Getting Straight

Director: Richard Rush

1970 / 124min / 35mm

Elliott Gould, fresh off the set of M*A*S*H and already something of a counterculture celebrity as TIME Magazine’s “Star for an Uptight Age,” leads a cast including Candice Bergen and a very young Harrison Ford in Rush’s flip, antic depiction of student politics in the tumultuous early ’70s, giving a volatile, motor-mouthed performance as a Vietnam vet and ex-activist trying to keep aloof from the unrest on campus while pursuing his master’s degree in education. One of a scant few Hollywood studio productions to address the uprisings occurring in America’s universities, released in the same week as the Kent State shootings.

Part of Under the Pavement, the Beach