Saturday, 18 September 2021 19:00

Wild in the Streets






WILD IN THE STREETS

US, 1968, 92 minutes, Colour.
Christopher Jones, Shelley Winters, Hal Holbrook, Diane Varsi, Millie Perkins, Ed. Begley.
Directed by Barry Shear.

Wild 1n the Streets was a low-budget American International film, directed by a young director, Barry Shear. However, it went on to win acclaim, prizes at the Venice film festival and box-office success.
The film has been seen as social and political comment, science-fiction and as just a fantasy coloured by the politics of the 60's. It concerns a young rock musician who uses his influence in a political campaign to become president of the United States because 52% of America is youth. His rise to power is Hitlerian, but once in power he shows himself unlike Hitler in his absence of plans or ambitions, but like him in his employment of fascist police and concentration camps for the dispensable, in this case the old.

This part of the social comment is the more frightening because horrible and because the first part is not so impossible, fanciful though it might sound.

For a small-budget film, it has an intensity and style about it that compels attention. Christopher Jones is an extremely versatile and talented actor; Shelley Winters gives a forceful caricature of American Momism, and Hal Holbrook's senator is Kennedy-like (another thought-provoking facet of the film). The attitudes of the director may be hard to pin down. Old and young are attacked in this worthwhile film.

1. What did the prologue communicate concerning Max and his mother and father - the fireworks and the hostility in his conception, the mother domination, her obsession with sex as dirty, the ineffectual father (but their joy in ripping the plastic), Max as chemist, Mother complaining that husband would sleep with his car if she would let him -why?, Max blowing up the car and smiling - why?

2. What was the impact of the words and rhythms of the songs in the film '52%', 'Fourteen or Fight' and 'The Shape of Things to Come?

3. Discuss the presentation of Max's success, and his entourage - mean-faced 15 year old genius, Black, Sally Leroy on drugs, Japanese masseur? Max's children and his attitude to them? What are the first impressions of Max as a person? Luxury and irresponsibility, except for business?

4. Mother's reaction to his success; note the comment on mother - her exercises, face-lift, shouting, forcing her way to Max's concert, the father's toupee, changing name to Frost. What is the impact of the scene of the car accident? the death of the child and Max's hatred of his mother? "You'd kill God Almighty if you could lay your hands on Him."

5. Max’s political involvement - Hitler style, 'troops' etc.., age campaign, fourteen of fight, die or vote; his rally, Nuremburg style (publicised by press - 'zero minus 72 hours' etc.), Max in control?

6. Johnny Fergus - Kennedy-style figure, conceding to youth to be with it and then being attacked, especially by his well-brought-up son who calls his father "that old bastard" and joins Max's brains trust?

7. The Governor - the real disgust of the old for Max and contempt for Fergus' compromise: "Do you Want to be Senator so -much?"

8. Was Sally Leroy's congress scene a successful sequence? Was Max's rise to presidency credible? What impression would this make in U.S.A.?

9. Dictatorship with irresponsibility (e.g. no foreign policy, his press conference), what did you think of the LSD in the water, the round up for the Paradise camps and the Resistance, especially Max's mother? Was this the natural consequence of what went before? Fergus' death, Max's mother's death? The Governor's insanity? That it was a crime to be old?

10. What was the point of showing Max playing like a boy in the countryside and then crushing the boy's yabby pet? What was the point of the boy's saying Max looked a hundred and Max's defiance that he could not be touched because he was bigger? "We will get all those over ten" - The End.

11. Was the film on the side of youth or not? Was the film right-wing or left-wing? Is the film a social comment, science fiction or just a contemporary fantasy?

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