Getting Straight (1970) Review

It’s a hard quality to have as a director, to make your films feel crazy and antic and wild, but at the same time still pay attention to mise-en-scene, performance, and technique. Rush’s 1970 effort Getting Straight is a wild beast, an anti-establishment picture made as one turbulent decade was ending and another socially questionable period was just beginning.

Starring Elliot Gould as a Vietnam vet turned idealistic grad student with dreams of being a teacher, he also becomes interested in raising the social consciousness of the student body through unconventional means of rabble-rousing, especially when teamed up with his girlfriend and other non-conforming students.

This Columbia Pictures release has a zany, offbeat quality, a meandering tone in some spots, but incredibly incisive in others, always with something important to say, and always ready for a surprise or two.

Rush’s inventive camerawork can be felt all over the film, with observational shots that continually rack focus within the same movement, catching glimpses here and there of student life and campus activity.

Also, it must be noted that Getting Straight offers a fantastic array of beautiful women, all decked out in styles of the day, all looking sexy and earthy and fresh.

In the past, Rush has stated that he’s infatuated with the female form, and the way he and legendary cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs shot this movie, and framed women in particular, is a constant delight to behold. The unnamed university at the center of the action becomes the staging ground for a climatic student demonstration that fits squarely in Rush’s madcap wheelhouse, with a full scale riot erupting, bodies being thrown all over the place, with lots of screaming and yelling filling the busy soundtrack.

A super-young and extremely cute Candice Bergen is featured in the supporting cast as Gould’s protest leading girlfriend, as well as Harrison Ford in an amusing early role as Gould’s trouble-making buddy.

Because of the societal mood and atmosphere during the early 70’s, Getting Straight could never feel as topical now as it did when it was first released, but the passion behind the film still stands tall, and the various messages that the film purveys are still relatable enough to keep the film from feeling simply like a relic from the past.

The superior film Medium Cool comes to mind when thinking of Getting Straight but that doesn’t mean that Getting Straight isn’t an important document of a specific time and place. I’d love to be able to track down all of Rush’s efforts from the 1960’s — Psych-Out, A Man Called Dagger, The Savage Seven, Too Soon to Love, Hells Angels on Wheels, Thunder Alley, and The Cups of San Sebastian all sound extremely interesting — but most of these films seem to be unavailable on disc. If only The Criterion Collection would think about releasing a Richard Rush box set of his early work!

Review by Nick Clement