John Savage

Treat Williams

Beverly D'Angelo

Annie Golden

Dorsey Wright

Don Dacus

Cheryl Barnes

Richard Bright

Nicholas Ray

Charlotte Rae

Miles Chapin

Fern Tailer

Charles Denny

Herman Meckler

Agnes Breen

Antonia Rey

George J. Manos

Linda Surh

Jane Booke

Suzanna Love

Joe Acord

Michael Jeter

Janet York

Rahsaan Curry

Harry Gittelson

Donald Alsdurf

Steve Massicotte

Mario Nelson

Ren Woods

Toney Watkins

Carl Hall

Howard Potter

Nell Carter

Kurt Yaghjian

Laurie Beechman

Debi Dye

Ellen Foley

Johnny Maestro

Fred Ferrara

Jim Rosica

Vincent Carella

Charlayne Woodard

Trudy Perkins

Chuck Patterson

H. Douglas Berring

Russell Costen

Kenny Brawner

Lee Wells

Leata Galloway

Cyrena Lomba

Ron Young

John DeRobertas

Grand L. Bush

Melba Moore

Ronnie Dyson

Rose Marie Wright

Tom Rawe

Jennifer Way

Shelley Washington

Christine Uchida

Raymond Kurshals

Richard Colton

Anthony Ferro

Sara Rudner

Twyla Tharp

Peter Maloney

Kate Glasner

Miloš Forman

Galt MacDermot

Lester Persky

Gerome Ragni

James Rado

Miroslav Ondříček

Richard C. Kratina

Robert Greenhut

Lynzee Klingman

Howard Feuer

Jeremy Ritzer

Alan Heim

Stuart Wurtzel

Stanley Warnow

Ann Roth

Michael Butler

Music

Drama

Comedy

Hair

CIP Filmproduktion GmbH

United Artists

Germany

United States of America

CinemaSerf

I watched much of this convinced that Treat Williams was a very young Tommy Lee Jones, and despite the look of the film dating, it's still quite a potent and entertaining look at life amidst the draft. The rather naive "Claude" (John Savage) arrives from his home in rural Oklahoma into a New York brimming with vibrancy and eccentricity. He's on his way to join up to fight in Vietnam when he encounters "Berger" (Williams) and starts to fall into a life of gentle hedonism leading to his love of "Shiela" (Beverly D'Angelo). She and "Berger are from different sides of the tracks, but despite her silver spoon she has quite a rebellious nature and very much embraces her hippie existence protesting the war whilst stoked up on weed, emotion and idealism. They only have a few days, but in those days their relationships develop, thrive, vacillate and ultimately Milos Forman presents us with a quite subtly scathing commentary on a mid-1960s USA. I still think this works better on the stage - the confined space there forces the characters and scenarios together better, but this is still a strong big-screen adaptation that allows the music and dance numbers to retain much of their punch. The characterisations run deep too with plenty of their gang having slightly more than bit parts to complement the thrust of the burgeoning romance. It's perhaps that that lets this down a little. The pair are rarely seen together and the portrayal of their "love" is a wee bit on the shallow side. Musically, there are more than a few familiar numbers to keep the pace rollicking along, and perhaps the fairly explicit nature of some of the lyrics explains why this did rather better on the European Awards circuit than it did in the USA (or the UK). "Aquarius", "Good Morning Starshine" and the title song are maybe the most memorable but there are plenty more to get our teeth into as the rawness of the original Gerome Ragni book is framed within a cityscape dealing with racism, homophobia and just about everything to preclude the concept of "free love" (or even creatively inexpensive love). It's holding it's relevance quite well and is well worth two hours.

English

Hair (1979) Original Trailer [FHD]

Josh Olson on HAIR