Review of Shampoo

Kaleidoscopic comedy-drama about a Beverly Hills hairdresser/womanizer on Election Eve-1968, his life complicated by women, his ex-girlfriend's current lover (whose wife is another "client"), and the perplexing responsibilities facing a man in his thirties. It's not half as daring as it was in 1975, but the performances are excellent, the acerbic script funny, callow, and nakedly emotional. Warren Beatty is not your typical lothario; great pains were taken to make this motorcycle-riding stud both sensitive and shallow, caring and inept, bumbling and suave. Beatty is the ultimate seducer one minute, an exposed fool the next. Lee Grant won Supporting Actress Oscar as Jack Warden's sex-starved wife, but all the acting is on an equal level. Has some brash moments, some dull ones (a political dinner sequence goes on too long), but much local color and dark-hued humor. **1/2 from ****