************ Caution --- Contains Spoilers ********** Have you ever wanted to tell off your boss? Have you ever longed to tell off a rambling, narrow-minded, spacey, self-righteous college professor? If so, `Getting Straight' is the movie for you.
`Getting Straight' is almost a good movie. The story line is very dated, very much in the 1960s. The script and the acting are uneven, the characters are flat, and overall the film is just average. But the REAL value in this movie is the climax!
Harry Bailey (Elliott Gould) is a penniless graduate student working on his Ph.D. thesis in American Literature. Everything is going wrong for him he never has enough money for the rent, his old clunker is always breaking down, he's worried about his thesis, and even his girlfriend Jan (Candace Bergen) starts dating a wealthy doctor.
The academic aspect of this movie is very true to life. To earn a Ph.D., a student must pick a very specific topic and write a comprehensive book that covers every bit of knowledge on that subject. The thesis topic must be approved by the advising professor, and students have five years to finish it. When completed, the student must defend his/her thesis to a panel of professors who ask very incisive questions.
There is a lot of Sixties flavor to this film. Student leaders are trying to radicalize the student body, Harry's friend is always working on beating the system by draft-dodging scams and welfare scams to collect $900 a week. This movie came out not long after Kent State, Columbia student strike and the `Moratorium' March on Washington. The dialog and the clothes and the "zeitgeist" in general are all true pictures of a bygone era. However, some other movies have done a better job, such as "The Strawberry Statement" or even "Hair." I was in college at the time, and the majority of students were trying to get an education. The political radicals were a minority, although most students were against the war in Vietnam.
If you rent this movie, I would recommend checking in at the beginning for a few minutes just to get the background, and then fast forward about 75 minutes to the exciting climax.
Harry's PhD Thesis presentation scene will have you laughing and cheering! His thesis deals with the literary value of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. As Harry tries to make his points, the professors derail him on a tangent that Fitzgerald may have been gay. No matter which book he references, one of the ivory tower denizens will always relate it to Fitzgerald's alleged homosexuality. When Harry defends his points about `Tender is the Night,' one prof enthuses, `Ah, yes, perfect, don't you see that the Dick Diver Character was the manifestation of Fitzgerald's repressed latent homosexual drives?' Unable to take any more, Harry explodes, `Well, that must have been news to ZELDA!' Shocked, the profs are speechless as Harry grabs each man's copy of the thesis and tells off the eggheads one by one. Jumping up on the table, he trashes everything they believe in as he throws papers all over the place, especially in their faces. It is a better catharsis than `Dilbert.'
The denouement comes as the student riot finally erupts on campus. Harry sneaks out as small hordes of authentic sixties hippies run through the building and seize rooms including the one holding the stupefied, frightened professors. Jan magically appears among the anarchy and once again pledges her love to Harry, who has decided to leave the academic establishment.
Harry never indicates what he will do instead of teaching in college, but the happy couple walks off into the sunset in search of a better tomorrow. If they ever make a sequel to this movie, I wonder if Harry would start a `dot-com' company.
`Getting Straight' is almost a good movie. The story line is very dated, very much in the 1960s. The script and the acting are uneven, the characters are flat, and overall the film is just average. But the REAL value in this movie is the climax!
Harry Bailey (Elliott Gould) is a penniless graduate student working on his Ph.D. thesis in American Literature. Everything is going wrong for him he never has enough money for the rent, his old clunker is always breaking down, he's worried about his thesis, and even his girlfriend Jan (Candace Bergen) starts dating a wealthy doctor.
The academic aspect of this movie is very true to life. To earn a Ph.D., a student must pick a very specific topic and write a comprehensive book that covers every bit of knowledge on that subject. The thesis topic must be approved by the advising professor, and students have five years to finish it. When completed, the student must defend his/her thesis to a panel of professors who ask very incisive questions.
There is a lot of Sixties flavor to this film. Student leaders are trying to radicalize the student body, Harry's friend is always working on beating the system by draft-dodging scams and welfare scams to collect $900 a week. This movie came out not long after Kent State, Columbia student strike and the `Moratorium' March on Washington. The dialog and the clothes and the "zeitgeist" in general are all true pictures of a bygone era. However, some other movies have done a better job, such as "The Strawberry Statement" or even "Hair." I was in college at the time, and the majority of students were trying to get an education. The political radicals were a minority, although most students were against the war in Vietnam.
If you rent this movie, I would recommend checking in at the beginning for a few minutes just to get the background, and then fast forward about 75 minutes to the exciting climax.
Harry's PhD Thesis presentation scene will have you laughing and cheering! His thesis deals with the literary value of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. As Harry tries to make his points, the professors derail him on a tangent that Fitzgerald may have been gay. No matter which book he references, one of the ivory tower denizens will always relate it to Fitzgerald's alleged homosexuality. When Harry defends his points about `Tender is the Night,' one prof enthuses, `Ah, yes, perfect, don't you see that the Dick Diver Character was the manifestation of Fitzgerald's repressed latent homosexual drives?' Unable to take any more, Harry explodes, `Well, that must have been news to ZELDA!' Shocked, the profs are speechless as Harry grabs each man's copy of the thesis and tells off the eggheads one by one. Jumping up on the table, he trashes everything they believe in as he throws papers all over the place, especially in their faces. It is a better catharsis than `Dilbert.'
The denouement comes as the student riot finally erupts on campus. Harry sneaks out as small hordes of authentic sixties hippies run through the building and seize rooms including the one holding the stupefied, frightened professors. Jan magically appears among the anarchy and once again pledges her love to Harry, who has decided to leave the academic establishment.
Harry never indicates what he will do instead of teaching in college, but the happy couple walks off into the sunset in search of a better tomorrow. If they ever make a sequel to this movie, I wonder if Harry would start a `dot-com' company.