Wild in the Streets/Gas-s-s-s (1968) Review

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(More customer reviews)Ever conscious of cashing in on whatever trend might have been fashionable at the time, American International Pictures (AIP) focused their sights on the ever-growing youth movement of the mid to late 60s with this frightening (if you were over 60) tale of youthful revolution in Wild in the Streets (1968). Directed by Barry Shear, whose primary credits include TV shows like "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "Ironside", and "Hawaii Five-O", to name a few, the film stars Christopher Jones (The Looking Glass War), an actor once thought by many to be perhaps the next James Dean or Marlon Brando, but whose fortunes and star potential faded due to, what some speculate, the strain of having to live up to the expectations beyond his grasp...oh yeah, that and the all the drugs, as highlighted in `Christopher Jones: The E! True Hollywood Story'...also appearing is Oscar winner Shelley Winters (The Diary of Anne Frank, The Night of the Hunter, Lolita), Diane Varsi (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden), Hal Holbrook (Creepshow), Millie Perkins (The Diary of Anne Frank), Ed Begley (12 Angry Men), Bert Freed (Nevada Smith), and Richard Pryor (Silver Streak, Stir Crazy).
As the story begins, we witness an intelligent and precocious boy named Max Flatow (played by Barry Williams, better know as the character Greg Brady, from The Brady Bunch), Jr. grow into a disillusioned young adult who decides to leave home, severing his family ties, and make it own his own (given his mother, played by Winters, I didn't blame him). By the age of 22 we learn he's not only changed his name to Max Frost, but that he's also become a famous recording star, and with the help of his entourage (none over the age of 25), become the head of a multi-million dollar empire. Max is so popular he's courted by congressman Johnny Fergus (Halbrook) to assist him in his senatorial bid by playing at a rally and throwing a good word Fergus' way, hoping, I guess, to rock the vote, or some such thing...Max agrees, but the performance leads to pressure in the form of massive `sit ins' to force Fergus to introduce legislation that would lower the voting age to 15 (the `Establishment' balks but their power quickly fades). Fergus acquiesces (dreams of political power swirling in his mind), and the voting age lowered, and Fergus wins his senate seat, but he has unwittingly opened Pandora's box as soon the once disenfranchised youthful population, who can now vote, begin electing their own candidates (Max eventually takes the presidency) and pushing their own hedonistic agendas towards a groovy future where adults are forced to retire by 30 (hey, that doesn't sound so bad) and then shuffled off to `Mercy Camps' where they are plied with LSD treatments, or `therapy', to keep them on a permanent acid trip (okay, that doesn't sound too appealing). The revolution has begun...and the kids aren't all right...
I enjoyed this movie, although for the first 20 minutes or so I wasn't sure where it was going, but it seemed to find its footing and present an entertaining tale (unless you were among the older generation, to which this might have been a cautionary or every scary wake up call...yeah, right)...Christopher Jones seems to fit his role perfectly as the charismatic Max Frost, the millionaire rock star rallying the angry youth of America, and beginning a movement in California (figures) which ultimately spreads worldwide. Holbrook was also very good as the liberal politician thinking he could harness this untapped power towards advancing his career by schmoozing the youth, but quickly learning his folly once the beast was unleashed...and then there was the stodgy Ed Begley, playing the ultra conservative Senator Allbright..."Youth is not only wasted on the young, it's become a disease!"...'nuff said. I think my favorite sequences involved the scenes where Max and his cohorts, in an effort to get legislators to amend the constitution and lower the age requirements for holding political offices, spike Washington's water supply with acid...which resulted in all these politicians head tripping and unknowingly voting themselves out of existence (Ed Begley pretending to be on acid is quite the experience). This was actually a real-life fear at the time that prompted the mayor of Chicago at the time, Richard J. Daley, to call out some 5,000 national guardsmen to protect the cities water reservoirs, as the 1968 Democratic National Convention was taking place, and protesters were in abundance in the Windy City. There was a creepy, reverse Oedipal vibe coming off Shelley Winter's character towards her son, one that increased as Max's power grew...her desperate attempts to fit in with a generation she didn't belong, so in need their approval and attention, became very annoying, but viewers are rewarded as she couldn't escape her age or the animosity of youth. Ms. Winters is an accomplished and respected actress (I really liked her in Night of the Hunter), but most of the roles I've seen her in involved her playing often obnoxious, annoying, overbearing characters, and here is not different. There was a slightly dark, comic tone ever present throughout the story that later turns ominous as Max become president, using his administrative powers to effect some really radical changes (hey, if it means putting Shelley Winters behind bars, I'm all for it). There's some good music to be had here, if you dig on late 60s rock, with original music provided by Les Baxter and songs by legendary writer Barry Mann...check out Max Frost and the Troopers' performance of the song `The Shape of Things to Come', which would later covered by The Ramones. The ending, despite being completely predictable (and virtually telegraphed), still worked well.
