Treat Williams – This Had Oscar Buzz

The 70s Spectacular comes to a close this week with actress Natalie Walker joining us to discuss 1979 and Milos Forman’s adaptation of Hair. The brainchild of Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, and James Redo, Hair took Broadway by storm in the late 1960s for its narrative and political audacity, presenting the free-love and anti-war hippie movement of the time. Forman wanted to bring the musical to the screen after seeing the Off-Broadway production, but wouldn’t achieve that goal until after his One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Oscar victory. This delay turned the once ripped-from-the-headlines musical into old news when it eventually became a film.

This episode, we discuss the 2009 Broadway revival and the changes made to the film to give the story a more linear structure. We also discuss the best hair of 1970s cinema, Dustin Hoffman being a monster on the set of Kramer vs. Kramer, and Actors Fund Benefit concerts.

Topics also include the follow-up musical Dude, step and repeat falls, and “gliddy glop gloopy”.

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We’re on to 1976 (go sign up for our Patreon for 1975 and our Exception episode on Tommy!) and Christina Tucker rejoins us to talk about the 70s Spectacular’s wildest movie, The Ritz. From the play by Terrence McNally, the film is a mob farce set in a bathhouse with Jack Weston as a straight man hiding out from Jerry Stiller’s mob boss and living legend Rita Moreno as the sex establishment’s kooky cabaret headliner. Despite the pedigree of Oscar winner Moreno and then-newly-minted theatre icon McNally, The Ritz turned out to be a little too Looney Tunes for the stiff-upper-lip (and super straight) Academy.

This episode, we tackle the film’s harmless lunacy and McNally’s legacy. We also talk about Moreno’s Tony speech from the Broadway production, Rocky‘s victory over an incredible Best Picture lineup, and William Friedkin’s dour approach to producing the Oscar ceremony.

Topics also include the Continental Baths, Challengers, and Post Malone’s 2024.

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Tag: Treat Williams

293 – Hair (with Natalie Walker) (70s Spectacular – 1979)

291 – The Ritz (with Christina Tucker) (70s Spectacular – 1976)