Review: "Hair" (1979)

Recently I came upon an article in the Hollywood Reporter listing 47 iconic movie and TV sites in NYC. Read it here. (Why it's not an even 50, I can't say.) 

One location that's obviously cited is Central Park which has been used in too many movies and TV shows to count. But one of movies that's not on this list but that makes great use of nation's most famous urban park is Hair from 1979. 

Based on the late 1960s anti-war, anti-establishment hippie Broadway smash, it's about a young man named Claude from Oklahoma who comes to NYC on his way to enlist in the army before shipping to Vietnam. (Why a guy from Oklahoma would need to travel all the way to NYC to go into the army is odd but, hey, it's a movie). Anyhoo, while roaming around Central Park one afternoon he comes upon a group of hippies who befriend him and rock his world. He also gets close to a young beautiful society lady who is bored by her preppy boyfriend and upper class life. Eventually it all goes haywire and Claude goes into the army -- before his friends head out to Nevada, trying to rescue him from going to Vietnam. There's a big, surprising, ultimately tragic twist at the end about the randomness of friendship and fate.

When the musical Hair hit Broadway in 1968, it was a stunning, crazy, and almost dangerous thing. America was mired in the hopeless Vietnam war and the anti-war, hippie movement was gaining steam (Woodstock would be a year later). This musical rocked the culture, a show that was both highly political and highly entertaining -- plus, at various points, the cast members took their clothes off. Richard Nixon, right after he became President, imagined that he'd go to a show and, as soon as cast got naked, he'd get up and walk out, showing his solidarity with the Silent Majority, the squares in the "real America" (fortunately he never did it although it would have been lit). Like A Chorus Line, Rent and Hamilton later on, this show defined its time. 

But when the movie came in 1979, times had changed. Vietnam was over, Watergate and stagflation had and were traumatized the nation, and this movie already seemed like a museum piece. It was of and about another time. Hair the movie was moderately successfull but didn't have the same resonance as it had had on Broadway 11 years earlier. 

The movie was directed by Milos Forman, who had just won Oscars for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and would, later on, do so again for Amadeus. Hair is somewhat forgotten from his filmography. The cast is amazingly -- especially a young Treat Williams (RIP) as George, the hippie leader, and Beverly D'Angelo, the bored young deb. Claude is played by John Savage who had just had a huge success in The Deer Hunter. He's a good actor but rather miscast -- he's not really believable as a young Okie. The rest of the mostly unknown cast is quite good, including the late, wonderful Nell Carter singing in the park at night.

Still, there's something about the movie that sorta doesn't work -- it reminds me of the Rent musical, a great, brilliant show put to film that somehow, someway, sucks the life out of the story and score. But I still suggest seeing it for the music, the cast, and beautiful shot Central Park. 

Classic Mr NYC

In 2021 I did a short tribute to the great singer, Astoria-native, and one of only three solo women to perform at Woodstock in 1969, Melanie Safka.

Melanie has sadly passed away at the age of 76. 

RIP.

Sydney Poitier & Michael Lang RIP

Two titans of the 1960s have died, and their lives and careers are a reminder of an era that was both troubled and exciting, where the world was being reshaped, and the repercussions of which we are still living with today. 

Sydney Poitier was a not just a brilliant actor but also a great movie star. He was the first black man to win the Best Actor Oscar, and movies like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and In the Heat of the Night forced white America to see the power of the black voice and experience. Poitier was a boy when he escaped to NYC to start his life that would lead him to cinematic and cultural greatness. In fact, so potent was his reputation that a play called Six Degrees of Separation was written based on the bizarre cob job of a man named David Hampton who claimed to be his son (I blogged about it a while ago; Poitier doesn't appear in the play as a character because he doesn't need to -- his image was so powerful and famous that anyone who saw the play knew who he was and why someone would want to be his son). Poitier has died at the age of 94 and his legacy will on.  

Michael Lang was one of the co-creators of the 1969 Woodstock Festival that made history as one of the greatest and most important cultural events in American history. A kid from Brooklyn, in his early 20s Lang and his colleagues threw together the three (actually four) days of "peace, love, and music" that captured that imagination of the world and is still talked about endlessly to this day. Lang was involved in other musical festivals and music management, and oversaw the 1994 and ill-fated 1999 revivals of Woodstock. He had a reputation, and an affect, of someone for whom the 1960s never ended, who kept the "groovy man" spirit of that decade alive -- right up until the end. Lang has died at the age of 77. For all of Mr NYC's Woodstock coverage over the year's, go here. 

Melanie Safka: Astoria, Woodstock, & "Boogie Nights"

Astoria-native Melanie Safka is one of those under-the-radar singer-songwriters whose name you don't readily remember but whose songs you know -- especially her 1972 hit "Brand New Key."

Yet three years before that big success, Melanie played Woodstock, one of only three female solo acts to perform (the others were Janie Joplin and Joan Baez -- great company). 

Melanie didn't die young like Joplin or have quite as colorful a life as Baez -- she just wrote and performed great songs, and continues to do so to this day. 

"Brand New Key" appeared in a VERY MEMORABLE NSFW scene in the 1997 movie Boogie Nights -- and the song is even sexier than the scene, truly, the the most sexy song of all time. 

"Summer of Soul": Remembering the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival aka Black Woodstock

Studio 360 New York Icons

The great cultural radio show Studio 360 (hosted by Mr NYC interviewee Kurt Anderson) has a recurring segment called American Icons that reviews important works from our nation's culture. These include things like the classic novels The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick, special moments like Jimmy Hendrix's performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, the Harley Davidson motorcycle, even the old TV soap Dallas. The segments look at why these various creations, from different points in American history and in radically different art forms, made a lasting impact on not only American culture but also the American psyche. These American Icon segments are some of my favorite things to listen to.

