Getting Straight

Harry Bailey, a former student activist, Vietnam War veteran, and graduate student, returns to college to complete a master's degree so he can become a teacher. He does his best to avoid the increasing student unrest that has surfaced at his university and in the country as a whole. However, he finds this difficult as his girlfriend, Jan, is a leader in these protests.

Over time, student demonstrations bring police to the campus to quell the unrest, and the ensuing clashes lead to a heavy police presence. Harry is forced to question his changing values. At the height of the rioting, he comes to agree with Jan that "getting straight" is more important than the unquestioning acceptance of the educational establishment.

{{Cast listing|

• Elliott Gould as Harry Bailey
• Candice Bergen as Jan
• Robert F. Lyons as Nick
• Jeff Corey as Dr. Willhunt
• Max Julien as Ellis
• Cecil Kellaway as Dr. Kasper
• Jon Lormer as Vandenburg
• Leonard Stone as Lysander
• William Bramley as Wade Linden
• Jeannie Berlin as Judy Kramer
• John Rubinstein as Herbert
• Richard Anders as Dr. Greengrass
• Brenda Sykes as Luan
• Jenny Sullivan as Sheila
• Gregory Sierra as Garcia
• Billie Bird as Landlady
• Harrison Ford as Jake
• Elizabeth Lane as Alice Linden
• Hilary Thompson as Cynthia (as Hilarie Thompson)
• Irene Tedrow as Mrs. Stebbins

}}

In February 1967, Mike Frankovich, head of Columbia Pictures, announced he had bought the rights to the novel Getting Straight by Ken Kolb.{{Cite news|title=Petula to Play in 'Finian's Rainbow'|author=Martin, Betty|date=Feb 20, 1967|work=Los Angeles Times|page=d25}}

Richard Rush described the original novel as "a nice novel about a graduate student taking his orals to get his teaching credentials. The administration of the college is like a medieval torture chamber, and the oral exam is like the Salem witch trials. He barely escapes with his sanity."

The novel was published in early 1968. The Chicago Tribune called the book "very funny".{{cite news|title=Between chuckles, it cuts deep|author=Kleiman|work=Chicago Tribune|date=April 16, 1967|page=15}}

Director Richard Rush had impressed with his AIP films Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) and Psych-Out (1968) and was signed to an independent deal with Columbia. They offered the book to him, and he said he would do it if they let him make a contemporary film about kids at college rebelling against the draft and the war. He wrote a treatment and they eventually agreed.{{cite news|title=After 45 years, looking back on a volatile period|author=King, Susan|work=South Florida Sun–Sentinel|date=Apr 17, 2015|page=37}} Rush's signing was announced in June 1968.{{cite news|title=Rush Signs 'Straight' Deal|author=Martin, Betty|work=Los Angeles Times|date=28 June 1968|page=f20}}

"To me the whole 'revolution' is not a political revolution but a personal one", he said. "It is the result of the inability of an entire generation on a personal, individual level to accept the disparities in the morality at the foundation of our society."{{cite news|title=Motorcycle Movie Man Scores a First as Director|author=Thomas, Kevin|work=Los Angeles Times|date=14 June 1970|page=c61}}

Rush says the studio gave him a list of writers to do a screenplay and he picked one, but was not happy with the result. Rush then hired someone not on the list, Robert Kaufman, who Rush had known at AIP. Rush called Kaufman "a brilliant, vicious intellectual, total amoral comic. He could make me laugh. He was a bright, funny man." Kaufman signed in December 1968.{{Cite news|title=MOVIE CALL SHEET: 'Napoleon' Project for Forbes|author=Martin, Betty|date=Dec 31, 1968|work=Los Angeles Times|page=b10}}

"All my films are about commitment", said Kaufman later. "Somehow. The moral was, love is better with a monster who'll make a commitment than with a nebbish who won't. "{{cite news|title=KAUFMAN: PASSION FOR COMIC VISIONS: [Home Edition]|author=Champlin, Charles|work=Los Angeles Times|date=22 July 1986|page=1}}

Rush says Kolb later did some work on the script. "It was risky material because the war was still going on and students were at the barricades and Hollywood movies weren’t really addressing this stuff yet head-on", Rush says.{{cite web|url=http://wearecult.rocks/interview-director-richard-rush|website=We Are Cult|title=Interview with Richard Rush|date=30 September 2017|first=Nick|last=Clement}}

Elliott Gould had just made M*A*S*H and was going to make Move when Columbia came to him with Getting Straight. "Columbia said if I didn't take the part they'd drop it", he said. "I was the only actor they'd go with. I was never so flattered in my life."{{cite news|title=Elliott Gould Making It on His Own|author=Henrietta Leith|work=The Washington Post and Times-Herald|date=Sep 21, 1969|page=G4}}

