Wild in the Streets (1968)
November 2nd, 2004 at 1:45 pm (1 - Pretty bad)
Sometimes I wonder just how it is that the US and the world in general managed to make it past the 60s, last night as I watched the paranoid work on fear of the youth counter culture Wild in the Streets (1968) was one of those times. The premise of the movie is simple enough: Max, a charismatic young leader of a psychedelic rock band (Christopher Jones) uses his popularity to mobilize the youth of America to the streets and get the legal voting age changed to 14. The young leader then gets one of his drugged out free loving “chicks” elected to congress and from there and by putting acid in the Washington DC water supply gets himself elected president. In one of his first acts he opens “groovy chill out camps” where anyone over the age of 35 is forced to relocated to “take acid and be mellow”.
The “plot” plays like some old school republican’s nightmare fueled by fear of a youth revolution and the disintegration of all that is right and moral from unchecked drug use and free love. The movie makes little sense to anyone not high on hallucinogens but does benefit from some absurdly funny moments and a crazed performance by Shelley Winters (Lolita (1962)) as Max’s overbearing mother.
This movie was presented at a friend’s 33rd birthday party and proved a perfect counter point to the feature shown for his 30th party: Logan’s Run (1976). I have to wonder how many other titles he can present with a premise of people over 30 being hunted down by the ruling youth.
john kreuzer said,
February 10, 2005 at 8:12 am
where can i get a copy of wild in the streets..may local video store dont carry it
J. Alec West said,
March 10, 2005 at 3:10 am
Of the film, you said, “The ‘plot’ plays like some old school republican’s nightmare fueled by fear of a youth revolution and the disintegration of all that is right and moral from unchecked drug use and free love.”
That is exactly what it was meant to be … an exploitation film that would ply every possible fear of the status quo. And, it succeeded in that regard. I was 18 when I saw it and thought it was funny. But, I’ll bet a 38 year-old filmgoer came away with a different impression.
Yes, the movie is pretty bad. But when a movie is meant to be pretty bad, it ends up becoming a cult classic. And as long as the copies last, it can even be bought on DVD. For a little over ten bucks, VideoUniverse.com sells it as part of a double-feature DVD - with Roger Corman’s equally bad cult film, “Gas-s-s-s!” on the flipside.
Kondor Koi said,
March 19, 2005 at 10:47 pm
I think this movie is hilarious. If you cut down the boring dialogue to create a more modern pace, I think it would be a blast to watch. All the old people milling around the water coolers full of acid in their bathrobes at the “chill out” centers-too funny. Don’t forget the ending when a kid tells the young, hipster president he’s going to get rid of everybody who’s over ten years old.
I first saw it about seven years ago, back in my partying days. We used a sample from it in my band. Cracks me up every thime I think about it…Don’t miss the very young Richard Pryor, I think he was the drummer in the president’s band.
Vickster said,
July 26, 2006 at 5:19 pm
This was a great film I saw when I was about 10 in 1978, caught it on TV in the afternoon. For years I looked in video books and catalogues to see what the title was….finally came across it once on satellite! I also bought the DVD with G-A-S-S on the flipside.The soundtrack is also very groovy with tunes like “shape of things to come” and “listen to the music”.I made my 15 year-old daughter watch it last year and she loved it too, so much so I had to scour the internet for an old LP and get a CD burned! Even my 72 year-old Mom liked it! References to his 15 year-old accountant being gay are very risque for the time, watch it if you get the chance!