Getting Straight
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Getting Straight is a 1970 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Richard Rush, released by Columbia Pictures.
The story centered upon student politics at a university in the early 1970s, seen through the eyes of non-conformist graduate student Harry Bailey (Elliott Gould). Also featured in the cast were Candice Bergen as Bailey's girlfriend, Jeff Corey as Bailey's professor and Harrison Ford as his anti social friend.
Getting Straight was released in an era of change and unrest in the United States in the early 1970s, and was in a long line of films that dealt with these themes. Other films of this period with similar themes were Medium Cool (1969), R. P. M. (1970), and The Strawberry Statement (1970).
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Synopsis
Harry Bailey, a former student activist and post-graduate, comes back to university to complete an education course to become a teacher. He tries to avoid the increasing student unrest that has surfaced, but finds this difficult as his girlfriend, Jan, is a leader in these protests.
Over time, student demonstrations bring police to the campus to quell the unrest, and the ensuing clashes lead to martial law. Harry is forced to question his values in relation to this. At the height of the rioting he concurs with Jan that "getting straight" is more important than unprotesting acceptance of the educational establishment.
Critical reception
Leonard Maltin noted that the film essentially was a "period piece" but that its "central issue of graduate student (Elliott) Gould choosing between academic double-talk and his beliefs remains relevant." On the other hand, Steven Scheuer wrote that the film was reflective of "hippiedom alienation at its shallowest."
Other reviewers, such as Roger Greenspun from The New York Times, were a little more complimentary in tone about the film. While he says that overall the film is "misguided" he lauded Gould for "a brilliant, mercurial performance" and that he "fires" the film "with a fervor and wonderful comic sense of reality."
The film's protagonist shares a name with a character from It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey's brother Harry, whose war service was a prominent subplot in the latter film.
Cast
- Elliott Gould as Harry Bailey
- Candice Bergen as Jan
- Jeff Corey as Dr. Edward Willhunt
- Max Julien as Ellis
- Cecil Kellaway as Dr. Kasper
- Jon Lormer as Vandenburg
- Leonard Stone as Lysander
- William Bramley as Wade Linden
- Jeannie Berlin as Judy
- John Rubinstein as Herbert
- Richard Anders as Dr. Greengrass
- Brenda Sykes as Luan
- Jenny Sullivan as Sheila
- Gregory Sierra as Garcia
- Billie Bird as Landlady
- Harrison Ford as Jake
- Elizabeth Lane as Alice Linden
- Hilary Thompson as Cynthia
- Irene Tedrow as Mrs. Stebbins
See also
