A great cult film of the late Sixties, Wild In The Streets was a projection in fantasy of what the shape of the world would be if youth actually took over. Needless to say this was not the shape of things to come. For one thing the vote at age 18 was actually passed a couple of years after this film came and Congress did it without tripping on LSD. We responded in turn by re-electing Richard Nixon and in 1980 the youth vote went as a demographic majority for the oldest elected president we've ever had with Ronald Reagan.
Proving that we really do separate our politics from our entertainment. Not here however as charismatic Jim Morrison like rockstar Christopher Jones rallies the youth of America to assert their status and demand that the voting age be lowered to 14. A very ambitious Congressman played by Hal Holbrook who wants to be California's next Senator tries to ride this particular tiger and gets consumed in the process.
Shelley Winters and Bert Freed play Jones's parents and Winters looks like she's having a ball in a part that calls for her bravura style of overacting. Ed Begley also in one his last films first playing one of pillars of Congress as the senior Senator from California and later on as a caricature of an old Testament prophet which is what mandatory LSD has turned him into.
Young people today can't quite grasp what Wild In The Streets was all about back then which is why it's an anachronism today. We had the draft back in those days so when older people over 30 in the government sent you to the Army and to some war you didn't quite understand what the issues were there, a slogan like 'Don't Trust Anyone Over 30' had real meaning and it wasn't just a matter of tastes. That's the mentality that Jones in his character of Max Frost is playing into. He calls his followers 'troops' and in a real sense they are.
But today in America young folks played a major role in re-electing Barack Obama. If Max Frost was a candidate for president today we might be electing a Jonas Brother. And I only exclude Justin Bieber because he's Canadian.
Still this film is quite a view of the Sixties be it a jaundiced view.
Proving that we really do separate our politics from our entertainment. Not here however as charismatic Jim Morrison like rockstar Christopher Jones rallies the youth of America to assert their status and demand that the voting age be lowered to 14. A very ambitious Congressman played by Hal Holbrook who wants to be California's next Senator tries to ride this particular tiger and gets consumed in the process.
Shelley Winters and Bert Freed play Jones's parents and Winters looks like she's having a ball in a part that calls for her bravura style of overacting. Ed Begley also in one his last films first playing one of pillars of Congress as the senior Senator from California and later on as a caricature of an old Testament prophet which is what mandatory LSD has turned him into.
Young people today can't quite grasp what Wild In The Streets was all about back then which is why it's an anachronism today. We had the draft back in those days so when older people over 30 in the government sent you to the Army and to some war you didn't quite understand what the issues were there, a slogan like 'Don't Trust Anyone Over 30' had real meaning and it wasn't just a matter of tastes. That's the mentality that Jones in his character of Max Frost is playing into. He calls his followers 'troops' and in a real sense they are.
But today in America young folks played a major role in re-electing Barack Obama. If Max Frost was a candidate for president today we might be electing a Jonas Brother. And I only exclude Justin Bieber because he's Canadian.
Still this film is quite a view of the Sixties be it a jaundiced view.