Gould says when he met Rush the director asked him, "'Can you get angry?' Because I had never been in the Army, nor had I ever gone to college, nor am I an angry person. I said, 'I believe I can show you some passion and emotion for this character.' "

Gould said "it's an almost classical part, a fantastic character."{{cite news|title=He's Mr. Streisand No More|author=Woll, William|work=Chicago Tribune|date=May 17, 1970|page=m16}}

Rush had made several movies with Jack Nicholson and offered him a role but the actor had to decline when deluged with offers post-Easy Rider. "I guess I've lost my standing with him", said Nicholson of the director.{{cite news|title=Lawyer in 'Easy Rider': Nicholson Leaves Obscurity in Dust Jack Nicholson Rises to Fame|author=Thomas, Kevin|work=Los Angeles Times|date=Aug 28, 1969|page=e1}}

Candice Bergen was cast in July 1969.{{Cite news|title=Movie Call Sheet: Candice Bergen in 'Straight'|author=Martin, Betty|date=July 2, 1969|work=Los Angeles Times|page=c12}}

Harrison Ford had been under contract to Columbia, which had expired. However he was brought back to the studio for a role in this film.{{cite news|title=Movie Call Sheet: Scheerer to Direct 'Adam'|author=Martin, Betty|work=Los Angeles Times|date=Aug 1, 1969|page=d11}}

Richard Rush signed Max Julien to a three-picture contract over two years.{{Cite news|title=Movie Call Sheet: Julien Signed for 3 Films|author=Martin, Betty|date=Aug 12, 1969|work=Los Angeles Times|page=c13}}

Filming started July 7, 1969 in Eugene, Oregon, with Lane Community College standing in for the fictional university.{{cite web |url=http://catalog.afi.com/Film/23436-GETTING-STRAIGHT?sid=c902844b-171f-47ba-b9c9-86bd8d9ed7c8&sr=3.867687&cp=1&pos=0#1 |title=Getting Straight – History |website=AFI Catalog of Feature Films |access-date=May 3, 2019 }}

Rush later said Gould "had complete abandon. Elliott did a hell of a job." He said the actor was "incredibly inventive, tremendously flexible" and that Bergen was "a genuine dedicated, bright human being" who made "an extraordinary breakthrough."

Candice Bergen said the film took her career in "a new direction... my first experience with democratic, communal movie making."{{cite news|title=Candy's Sweet on Acting Now|author=Roger Ebert|work=New York Times|date=Apr 11, 1971|page=D15}}

When filming ended Kaufman wrote "we have sought to record, with a sense of humor, the reality of today's student protest, campus riots, and establishment reprisals. We will undoubtedly be charged with sensationalism but anything less than a straightforward depiction of these events would be ludicrously false."{{cite news|title=The New Hollywood Sees Things as They Are|author=Kaufman, Robert|work=Los Angeles Times|date=Dec 14, 1969|page=r22}}

Rush says when he got to the location he saw it was full of glass walls. "We had to suit what was happening inside with what was happening outside, and it opened up enormous opportunities", he said. "Also, I'd never shot a riot before with tear gas and policemen beating up people. When I suddenly had the equipment to do that, with the tear gas and the paddy wagons and the helicopters, it became a different version of the movie than I had originally pictured in my head as I had written it."{{Cite web|url=http://www.money-into-light.com/2017/10/richard-rush-is-celebrated-director-of.html|website=Money Into Light|date=September 2017|title=Interview with Richard Rush Part 2}}

Rush used a lot of rack focus on the film. He later said he did this because he felt the script was very verbal and needed to "make it visual."{{cite news|title=vThe Director as Stuntman|author=Jameson, Richard T.|work=Film Comment|location=New York|volume=16|issue=6 (Nov/Dec 1980)|pages=21–25, 80}}

Rush says "We shot the film on a very long lens, so we could peer inside and outside of the classrooms on the campus to gather relevant information, and get interesting angles in order to create a mood of tension or unpredictability. And this is where we really started using the rack focus technique. This type of shooting draws the viewer into the shot on an emotional level."

The film grossed $13.3 million at the domestic box office, earning $5.1 million in US theatrical rentals."Big Rental Films of 1970", Variety, 6 January 1971, pg 11. It was the 21st highest-grossing film of 1970.{{cite news|url=http://www.listal.com/list/top-grossing-films-1970|title=Top Grossing Films of 1970|work=Listal.com.|access-date=April 17, 2016}}

The film was one of a number of movies made about campus unrest at this time, others including The Strawberry Statement, The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, The Pursuit of Happiness, The Revolutionary, Up in the Cellar, Zabriskie Point and RPM. Getting Straight was the only one that was commercially successful.{{cite news|title=Movies from Behind the Barricades|author=Farber, Stephen|work=Film Quarterly (Archive)|location=Berkeley|volume=24|issue=2 (Winter 1970/1971)|pages=24–33}}

"We were one of Columbia's biggest grossers of the year, and critics were very supportive", says Rush.

