Wild in the Streets (1968) [R]

Featuring:
Christopher Jones, Shelley Winters, Diane Varsi

Written by:
Robert Thom

Directed by:
Barry Shear


Release Date:
May 29, 1968

Original Title:
Wild in the Streets

Alternate Titles:
El presidente
Les troupes de la colère
Violência nas Ruas

Genres:
Comedy | Drama | Music

Production Companies:
American International Pictures

Production Countries:
United States of America

Ratings / Certifications:
US: R 

Runtime: 94

If you're thirty, you're through!

Musician Max Frost lends his backing to a Senate candidate who wants to give 18-year-olds the right to vote, but he takes things a step further than expected. Inspired by their hero's words, Max's fans pressure their leaders into extending the vote to citizens as young as 15. Max and his followers capitalize on their might by bringing new issues to the fore, but, drunk on power, they soon take generational warfare to terrible extremes.

Wealthy twenty-two year old Max Frost - born Max Jacob Flatow, Jr. - is a rock music superstar, he a rock music franchise unto himself. He has cut ties with his parents, especially due to the control wielded by his overbearing mother, Daphne Flatow, that control against which he rebelled and is still rebelling in the form of having an entourage solely of young people, who he believes knows better than people even a few years older than them. Age-wise, the senior member of his entourage is his acid-dropping girlfriend, former child star Sally LeRoy, age twenty-four, the junior member being fifteen year old Yale law graduate Billy Cage, his business advisor and his band's guitarist. Max decides to endorse thirty-seven year old Congressman Johnny Fergus, running on the Democratic ticket for a California senate seat, as one of Johnny's platform policies is to lower the voting age to eighteen. Johnny happily accepts that endorsement because of Max's power over young people, whose votes Johnny is trying to court. But as Max sees that Johnny doesn't go far enough in his policies - Max believing the voting age should be fourteen so someone like Billy can vote - Max figures the best way to get what he wants is to start his own political machine, first within the current regulations of the land, then once "in", working from the inside to change the laws to transfer the power from the "old" - who he and his team see as anyone over thirty-four - to the young. The questions become how far Max and his team will go to ensure his vision of the world comes to fruition, and how far the establishment will go to try and stop him and his followers.

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Rankings and Honors

Wild in the Streets (1968) on IMDb
Internet Movie Database 5.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes 67%
Awards Won: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 1 win & 3 nominations total

Director:
Barry Shear

Director of Photography:
Richard Moore

Editor:
Eve Newman
Fred R. Feitshans Jr.

Executive Producer:
Burt Topper

Gaffer:
Lloyd Garnell

Makeup Artist:
Fred Williams

Novel:
Robert Thom

Original Music Composer:
Les Baxter

Producer:
Samuel Z. Arkoff
James H. Nicholson

Screenplay:
Robert Thom

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