Legends Podcast #634; Hair (1979)

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It’s 1968, One of the most turbulent years in US history.  Richard Nixon wins the election against Hubert Humphrey.  The US is entwined in the war between North and South Vietnam and Lyndon B. Johnson, who is still president, increases our own ground troops to 550,000.  Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy are both assassinated.  The Civil Rights Act is passed.  Riots outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago breakout and Chicago’s mayor orders his police, “shoot to kill.”  The country is at odds.  

One Broadway musical is getting all the attention with a scene where all the performers drop their clothing and appear fully nude.  This new show plays with the division between the existing culture at the time, and the counterculture of the “hippie generation” and marks the birth of the “Rock-Musical”

A decade later, Milos Forman, Director of the Oscar winning film, One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest sets his sights bringing it to the big screen with major changes.  Screenwriter Micheal Weller rewrites the script to have a more narrative structure.  

Casting John Savage, fresh off his work on the Deer Hunter and launching the careers of Beverly D’Angelo and Treat Williams (RIP), with “blink and you’ll miss them" appearances from Nelle Carter and “Mrs. Garret’s” Charlotte Rae, Forman begs the question, “Do we cut it short, or do we let it all hang out?”

This week, we talk about the 1979 film adaptation of HAIR!

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