Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1975

The Contenders:

Amarcord
And Now My Love
Dog Day Afternoon (winner)
Lies My Father Told Me
Shampoo

Rinse and Set

Film: Shampoo
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop.

Once upon a time, there was a world were all everyone thought about was sex. Oh, sure, they might have done other stuff and worked for other stuff, but based on a lot of the movies, there was a great deal of free love happening everywhere. Surprisingly, I’m not talking about the ‘60s, but the mid-‘70s. Shampoo comes out of that period, and while there is a plot here, that plot and everything about it revolves entirely around sex. This isn’t a judgment on the film; it’s just a statement of fact.

George Roundy (Warren Beatty) is a successful hairdresser in Beverly Hills. He’s been able to use this position to meet and bed dozens upon dozens of women. What he’d really like to do is open his own salon, but he doesn’t have the funds to do it. While he is clearly the creative talent in the salon, he’s under the thumb of the salon’s owner, Norman (Jay Robinson). Of more pressing concern to him is his trio of relationships. He has a girlfriend, Jill (Goldie Hawn); he has an ex, Felicia (Lee Grant); and he has a customer with whom he frequently sleeps, Jackie (Julie Christie). This trio of relationships is made more difficult because George is actively soliciting backing money from Lester Karpf (Jack Warden), who happens to be married to Felicia and is having an affair with Jackie.