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Seeing as how I was quite young at the time Gas-s-s-s (1971) aka Gas-s-s-s... or, It May Become Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It came out (diapers, pacifiers, the whole bit), I'm curious to know if this whole `youth counterculture' film genre had just about run its course (run out of gas, you might say...oh man, I slay myself with my relevant comments)...and while watching the film, Roger Corman's last directorial effort for AIP, I'd say so...written by George Armitage, who would later direct Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), and directed by Roger Corman (The Masque of the Red Death, The Wild Angels), the film features a number of actors including Bob Corff, whom later found his calling as a voice teacher, known as `the authority on voice technique in Los Angeles', Elaine Giftos (The Student Nurses), Bud Cort (Harold and Maude), Talia Shire (The Godfather), along with Ben Vereen (All That Jazz) and Cindy Williams (American Graffiti) in their first, major on screen roles...oh yeah, watch for the writer himself, George Armitage, appearing as the character Billy the Kid...
As the movie begins, we learn the military/industrial complex has been brought down by its own hands due to the accidental release of a nerve gas that kills anyone over the age of 25...subsequently, the ne'er-do-wells have inherited the Earth through no effort on their part ...or so it would seem. The more things change, the more they stay the same as soon the conservative youth begins to rain on the free love parade trying to maintain the status quo, driving a couple to leave behind the bad scene that is Dallas in search of a hippy nirvana somewhere in the desert of New Mexico. Along the way they hook up some like-minded folk, and eventually get captured by a gang called the Warriors, a fascist group of dune buggy driving high school jocks (with their own marching band) who subsist by raiding nearby towns, looting and pillaging what they need. They manage to escape and keep on keeping on finding respite at a musical festival of sorts, the main performer being Country Joe and the Fish. Pressing forth they finally reach their destination in a New Mexican pueblo where everyone gets by doing their own thing, whatever that may be...until the Warriors show up...now comes the conundrum...how to resist the impending onslaught without resorting to violence? I'll tell you what, by this time I was looking forward to a little head bashing mayhem, but none was forthcoming...
Now the story I just described to you would probably fill up 30 minutes of celluloid, but know this film is about 79 minutes long...so what was used to pad out the rest of the running time? A whole lot of nonsense...seriously, this film is one big, long psuedo counterculture unpleasurable masturbatory flogging. There was some real potential, but it quickly devolved into an inconsistent exercise of unfettered, unstructured silliness taking potshots at the `evil' establishment via continually trying to illuminate the audience to the hypocrisies inherent within the system. The humor here is as about consistent with that of a bad Monkees episode, only there it was good natured ribbing of convention, while here it comes off as crude and sophomoric. I gotta tell you, this post adult world, even in a comical sense, sucks...here's a dose of the lame humor (vaudevillian, at best) I'm talking about...at the beginning of the film, we see the cops chasing a hippy, who eventually runs into a church, donning a priest outfit. A cop comes in, mistakes him for a man of the cloth, and ask if he's seen anyone run inside the church...the hippy/priest replies "Could you describe him my son?", "Long hair, weird clothes, looks like a real troublemaker to me.", to which the hippy/priest replies "No, there hasn't been anyone like that around the church in a long time." Which then the camera focuses on a statue of Jesus...get it? You see because Jesus had long hair and wore strange clothes...I guess...and I love how the film equates sports with fascism as we witness a group of high school...Read more›

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