FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Following Hal Ashby’s debut feature, The Landlord, and hot on the heals of our recent screenings of both Being There and the documentary, Hal, your choices for what we’ll show on Tuesday 10 September are simple: Hal's 70s. Here’s the three Ashby movies from that decade we haven’t yet shown.

Bound For Glory (Hal Ashby, USA, 1976)

“Bound for Glory is outstanding biographical cinema, not only of the late Woody Guthrie but also of the 1930s Depression era which served to disillusion, inspire and radicalize him and millions of other Americans.” Variety

David Carradine stars as iconic folk singer, Woody Guthrie. Unable to find work in Texas after the Dust Bowl devastation of the 1930s, Guthrie leaves his family with relatives and rides the rails in search of work along with thousands of others. While travelling he records the brutality and injustices he witnesses in song, his protest music earning him a following through the radio… Loosely adapted by Robert Getchell from Woody Guthrie's 1943 partly fictionalised autobiography, Bound for Glory.

Coming Home (Hal Ashby, USA, 1978)

“…excellent Hal Ashby film which illuminates the conflicting attitudes on the Vietnam debacle from the standpoint of three participants.” Variety

Jane Fonda stars as Sally Bender: the wife of a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps (Bruce Dern). While her husband is overseas in Vietnam, Sally volunteers at a local veteran's hospital, where she meets Luke (Jon Voight), a wounded vet’ who is confined to a wheelchair. When Sally begins to fall in love with Luke she has to make a crucial decision about her life... Coming Home secured Oscars for both Fonda and Voight for their performances, while a third went to Best Screenplay.

Shampoo (Hal Ashby, USA, 1975)

“There's a self-awareness to Shampoo that gives the movie a cleansing sadness and, oddly, makes Beatty an affectingly amoral roue.” Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

Warren Beatty stars as George: a Beverly Hills hairdresser whose services to his female clients (Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant, Carrie Fisher et al) extends beyond a mere wash and blow dry. Set the day after Nixon's Presidential win, George borrows money from his lover's husband (Jack Warden),who assuming George is gay, invites him to escort his mistress Jackie (Julie Chrisie) to a Republican soiree, where George finds himself in the same room as a number of present and former sexual partners... Written by Robert Towne and Warren Beatty.