Going Wild in the Streets: Then and Now

I was all set to write about film noir, or about George C. Wolfe’s masterful film production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, with its remarkable valedictory performance by the late Chadwick Boseman. But the events on Wednesday in our nation’s capital led me in an even darker direction. With the wielding of political power very much on my mind, I remembered back to 1968, and the low-budget indie called Wild in the Streets.

 Wild in the Streets began as a short story in the then-hip culture magazine, Esquire. “The Day it All Happened, Baby!”-- a darkly humorous account of the rising youth culture -- was authored by Robert Thom, who was then hired by American International Pictures to adapt his story into a low-budget screenplay with lots of music and youth appeal. The story’s hero, Max Frost (Christopher Jones) is a twenty-something who digs sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Fronting his home-grown band, he sings about the fact that 52% of the U.S.  population is 25 or younger, This attracts the attention of a Kennedy-ish politician (Hal Holbrook) who reasons that a massive youth vote is just what his Senatorial campaign needs. He comes out in favor of changing the U.S. voting age from 21 to 18 (which, of course, actually was to happen in 1971), and commissions Max’s band to spread the word. Instead Max gains massive national attention with his audacious hit song about lowering the voting age even further: “Fourteen or Fight.”

 I won’t get into all the complications that ensue, except to mention that large doses of LSD are involved, but ultimately Max becomes President, boosted into America’s top job because of his populist appeal to the youth of the nation. And his #1 priority? To take revenge on anyone older than 30. If you’re unlucky enough to be 35, you’re shipped out to a re-education camp, where (behind barbed wire) you’re drugged to ensure docility. That’s how he pays back his mom (the inevitable Shelley Winters) for being aggravating. But Max’s own days are numbered, as a nifty final scene makes quite clear.

 Of course there’s no direct analogy to what’s just happened in the streets of Washington DC, and (needless to say) in the halls of Congress. And the presidency, of late, has seemed to go to septuagenarians, not post-pubescents. But the very idea of a charismatic leader and the enthusiasts who’ll follow him anywhere seems all too current. The insurrectionists who burst into the sedate chambers of the Capitol, bent on somehow ensuring their idol’s success, were promised a “wild” time in DC, and they got one.

 I have a keen recollection of Robert Thom (who died at 1979 at the age of 50) from my New World Pictures days. He’d been hired to write the screenplay to the film that became Death Race 2000, and  I actually chanced to meet with him over a working lunch. He looked very New York (sports jacket, cigarette, sardonic smirk), and seemed to look down his nose at us unsophisticated Californians. He ordered a Rob Roy (what was that?) and then steak tartare. Watching him gobble up raw beef seemed a perfect start to our work together on a script about auto racers who score points by mowing down pedestrians. But the few pages of script that emerged were hopeless: long literary arias that were all scene description. Robert Thom had a wild and crazy mind. He might have relished the anarchic spectacle we saw on Wednesday, but I suspect someone else might be better at making it into a timely action flick.

 

Casting a Ballot in Movieland

Cindy Crawford phoned me last evening. Yes, I’m talking about Cindy Crawford the supermodel. But I can’t pretend that she and I are close chums. She was phoning to tell me that she has kids in my local school district (who knew?), and that I should think about voting for the school board candidate of her choice. Personally, I have little interest in Cindy’s preferred school board member. The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District serves my city and also the much tonier enclave up the coast. I’m not much inclined to give Cindy and her beachfront neighbors their own handpicked representative.

All across the country, elections bring out superstars, whether political stars like Bill Clinton or showbiz celebrities. Pop music icon Carole King, for one, has shown up in my email in-box, urging me to donate on behalf of several candidates for the U.S. Senate. Here in California, singer-songwriter John Legend is stumping for Marshall Tuck, who hopes to be the next State Superintendent of Public Instruction. And such movieland insiders as Matt Damon and Norman Lear are backing with serious bucks a candidate for State Assembly with the unlikely name of Prophet Walker. Walker, who hopes to represent a blue-collar district encompassing Compton and Watts, has a life story seemingly made for Hollywood. The son of a birth mother who succumbed to heroin addiction when he was still an infant, he grew up in South Central L.A. At sixteen, he was convicted of armed robbery, then sentenced to six years in prison. It was while behind bars that he began an unlikely turnaround that led him to graduate from college and embark on a career as a community activist. If he wins his race, his story will have a true Hollywood ending.

But Hollywood is more than superstars and the intriguing underdogs whose up-from-the-gutter stories would make for a great movie-of-the-week. There are also those unionized behind-the-scenes crew members who are worried that their jobs are being outsourced to New York, New Mexico, and Canada. My good friend Ben Allen, an outstanding candidate for State Senate, has circulated a mailer that trumpets his endorsement by all Los Angeles-area locals of IATSE, the international union representing film and TV production folk. He’s also won the support of Councilman Paul Krekorian, author of the first California bill to establish an entertainment tax credit for the Golden State.

Similarly, one would-be L.A. County Supervisor, Bobby Shriver, has sent out flyers emblazoned with a vintage photo of a movie premiere on Hollywood Boulevard. The text reads: “We Founded the Movie Industry. Let’s Bring Our Jobs Back.” He also lets it be known that among  his staunch supporters is Steven Spielberg, along with several Kennedys. Shriver’s opponent, Sheila Kuehl, likes to play up her own Hollywood connection. Back in the day (before law school and years of service in the California State Senate) she was Sheila James, who memorably played plucky little Zelda Gilroy on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.       

Over the years, Hollywood has had its own fun with movies about politics. Among the best, of course, is Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which idealism triumphs over the schemes of corrupt politicians. Much more cynical is Preston Sturges’ The Great McGinty. I loved Alexander Payne’s wicked high school satire, Election, in which a campaign for student body president ends up laying bare what can happen when a candidate who will stop at nothing (Reese Witherspoon) takes on her high-minded civics teacher (Matthew Broderick).

As for Election Day 2014, may the best man (or woman) win. Go Ben!