Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

The draft is white people sending black people to make war on the yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people!

October 17, 1967

Where were you? I was only 10 when Hair ran for the first time as the New York Shakespeare Festival's first ever production. It was written by two unemployed actors as a lark. They wanted to capture the feel of the time. The freedom of the hippie movement. The unconditional acceptance and love of everybody. The refusal to get caught up in race, status, etc. These two were James Rado and Gerome Ragni. Neither went on to do much else, but how do you top something like this? It ran for only 6 weeks, then moved on to a disco, and eventually making onto Broadway where it became one of the best known musicals of all time. You can still find a production of it somewhere at any given time.

It was only a matter of time before it was made into a movie... 12 years to be exact. Hair, the movie, was released in 1979. Many tried to censor the play and failed. Unfortunately, they succeeded in censoring the movie to some degree. You won't find the totally nude scene in this, but they did manage to get some minor nekkidness through anyway. heh.

What? You weren't around for all that? Damn. Guess I'm gettin' old and best explain just what this phenomenon is all about....

It's about peace. It's about love. It's about lack of prejudice. It's about protesting the Viet Nam war. We follow Claude as he leaves the farm in Oklahoma and heads to New York City. He has two days to sight see before he has to report for military duty. Man what a two days those are! He happens across a band of free-wheeling hippies who take him in hand and show him a good time. It's a coming together of differing ideologies. This is one wild ride and I refuse to give you any more details as to the plot.

Galt MacDermot was brought in originally to make the play snappy by inserting some driving musical numbers, and boy did he ever. My absolute favorite of the bunch is the title song, Hair:

Gimme a head with hair, long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there, hair!
Shoulder length, longer (hair!)
Here baby, there mama, Everywhere daddy daddy

Oh yes.. given my age at it's inception, the version I'm most familiar with of this song is the one released by
The Cowsils, but I knew every last word and sung along rather loudly.. much to my parent's chagrine. heh.

Then of course there's Age of Aquarius which I'm sure more than a few of you are familiar with:

When the moon is in the Seventh House
and Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

There's that peace and love thang I was talking about. The hippie movement was in full swing when I hit 13 and I embraced it. Oh yes had the headbands, the fringe, the bell bottoms.. had it all. Our posters said things like War is unhealthy for children and other living things. We believed that.

There are quite a few other memorable songs but I'm only going to mention one other because it is very insightful. It may make a few folks uncomfortable.. mad even.. but just hear me out. The song is called Colored Spade and is about just what you are thinking it's about. Dorsey Wright (Hotel New Hampshire) played Hud in the movie version and sang this song with real feeling. You see he owned all the racial slurs in this song. He was damn proud of who he was and he didn't care what you called it. You could not hurt this man with words. He lived the love.

I'm a... Colored Spade, a nigger, a black nigger;
A jungle bunny, jigaboo coon, pickaninny mau mau
Uncle Tom, Aunt Jemima, Little Black Sambo
Cotton pickin', swamp guinea, junk man, shoeshine boy
Elevator operator, table cleaner at Horn and
Hardart, Slave voodoo, Zombie, Ubangi lipped
Flat nose, tap dancin' Resident of Harlem

Yes he was. And as I said, he was damn proud of that. The thing about pride is, though, that it doesn't mean better than everyone else at all. It means equal too and happy to be so. Hud is one of my favorite characters and Dorsey Wright played him to the hilt.

John Savage (Message in a Bottle, Club Vampire) played Claude, our farm boy-come-serviceman. What a great job he did. He was bewildered at times, ecstatic at others, and always just as nice and trusting as could be.

We also have Treat Williams as Berger, kinda the leader of the little hippy clan. I kept knowing I recognized him yet couldn't place him... Streetcar Named Desire? 1941? Yep, that's him! Loved him in this. His best scene.. one he should have won an award for, by the way, comes near the end. I won't give it away, but look for the barracks scene. If you have to get up to refill your soda, pause it. You don't want to miss this.

The runtime on this is 121 minutes and, much to my amazement, it is rated PG. There is nudity. There are many words that some of you may find offensive....and it does kinda glorify drug use. However, this is key to the era. It wasn't about getting high to forget your problems. It was about expanding your mind. It seriously was. Nobody killed for dope or robbed their neighbor for it. It's one of those things in life that if you were'nt there, I just can't ever make you understand it. Watch it yourself then decide if you want your kids to see it.

This is a great film. This is part of history. This is one DVD that you should own and try to understand. Watch it over and over. Absorb it. 5 stars.


How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy To Be Hard; Easy to be cold



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD