Hair (1979), Starring John Savage, Treat Williams, Beverly D'Angelo

HAIR? I wanted to give it a permanent wave....

Goodbye!

One reason it didn't do better was it was a movie about hippies that came out on the cusp of the '80s. It was about as timely as a movie about The Macarena would be today.

We watched this in my high school drama class. Everyone laughed when Treat showed his ass. The teacher told us to settle down because if you've seen one butt you've seen 'em all.

[quote] It's rarely if ever shown in revival houses

Because the audience of geriatric hippies are too embarrassing

It was a great ass!

Very homoerotic movie, the Treat Williams character may have a pregnant girlfriend, but all he seems to care about is Claude the blond hunk. He spends the whole movie trying to attract Claude's attention and win his friendship, and SPOILERS SPOILERS ends up dying for the guy.

Which makes it a pity that I don't like the movie as a whole, and I'm not sure why I do. I love musicals, I love the songs, I even liked a lot of hippies... maybe because this movie was made without any sympathy for the hippies who are on screen all the time. It just doesn't work somehow.

One of the better musical adaptations. I think it arrived though just as the country was getting over the ‘60s. Treat Williams is pure sex in it.

John Savage is pretty cute in it. But yes, the movie pretty much belongs to Treat, who should have been a huge star after this.

Cocaine derailed Treat's career.

Moving, emotional, heart-wrenching title song. Brings tears to your eyes:

HAIR - LET THE SUNSHINE IN

A decade too late.

R10 That scene is why I think Treat Williams gave such an amazing performance. His body language completely changed. He went from being a carefree, fearless thinks-he-knows-it all to a confused child engulfed in fear. He did it with one look. I'd have given him the Oscar right there.

I found it annoying, but I was never overly-fond of the Summer of Love mythology. These people are presented as pointless.

I agree with the above poster who says Williams gave a great performance particularly in his final scene.

Treat did okay. Not every actor can have blockbuster hit after hit. The one we should have heard more from is the girl who sang Easy To Say No. Cheryl something..

If Across the Universe is considered a cult classic so should Hair.

I read somewhere that when Cheryl Barnes went in to audition for Milos Forman, he immediately told everybody else to go home.

This is from Wikipedia: Barnes gave an audition when she showed up at an open casting call. She had no agent and was working as a maid in a motel in Maine. Her song "Easy to Be Hard" took only one take and this is the take seen in its entirety in the film. Her later scene in the desert outside the army base was filmed in Barstow, California, where she remained. Hair director Miloš Forman talked her into coming to New York City for a few months, as he did not want to see such talent go to waste. However, Barnes returned to Barstow, where she worked as a piano teacher. She remained friends with Miloš and accompanied him to Prague, where he was shooting the film Amadeus.[1]

Good movie, but I agree...a few years too late.

[quote] Brings tears to your eyes: HAIR - LET THE SUNSHINE IN

Tears, or nausea

R14 Is Across the Universe really considered a classic? It is one of the worst movies ever made and is derivative of Hair which despite its faults is a far superior film.

R18 in the same way Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is considered a classic.

[quote] Across the Universe...is derivative of hair

Oh good lord!

Interspersing stripping draftees with Black boys/White boys song turned me on!

I agree this was a decade too late but probably wouldn’t have been as daring had it arrived a decade earlier.

R19 I suppose if it is looked at in that way I get it.

Cheryl Barnes was in the original cast and album of "The Magic Show" with Doug Henning on Broadway.

If Treat had gone frontal and shown his treat and two veg it would have been a massive hit.

I was too young to see it in the theaters but it became a favorite with my group of stoner friends in high school. I think we watched it a dozen times one summer...rewinding the LSD/ Hare Krishna number over and over. We thought it was so funky.

One of my friends in that group went on to become a pretty famous broadway actor (not naming her) ...inspired by Cheryl Barnes. Easy To Be Hard was one of her audition songs for NYU (which she got into).

1979 was the era of disco and glamour and having a good time. No one cared about hippies and Vietnam.

The score is of course wonderful but those songs had been played to death a decade earlier.

They changed the original ending - that might have turned people off (who saw the original musical) from going to see the film

My favorite musical of all time. Despite the downer of an ending, it's close to perfection. But it came out at the wrong time -- as people have said, no one cared about the 60s in the 70s.

