Hair on DVD: Flawed Movie with Amazing Scenes & Score

(:)(:)(:) for the movie Hair on DVD, directed by Milos Forman and starring John Savage and Treat Williams (yum).

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for the music, and the scene of Black Boys, White Boys.

This is one of those movies that clearly strove for excellence and missed the mark, but contains some dynamite screen moments that are a shame to miss. Director Milos Forman attempted to make the most of the transition from a relatively low budget groundbreaking Broadway hit to the silver screen.

Trouble is, he did it at the just the wrong time: 1979, after the anthems to drugs, free love, racial equality, clean air and anti Vietnam War message had lost their shock power and long before nostalgia for the 60's/70's set in. 1979 was also during that 2 decade stretch when every live action movie musical flopped, long before Chicago revived the possibility.

Still, the movie is beautifully filmed and the score is in my judgment better interpreted (at least for modern audiences) than the Broadway recording, with stronger talent, harder rock sounds and driving beats in some key numbers, and just stronger dramatic choices.

A perfect example is "Easy to be Hard"--which is performed with consequence in this movie by a pregnant churchgoing middle class girl, abandoned by her hippy boyfriend, as a heart-wrenching inquiry into the hypocrisy of the left:

"Easy to be hard. Easy to say no. Especially people who care about strangers, who say they care about social injustice, do you only care about the bleeding crowd, how about a needy friend, I need a friend. "

But the single best number in the movie, and one of my very favorite scenes in any movie ever, is "Black Boys, White Boys" in which Forman chose to cut back and forth between formidable teams of black and white women singing in Central Park while ogling passing boys and an all male (black and white) draft board singing about how they love "black boys" and then "white boys" while inspecting nude recruits reporting for duty. It is hilarious, musical, sexy and perfectly edited.

Okay, enough about Hair--if you get a chance to see it, you're lucky, it doesn't sit on many video shelves.