DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Hippy (hip' i) n. 1. an unkempt, filthy degenerate, usually a youth, circa 1960's, distinguished chiefly by absurdly long hair, junk store clothing, an aversion to work and bathing, a predeliction for drugs of all kinds and a love for rock 'n' roll particularly as performed by dead musicians.
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DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Double Feature!
by Edouard Dauphin
Hippy (hip' i) n. 1. an unkempt, filthy degenerate, usually a youth, circa 1960's, distinguished chiefly by absurdly long hair, junk store clothing, an aversion to work and bathing, a predeliction for drugs of all kinds and a love for rock 'n' roll particularly as performed by dead musicians. 2. adj. having rolls of fat in the buttocks region.
Remembbr the hippies? (You should —they founded this magazine.) Well, they're back, celebrated in Hair, a new film musical based on one of the Broadway hits of the 60's. Remember the 60's? Nixon, Vietnam, Lee Harvey Oswald? It was in all the papers.
The movie Hair is directed by Milos /Forman, who last gave us One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. In that one, Jack Nicholson underwent a lobectomy.. (I rooted for the nurses myself.) It was supposed to be a big deal. But what's so bad about a lobotomy? It hasn't hurt Lou Reed's career that much.
Hair takes a cast of unknowns and plunges them into a far-fetched tale of love, war, sex, rock and drugs—all the things that make life worth liying.
John Savage is a straight-arrow Kansas farm boy who comes to New York en route to a two-year stretch in the U.S. Army . A band of Central Park hippies befriends him and introduces him to such relics of the 60's as acid, free love, marijuana, be-ins and Lisa Robinson.
Savage doesn't have a chance. Future Farmers of America hasn't prepared him for toothsome Annie Golden (yep, the Shirts' lead singer— looks like Bucky Beaver but cute) who offers to marry him at once so he can avoid the army. Meanwhile, she's already pregnant with a baby who, depending on the identity of the father, could be black or white. (I was hoping polka-dot myself.)
Making matters worse, Savage has the hots for Beverly D'Angelo, a snotty debutante from New Jersey. He and the hippies cross the (Hudson to trash her coming-out party. Led by their main goon, Treat Williams, they scarf up the free food, kick over champagne bottles, swing from the chandeliers and guzzle all the alcohol they can find. Looked like a typical record company press party to me.
It all ends happily with Savage and D'Angelo united (bozos deserved each other) and hippy Williams sent to Vietnam by accident and killed. As for Annie's brat—we never do find out the color—probably p uce. t
See Hair 'cause the hippies are back. (Let's get 'em.)
☆ ☆ ☆
Ever play Polish Roulette?
That's the game where you take a revolver, put six live rounds in the chamber, hold it to your head and pull the trigger. (If the gun misfires, a true Polack shoots again.)
Riding the New York subways is almost as self-destructive as Polish Roulette. You may survive, but it isn't very likely. People down there like to play funny tricks—ramming your head into a turnstile, wiring you to the third rail, hurling you in front of an uptown express—and that's just what you get from the token clerk.
Of course, if you happen to be a member of a street gang specializing in very violent crimes, your subway travel might be easier. Even token clerks look up to gang members. And ordinary passengers give them their seats—not to mention their money, their clothes, the keys to their apartments and all future income they may earn. That's what they get for liking West Side Story.
And that's what they get for liking The Warriors, a dumb film that takes place almost entirely below ground as a "good" gang of perfect racial mix tries to travel the subway from the Bronx to Coney Island on a hot summer night when every other gang in the city is out for their blood. In a situation like that, they musta felt like Billy Carter at a Hadassah thrift sale.
The Warriors wend their way down into Manhattan (don't we all?), leaving subway platforms strewn with victims. They dally with a lady gang (bunch of double-crossing dykes), kick ass with a bat-toting baseball-uniformed gang (they fall like the ball-less Dodgers), and wind up on the beach at sunrise in a showdown with a drug-crazed band of hippies. (I thought I was back at Hair.)
See The Warriors—but bash your way into the theater.