They basically changed the entire book of the musical. It was nothing like the stage show. I don't think that helped it.

And yes, changing the one who dies at the end was jarring to say the least.

Just the same, some of the performances were fantastic.

It was a weird fusion of drive-in comedy and Twyla Tharp dance numbers.

There is an original cut of Hair somewhere sitting in a vault, as the movie had to be chopped down considerable as it went WAY overtime.

R32 who can we write to to see the original cut?

Even though I was still a kid, I can remember seeing this movie in the theater when it first came out.

It could have been a big hit if it came out in the early 1970s -- Nixon still in office and American forces still fighting in Vietnam. I can remember the songs "Aquarius," "Good Morning Starshine," "Let the Sun Shine In" playing on Top 40 radio in the early 70s. But by the time this came out in 1979, we were well into the disco era, hippies were long gone, and Hair seemed old and over the hill.

R32 Several musical numbers were shot then cut from the release print (Frank Mills is one). They are on the soundtrack album. It's one reason Annie Golden's character seems so truncated. I always wanted to see a director's cut.

It was old fashioned by then. The optimism of the 60s gave way to the cynicism of the 70s and the avarice of the 80s was just around the corner.

It should’ve been made in the timeframe 1969-1971. By 1979 the late 60s were ancient history, because culture changed at such a fast rate. You can’t compare it to the difference between 2009 and 2019.

Does anyone think it failed because it came out too late?

Treat's real name is Spam

I saw Hair when it came out and it remains one of my favorite musicals.

And the "I Got Life" number is still for me one of the most exhilarating moments in any film.

I posted in another thread about going to see a local community theater production of "Hair" a few weeks ago. It was a little jarring to realize that for the kids who were in the play, the period depicted was more than 50 years ago. I saw the original in 1970 (at age 18) and for me, 50 years ago then was 1920. My parents didn't even remember the '20. So1969 must REALLY seem like ancient history to today's youth. It made me feel really old, realizing that I'd lived through the events discussed in the play.

R9 I was wondering why Treat Williams' career derailed. He was gorgeous, talented, Hair was a big hit commercially and the critics liked it. Williams must have stepped on some very powerful toes. He must have stepped on them very hard.

I was in love with Treat Williams for a while after Hair came out.

Let us not forget Charlotte Rae's cameo.

'I Got Life' and 'The Flesh Failures', incredible.

Another one who was totally into Treat. He had a rather long career but I heard that it was some drug issues that derailed him for a while.

Back then the sight of Beverly D'Angelo pregnant while wearing a wedding dress was shocking. Very shocking.

R42 - I had a thing for Williams too (even in the movie The Ritz) , and he was excellent in the film Prince of the City

Milos Forman did a beautiful, beautiful job with this film. Hair, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - gifted filmmaker.

This woman was working an entry level job when Milos Forman asked her to be in 'Hair'.

Despite her unbelievable voice and the success of the film she opted to not go into show business. Maybe she had her reasons, I don't know,

I think she had more talent than Whitney Houston.

People with actual talent, people who could actually sing and dance, no surgically enhanced women.

"Are you??...A homosexual?"

"Well, I wouldn't kick Mick Jagger out of my bed but..."

R47 Williams is a very talented actor.

Did you ever see 'Smooth Talk' with Treat Williams, Laura Dern and Mary Kay Place? Very, very good movie. Dern was about 18 when it was made so its a older movie. Williams was really good in that.

HAIR, the stage musical, is very much of its time. Rado, Ragni & McDermott and captured the zeitgeist of the period (anti-establishment, the music, the attitudes, the free love of the youth) of the late-Sixties admirably. The book is non-existent and the musical as a whole is very dated.

Popular culture was also changing at lightening speed then. Look at the change from the early Sixties (Bye Bye Birdie) to late-Sixties HAIR. Look at the changes even in The Beatles from their Ed Sullivan debut in 1964 to the White Album in 1970. The decade from the film's release in 1979 was too long a time to be reverent and too soon to be nostalgic. Forman also tried to make the film (and its story) more realistic and plot-driven than the original material which was very episodic lacking in any tight plot.