Howard Thompson of The New York Times wrote, "A brilliant, mercurial performance by Elliott Gould steadies and vivifies but cannot save 'Getting Straight' ... A serious-minded, freewheeling comedy, pivoting on student unrest and rebellion on the contemporary campus scene, succumbs to theatrics and, structurally, the very conventions it deplores."Thompson, Howard (May 14, 1970). "'Getting Straight' Opens". The New York Times. 42. Also writing in The New York Times, Dwight Macdonald called it "a bad movie" that "reminds me of a grunt-and-groan wrestling match that tries by overemphasis to make the customers forget it's fixed."Macdonald, Dwight (June 7, 1970). "Getting 'Getting Straight' Straight". The Washington Post. D11.

However, Arthur D. Murphy of Variety declared, "'Getting Straight' is an outstanding film. It is a comprehensive, cynical, sympathetic, flip, touching and hilarious story of the middle generation—those millions who are a bit too old for protest, a bit too young for repression. Elliott Gould's third smash performance in a year, herein as a disenchanted college student-teacher, makes him an undeniable screen star. Ditto for Candice Bergen, in a role that at last befits both her dramatic and physical talents."Murphy, Arthur D. (April 29, 1970). "Film Reviews: Getting Straight". Variety. 18.

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote that it "fails because no meaningful conflict is established until late in the film", and that every character except Bergen's was "one-dimensional, a thin symbol to be placed wherever the box office dictates."Siskel, Gene (June 19, 1970). "That man Elliott Gould again in 'Getting Straight'". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 13. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called the film a "thoroughly equivocal mishmash" that "politicizes everyone and everything. This includes the love affair, which is thwarted by some of the worst dialogue I've ever listened to."Arnold, Gary (June 18, 1970). "An Equivocal Mishmash". The Washington Post. H10. Richard Combs of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Perfectly maintaining the balance between acute exasperation and a vivid intellectual energy, Elliott Gould manages to endow Harry with something of the air of a prophet returned from the wilderness, certain of his personal truth although by no means certain of achieving it, and not to be goaded into becoming the spokesman for a new generation of icon levellers."{{cite journal |last=Combs |first=Richard |date=November 1970 |title=Getting Straight |journal=The Monthly Film Bulletin |volume=37 |issue=442 |page=218 }}

Leonard Maltin's movie guide awarded two-and-a-half stars out of four and noted that the film essentially was a "period piece" but that its "central issue of graduate student (Elliott) Gould choosing between academic double-talk and his beliefs remains relevant."{{cite book |last=Maltin |first=Leonard |date=2017 |title=Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide: The Modern Era |publisher=Plume |page=526 |isbn=9780525536192 }} Steven Scheuer, however, wrote that the film was reflective of "hippiedom alienation at its shallowest."{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}}

Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote- "Getting Straight is a very ambitious film that is too small for its britches".{{cite web| title=Stanley Kauffmann on films|url=https://newrepublic.com| publication-date=1970-05-30| website=The New Republic| language=en}}

John Calley of Warners wanted to hire Kaufman, Rush and Gould to make a film of Bruce Jay Friedman's Scuba Duba{{cite news|title=Angela Will Play New Type Woman|date=Nov 26, 1969|work=Los Angeles Times|page=e9}} but no film resulted.

Rush wanted to follow the film with The Stunt Man, but that film was not made until 1980.{{cite news|title=Dalton's 'Darling Girl': Dalton's 'Darling Girl'|author=A. H. WEILER|work=New York Times|date=11 July 1971|page=D13}}

• List of American films of 1970

{{Reflist}}

{{Refbegin}}

• Greenspun, Roger (1970) [http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=Getting%20Straight%20%28Movie%29&title2=&reviewer=ROGER%20GREENSPUN&pdate=19700514&v_id=19598 Getting Straight]{{Dead link|date=December 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} New York Times, May 14, 1970. (accessed 9 July 2007)
• Maltin, Leonard (1991) Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 1992, Signet, New York.
• Scheuer, Steven H. (1990) Movies on TV and Videocassette, Bamtam Books, New York.

{{Refend}}

• {{IMDb title}}
• {{Rotten Tomatoes}}
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{{Richard Rush}}

Category:1970 films

Category:1970 comedy-drama films

Category:1970s American films

Category:1970s English-language films

Category:American comedy-drama films

Category:Columbia Pictures films

Category:Films based on American novels

Category:Films directed by Richard Rush

Category:Films scored by Ronald Stein

Category:Films set in universities and colleges

Category:Films shot in Eugene, Oregon

Category:English-language comedy-drama films