notice her plain white clothes, akin to a nurse’s uniform. Whether it’s her committed relationship in a film featuring anything but this, or her bland, shapeless clothing, Weldon’s good looks do nothing to stop Mary being rendered sexless in this sex comedy. Personality-wise, in a movie with some pretty out-there characters, she is easily the most plain of them all. One could say that makes her authentic, but that’s a code word for boring in a film like Shampoo.

Mary can work in the same room as these white characters and interact with them enough to offer plain-speaking common sense, but on a fundamental level she is not a part of their world. It seems less like the creatives behind Shampoo are incurious about Mary, or any other group of people who aren’t straight and white and could be utilised to produce interesting — or funny — reflections on this film’s political bent. Instead, it comes across as a genuine, if glaring, blind spot. Though not very significant in this narrative, the absence of thought or interest here makes an already incurious film all the more limiting.

For sex-crazed heterosexual male hairdressers (all three of you, I’m guessing), this farcical, frivolous tale about the free-wheeling sexual attitudes of a bygone era may be thrilling. Outside of this absurdly small demographic, Shampoo contains some mildly funny moments, but even beyond how forgettable they are, its absences—whether tonal, political, social or thematic—are far more memorable than what it has to offer. By providing so few outlets for effective satire, this film inadvertently became exactly what it demeaned and parodied.

USA | 1975 | 110 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Hal Ashby.
writers: Robert Towne & Warren Beatty.
starring: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant, Jack Warden, Jay Robinson, Carrie Fisher & Tony Bill.