I like Forman's film more than I do the stage musical. I saw the original musical decades ago, performed in it in college, and have seen several productions since then (including at the Delacorte before it moved to Broadway). It also captures Twila Tharp's great choreography (which was far from the late-Sixties approach). It also has a collection of great cameos of (Charlotte Rae at the wedding, Michael Jeter and Laurie Beechman in Black Boys, Nell Carter in White Boys).

And yes, Treat Williams is sex on a stick in the film.

R53 The nudity!! My goodness...the nudity!! 😃😃😃

"Gimme down to there hair, shoulder length and longer, here mama, there mama, everywhere daddy, daddy, haaaiiirrr..."

I wanted to be hippie so bad after seeing this. They looked so free!

But, of course, we now know the truth about the 'Summer of Love'.

Homelessness, malnutrition, fatherless children, drug addicted babies, STDs.

Those who were in it to party crashed and burned pretty quickly and those who were serious about the environment, about political causes, about trying to make the world a better place put in a lot of work to live up to their ideals.

"Ragni & McDermott and captured the zeitgeist of the period."

Zeitgeist. Exactly R53.

I never saw the stage show or the movie. I had the soundtrack to the Broadway show at 10 years old. "Easy to Be Hard" still brings tears to my eyes. The SJWs who are too busy to care about their own friends and family.

R39 I read that Williams' name was Katt Treat Williams. But that he decided to go with Treat.

(Richard Treat Williams, actually.)

Laura Dern, Treat Williams, scene from 'Smooth Talk'.

Another "Treat" of 'Smooth Talk'.

He looked SO good in this movie!!

R58 Beautiful song and her rendition of it was incredible. And, yes, this song really resonates now.

I forgot about Smooth Talk.

He was super hot in that film.

[quote] I had the soundtrack to the Broadway show

Oh, DEAR.

A tasty Treat....

Do I remember correctly that Treat was a killer in Smooth Talk and that she went off to her doom at the end?

Ran across this and thought you guys would like!

I saw HAIR when I was 13 years old in March 1979 with my parents and my brother. I LOVED it at the time. The scene at the induction center where the draftees have to strip naked, watching that scene I thought my head was going to EXPLODE!

I love this film. I much prefer this plotline to the stage show.

They start out as careless hedonistic kids and end as wiser thoughtful adults.

An example of the ephemeral nature of zeitgeist, as described by R53, is "Sweet Charity," which debuted on Broadway in 1966, and scored 9 Tony nominations, but by the time the film adaptation came out just three years later, the mod fashions, dance numbers (e.g. "Rich Man's Frug"), and storyline about an amorous taxi dancer looking for true love, were horribly old-fashioned and out of step with the climate of 1969. The movie flopped and nearly sank Universal Pictures. So you can imagine how much our attitudes had changed by the time of "Hair," the musical and "Hair," the movie.

I saw a promo picture of a stage showMichael Bennet was doing I believe simply called Sex with naked Treat not really showing anything ( with Swoossie Kurtz of all people ). The show never materialized. I don’t know why maybe this was when Bennet found out he was sick.

R71 it was called "Scandal"

One of the first movies I ever saw with nudity, had the biggest crush on Treat and absolutely love the movie. The end still gets me.

R68 Same here. We're the same age. Male nudity was hard to come by so I relied on military conscription physicals and prison strip searches in movies to fuel my masturbatory fantasies. When Richard Gere did the nude scene a year later in American Gigolo I read about it in People. It was Rated R so I made my mother take me under the premise that I was a huge Blondie fan (which she was well aware) and I just had to go because Debbie Harry was doing the theme song. My mom was cool. She took me. She knew. She probably wanted to see Gere buck naked in front of the blinds anyway.

Sorry, I digress. Back to Hair...

R74 Christopher Reeve was originally offered "American Gigolo" but turned it down, because he found the script "Distasteful"

R75 When Chris Reeve kissed Michael Caine in the shocking reveal in Deathtrap I damn near died. Reeve was gorgeous. Would have loved to see him in AG.

Chris Reeves was offered 1 Million Dollars to do "American Gigolo" (a staggering sum back in 1979) but he still said no.

