LeonLouisRicci
The most Surprising Thing about this Cult Movie, watching it in 2016 is just how Good it is. Almost Everything Holds Up because it was so Self Aware and an Obvious Political/Cultural Satire that Tapped into the Counterculture Youth Movement and the Social Upheaval of the Late Sixties.The Kids were Scared. Vietnam and the General Dismissive and Outright Fascism, Disregard and Paranoia of the Older Generation in the "Generation Gap" was Real.Richard Thom's Script from His Own Short Story Hits the Right Notes and Hits them Hard, albeit from a Sharp Slant of Satirical Overkill. This makes for some Unsettling Scenes involving Parental Misconduct and Family Riffs.Drugging the Water Supply with LSD was actually an Urban Myth at the Time.The Editing (nominated for an Oscar, unusual for a B-Movie from an Exploitation Studio AIP), using Split Screen and Freeze Frames utilizing Odd Multiple Camera Tricks and Distortions makes for a Visual Experience that is Visceral and Entertaining.The Songs are Catchy, all of them, and "The Shape of Things to Come" (Theme Song), Charted at #22, was from a Cobbled Together Studio Band, ala "The Monkees", called "Max Frost and the Troopers".Overall, this Movie is a Trip (sorry), but it's True. Well Made, Acted, Shot, and Mounted with a Scathing Script and a Poke in the Eye Attitude. Christopher Jones, Shelley Winters, Hal Holbrook, Richard Pryor, Diane Farsi, and Kevin Caughlin all Add to the Films Kinky Appeal.You will Find Foreshadowing...Lowered Voting Age, Kent State, Woodstock, Altamont, and others... Weaved in this Wild Movie that was a Big Hit when it came out and is Ripe for Today's Pop Culture Historians that can have a Groovy Good Time Deconstructing.
Richard O'Donnell
It was Jimmy Fergus who initially brought out the "very best" in Max, who met the former so abruptly on the former's own terms; but, as the kind of modern-day Caligula lingering not too deeply beneath the flimsiest of surfaces in Max, at least when the wrong buttons were even quite innocently and inadvertently pushed; but, particularly, by the kind of "legacy," from "Stiffs," who "live high, and fat, with all the money!"--Or, "at least," given their most miserably poor driving habits, in a way which would have produced the same "high-intensity" reaction, especially from James Dean, and, in fact, did, on many occasions. . . . This is a dynamically thought provoking script, from beneath its more "cultishly caricaturistic" surface; as one of the most timely and relevant yet marginalized and underrated satires of social commentary ever produced, even despite its "grossly absurd improbabilities." . . . Moreover, as for all those "Old Tigers?" Maximilian, baby, couldn't have been more wrong! Just wait and see how well one of the oldest of them is about to "fly!" Yet, nobody but Jones could have carried this lead so effectively, with the kind of professionally well-polished finesse he exhibited. He was truly fated to assume this particular role, just as he blended in so smoothly with the character of Frost, that it's about anybody's guess, from far enough away, as to where he ended, and Max began. . . . Only Shelley Winters had been as "archetypally" irreplaceable here--Along with her Sally LeRoy!--and, in total, an entire cast which it was extremely fortunate didn't have to be replaced. The songs were no less movingly, inspiringly performed as well as composed. For instance, the thought of seeing such a dynamically new paradigm envelop the land, "like a fresh, new breeze," had been something quite overwhelmingly, urgently, inseparably "top-of-the-line!" At least one unsung line is more than applicable today, which goes, "The only thing that blows your mind when you're thirty is getting guys to kill other guys; only in another city, another country, where you don't see it; they don't know anything about it!" . . . I was hardly the first to notice the close physical resemblance of Jones to James Dean. I believe he missed one of his greatest opportunities, and commands upon the scope of his talent, by not having portrayed the role of James Dean himself, in place, for just one instance among others, of a Stephen McHattie--who had no business in the part, either! . . . As for his differences from James Dean, which do run much more than "skin-deep," even in ways which need never have detracted from the uniqueness of the skills of Jones, had Dean been permitted, in this sense, to reduce him to nothing but a "clone?" James Dean had a genuineness, an existential depth, which is not at all the easiest thing in the world to merely imitate!--Save, that is, and short only of the real thing, to the extent that a level of "method acting," on a par with, say, Kirk Douglas, in his purely superficial though movingly convincing portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh, had been adequately at the command of Jones. . . . The only other real waste, next to that of Jones, here, is that Charles Laughton would have played the role of Socrates, as superlatively as he did Gracchus, in Spartacus! As for Jones, however, he did, nevertheless, get a very good "Shot at the Title," of being Dean, at "Home," or, more accurately, in the words of Dean himself, at the "Zoo," and, of course, again, after a car crash, during the opening scenes of Wild in the Streets! . . . Just thank God, if even most of you believe in the right one, that Wild in the Streets is only a fantasy; along with its logically necessary sequel, Children of the Corn, and a gradually renewing expansion of the "Legal Age!" However, perhaps nothing at all, even in such a dismally-conceived future, could possibly surpass, for instance, the reportedly true as well as normatively realistic history, of a film such as Mark of the Devil, with Herbert Lom!--Or, as Nietzsche said, Progress is merely a modern idea, that is to say, a false idea!
