R | 1h 37min | Comedy, Drama, Music | 29 May 1968 | Color, ws
Director: Barry Shear
Stars: Christopher Jones, Shelley Winters, Diane Varsi, Hal Holbrook, Ed Begley.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063808/
Watched online; blurrrrrry.
10 songs in the Soundtracks.
I'm giving this a "recommended" rating because it's fascinating, not good. It is a true sign of the times. It's really not funny, especially not through 2018 eyes that remember 1968 as a scary year.
This film reflects that fear. It propels this 24 yo rock star, a Jim Morrison (The Doors) type, to President of the US. 52% of the US population is under 25, and they win the right to vote for 15 yo's by scary protest gatherings initiated by this A Face in the Crowd ('57) rocker. They elect a 24 yo senator, who gets congress (with LSD in the water coolers) to lower the age for the Presidency, and (how did we get another election so soon?) this rocker wins the top post in the land on a platform that experience is a bad thing.
Then he makes the new retirement age 35 (or was it 30), and sets up retirement camps to segregate all the "old" people, who are then fed drugs and "allowed" to roam within the camp while wearing caftan uniforms. We hear reports of resistors being hidden in the attic of young citizens, but so long as they're in hiding they can't do much harm. However, we do see young storm troopers rounding up elders, including the President's mother, who was emotionally abusive in his youth.
No explanation is offered for how so many "elder" people are supported by the remaining citizens. Especially since the President severs trade agreements, and sends food overseas for free. He also abolishes the Secret Service, so he can roam free himself.
The film shows young people not believing they'll live past 30, so all this "makes sense" to them. I remember the saying "don't trust anyone over 30."
This has a twist ending not quite worthy of a Twilight Zone, but appropriate to my doubts about the logic of these regulations.
Small roles: Millie Perkins, Richard Pryor.
Cameos: Army Archerd, Melvin Belli, Dick Clark, Pamela Mason, Bill Mumy, Bobby Sherman, Barry Williams, Walter Winchell.
AIP is the same company, but this is not the same creative team, that brought us all those Beach movies with Frankie and Annette.
AIP, dir. Shear; 7-