Not to highjack the thread but Harry Hamlin undressing Michael Ontkean in "Making Love" a year later was earth shattering when I saw it on HBO. I set my alarm and woke up at 3am so I could watch it alone while the family slept andi could furiously masturbate uninterrupted. Lol!

The shit we had to do for self pleasuring eye candy before the internet. These kids don't know about our struggles.

R78- When I was 16 years old in 1982 my friend gave me some of his father's nudist camp magazines which even then were old fashioned , but for a horny 16 year old in 1982 they were GOLD DUST!

R74/R75, Christopher Reeve never did much for me and he would've been entirely wrong for "American Gigolo". No disrespect, but I was a little boy when that excellent movie was released. Richard Gere is bi and was perfect for that part. If the book is still in print, I recommend "FULL FRONTAL". Mine is in storage. Warren Beatty is beautiful with a beautiful body and beautiful dick. There are many nude shots of male Hollywood stars in that book

-16

[quote] This woman was working an entry level job when Milos Forman asked her to be in 'Hair'. Despite her unbelievable voice and the success of the film she opted to not go into show business. Maybe she had her reasons, I don't know, I think she had more talent than Whitney Houston.

As stated above, she was in show businesses. NY'ers were familiar with her. I was a teen and knew exactly who she was when she appeared on screen. I had even met her before then. Maybe her heart wasn't into it or it was to hard being a working actor, but she had done Broadway and backup before "Hair". Got to meet her again after "Hair" opened and congratulated her for stealing the whole thing.

Solid Silver Platform Shoes - The Magic Show (1974) Performed by Cheryl Barnes and Annie McGreevey

Reeve was correct to turn down AMERICAN GIGOLO. There was no there there. It's a pretty bad and empty movie. I just watched it again some months ago.

If it's lingered in the public consciousness, it's because of the iconic look and sound (the Moroder soundtrack, "Call Me" etc.) The Armani clothes are beautiful and Gere is young and hot. But it doesn't really add up to anything.

Barnes was the original choice for Bennett as Effie in Dreamgirls. She replaced Holliday in workshops for a brief while before quitting and Holliday was brought in again and the rest is history. She also did the role in Long Beach to great acclaim.

She won Star Search as well. But she never seemed especially interested in show business.

Barnes one record was on the soundtrack of American Gigolo. There's a jazz singer by the name of Cheryl Barnes as well, but obviously not the same singer.

Milos Forman was amazing for finding a Vietnamese orphan who could sing as beautifully as Betty Buckley.

It might have been made too late but it also might have been made too early. People aren’t usually to nostalgic for 10 years ago. It takes about 20 years for people to get interested in a period of the past.

R82 I was 14 and wanted to see what a handsome grown man's cock looked like so I could bone up and get some visuals for my masturbatory fantasies. Sorry my boner interfered with a more cerebral cinematic assessment of this film. But do go on. It was fascinating.

Snoooooooze 😴 Zzzzzzzzzzz

R87 where in American Gigolo do we see a man's dick? I don't recall that and I'd think I would!

[quote]Milos Forman did a beautiful, beautiful job with this film. Hair, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - gifted filmmaker.

Forman should have directed "A Chorus Line".

Link to watch Hair for free on YouTube.

R88 It was barely noticeable and totally played up by the Hollywood press. It occurs when Gere gets out of bed nude and leans against a window with blinds slightly open and rays of light shine through in a rather cheesy scene that's probably meant to be more artistically framed than it was. I was mad I didn't full-on frontal but you do get a side glimpse and his ass great.

We took what we could get. ;)

R91 thanks, I vaguely recall that scene.

Roger Ebert's review R66 :

"Smooth Talk" is based on a short story by Joyce Carol Oates, who so often finds the materials of classic tragedy in the lives of everyday people. Although the movie is shocking, it is not sensational in the way it might have been - if it had been handled as a horror story, say, instead of as a morality play. Oates's story, adapted by Tom Cole and directed by Joyce Chopra, is about a young girl who is surrounded by sexuality, who is curious about it, who flirts dangerously in the wrong places, and who not only learns her lesson, but grows up, all at once, into a different person than she was.