But wait, 'dere's more!

Recently Studio 360 launched a new New York Icons series that does the same thing for distinctly NYC-centric works. So far: the classic salsa album Siembra, Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar", and the musical West Side Story. There are lots of classic movies and books and shows that could qualify as New York Icons, as well as moments like 1951 "Shot Heard 'Round the World", or Mayor LaGuardia reading the comics on WNYC radio, or Studio 54.

The possibilities are endless.

May I make one suggestion to the creators of the New York Icons series? Maybe you should include blogs. And, if you're including blogs, maybe you could include, oh, I don't know, Mr NYC!

"Stay" @ 25

A lot happened back in 1994 -- both for me personally and also in the life of this city and country. So much happened, in fact, that I have a link here to Mr NYC's complete 1994 coverage. It's exhaustive! 

Memories of 1994, that gauzy time 25 years ago, seem to be forcing their way back into the public consciousness these days -- OJ Simpson is on Twitter, Quentin Tarantino has a new movie, and there may or may not be another Woodstock in August. Either way, 1994 is a year that never seems to end.

One nice memory from that time is below -- the great song "Stay" by Lisa Loeb. This song was a huge hit back in the summer of 1994, it played endlessly on the radio, people sang along to it ad nauseum, and I never got tired of it. It's just so catchy, so sweet, and has a totally original sound. It's a song of empowerment, of making the best of a bad situation, a real pick-me-up tune.

The video itself is interesting -- it's Ms. Loeb simply running around an empty NYC apartment, singing the song. That's it. The music is so good that nothing more is required. Interestingly, it was directed by the movie star Ethan Hawke. 

It's a very New York video for a very New York song -- and both are classic.

Wacky Woodstock

This summer marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the legendary three days of "peace and love" music festival held up in Bethel, NY in August, 1969. It featured performances from (amongst many others) the likes of Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Country Joe and the Fish, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Santana, The Band, Crosby Stills Nash & Young -- even Sha Na Na! -- and closing out with Jimmy Hendrix's classic version of the national anthem.

Woodstock defined a generation and has captured the popular imagination ever since. It defined the anti-war, pro-diversity counter-culture that "square" America has been fighting ever since.

Since that event 50 years ago, there have been two sequels to Woodstock -- first in 1994 for the 25th anniversary, and then in 1999 for the 30th. The 1994 event didn't generate a lot of excitement and the 1999 one was a legendary disaster resulting in rioting and rapes and chaos. It was, in many respect, a fitting end to the 20th century and a harbinger of the dark 21st century to come. 

Now, 20 years later, there were plans for Woodstock 50 this August but, in the last couple of days, it's all fallen apart. Financiers are dropping out, artists are pulling out, and there's a big "Will it or Won't It Happen" question mark over the whole thing. The event planners are desperately trying to salvage the festival but it seems like it might be for nought, the event doomed.

Sad! But it seems, in a way, fitting for this age of disruption, instability, venality, and short-term thinking. The fact that, despite having literally YEARS to put this together, Woodstock 50 is on a knife's edge feels somehow, in the bizarre times we're living in, almost ... appropriate.

Personally, I'm agnostic about Woodstock 50. I hate seeing any big endeavor fail, I love comeback stories, so I hope that they might get this saved.

At the same time, trying to recreate something that was so special, so unique, so of its moment, is also kind of sad. Woodstock in 1969 was something the whole country needed, whether they liked it or not.  In 2019? It feels forced, and the only people who need it are the ones making money.

It'll be interesting to see how this whole thing -- wait for it -- "plays" out.  

Tavern on the Green Lives!

In 2009, the legendary Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green closed, after almost 75 years in business. It was built in the 1930s by that grandaddy of New York City building, Robert Moses, and over the decades had become a bridge-and-tunnel destination and tourist trap. It was also a popular place for private events. For years, it was the highest-grossing non-chain restaurant in America.

And it still went out of businesss!

Like many places, it was a victim of the financial crises. Bad food and high prices and poor management sealed its fate. The Warner family, which had run it for decades, lost their lease and then restaurateur Dean Poll took it over and then walked away when he couldn't make a deal with the kitchen workers union. Since then, the big restaurant on Central Park West has sat empty, populated with food trucks out front. It was a modern-day relic, a burgeoning ruin in its own time. To say you had once eaten at Tavern on the Green was almost becoming like saying you had once gone to Woodstock (although not as cool).

Well, it's back. Two guys from Philadelphia have taken it over and plan to re-open it in December. The new Tavern will be half the size of the old one with less cheesy glitzy interior design. How good the food will be remains to be seen.

Some New York restaurant types predict it will fail. It's not haute cuisine but it's also not down-home cooking. It's sorta middle of the road. Also, it's not exactly a place for the hip foody crowd in this city and knows if it will pack-in enough tourists and B&Ters to make up its high overhead. But I wouldn't be surprised if it succeeds -- after all, it's a legendary place and has one of the best locations for any business in NYC. 

I doubt I'll go there myself anytime soon but, as the new owners said, it'll be a great place to take your grandmother for her 90th birthday so who knows?

P.S. I went to the old Tavern once back in the 1990s for my high school prom. Not all that memorable. I'm sure the new version will be better. 

Woodstock Minute With Larry Fine (Narrated by Allison Steele)