Shampoo (1975 Hal Ashby)

Brain being on the sluggish side it took me two thirds of the film to realise it's a period piece (a fact actually announced on screen at the start) succinctly summarised by use of Sgt. Pepper in party scenes, and in Goldie's wisp of a dress. (It's actually 1968.) The script is by Ashby and Robert Towne and was Oscar nominated.

Warren Beatty's hair is really funny. The film shares the same quizzical humour as Ashby's other films. Scenes where Beatty emerges from daughter's bathroom, assaults a waste bin and with Julie Christie at dinner are hilarious, as Beatty's house of cards comes crashing down around him. Lee Grant won the Oscar; Jack Warden is great too. Plus Ann Weldon (the maid), Luana Anders, Randy Scheer (film producer).

Shot in the loving, careful and unshowy manner of Laszlo Kovacs. Robert Jones is ostensibly the editor though probably it was Ashby mainly in the reins, though Beatty as producer controlled the film.

First watched on Saturday 5 March 1977, aged 13 - it was my first cinema 'X' film!