What happens is that a boy (Treat Williams) sees her at the drive-in. He says his name is Arnold Friend, and that he wants to be her friend. Everything about this guy is all wrong. He is nowhere near as young as he says. There is a bad look in his eye. He pals around with another guy who doesn't say anything, and doesn't need to, because one look at him and you realize he is missing very important parts. Connie walks around in her shorts and halter top, and Arnold watches her. He makes a pass at her, and she puts him off with the kind of cute flirtation that would work with another kid, but Arnold just looks at her - looks through her - and a chill wind seems to blow. One Sunday when Connie is left at home alone and the family is all hours away, Arnold comes to visit.

He does not physically rape her. What he does is much worse than that. He talks to her in a way that forever brings an end to her innocence.

"Smooth Talk" is not a "teenage movie." It is not, despite its plot, a horror film. It is a study in deviant psychology, and in the power that one person can have over another, especially if one pushes in the direction where the other person is already headed.

No, Treat Williams wasn't a serial killer in Smooth Talk. He was just a sleazy guy with a yen for teenagers.

R85 An orphaned soprano. An orphaned Vietnamese soprano! I bet that to this day, Betty Buckley HATES that kid.

[quote] When Richard Gere did the nude scene a year later in American Gigolo I read about it in People. It was Rated R so I made my mother take me under the premise that I was a huge Blondie fan (which she was well aware) and I just had to go because Debbie Harry was doing the theme song. My mom was cool. She took me. She knew.

I had a similar experience with my mom and the movie "Making Love." I made noises about wanting to see it because Kate Jackson was in it and I was a huge Charlie's Angels fan (which my mom knew). But I played it a little cool so I didn't seem too eager (which I'm sure she saw right through). When she suggested we go see it, I gave a casual, "I guess so." I was incredibly embarrassed watching it with my mom in the theater and neither of us discussed it on the drive home.

[quote] Milos Forman was amazing for finding a Vietnamese orphan who could sing as beautifully as Betty Buckley.

I see what you did there, r85.

Charlotte Rae had an entire number cut: "My Conviction."

Treat Williams was on a recent Gilbert Gottfried podcast. If anyone is interested.

R97 I had no idea that this was sung by Charlotte Rae.

Thanks for this interesting bit of trivia.

[quote]R87 where in American Gigolo do we see a man's dick? I don't recall that and I'd think I would!

He should not be proud of showing off that lil guy

R101 every gay or bi man knows it's impossible to know what an erect penis looks like by seeing a man's flaccid penis.

Correct r102, but damn

R93, the movie was almost certainly made because of a mention of the JCO story by Pauline Kael in her review of "Carrie".

Laura Dern gets just about everything right in that movie. JCO said: Laura Dern is so dazzlingly right as “my” Connie that I may come to think I modeled the fictitious girl on her, in the way that writers frequently delude themselves about motions of causality.

R100 I blew up the photo for years I thought the balls were dick, now I see. Not big flaccid but I am sure it grows.

Treat Williams thread

Bump!

We're loving this!!

I'll bump...but just shut up about the little Vietnamese kid!!

Hey, Treat! "Treat" me to some nose candy!

Sorry, Betts, can't help ya'.

In the stage version, "My Conviction" is always performed by a male actor in drag (and the character's name is Margaret Mead.) So I guess Charlotte Rae was spot-on casting.

[quote] No, Treat Williams wasn't a serial killer in Smooth Talk. He was just a sleazy guy with a yen for teenagers.

In the original 1966 short story on which the movie is based, "Where are You going, where have You been?" (probably the best thing Joyce Carol Oates ever wrote), it's heavily implied that Arnold Friend is what would later be called a serial killer, and that Connie knows that at the end when she goes off with him. Oates has made clear the story was inspired by Charles Schmid, "The Pied Piper of Tucson," who had killed three girls in Arizona.

In the film, the ambiguous ending of the short story is resolved: Connie comes home alive, but it is implied that Friend raped her and that she has been forever changed.

R112 thanks. And people tell me I have problems? Imagine dating or being a serial killer! Crazy stalkers and bots on this site keep coming after me telling me I'm an alcoholic and all other batshit crazy stuff. I haven't had a drink since I was 23 and I'm Generation X. Since it slips my mind, would someone tell me what those people are called who are paid to stalk and trigger innocent people online, please?