Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Monkeywess This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Emil Bakkum Getting straight is a film, which creates a monument for the counter culture era in the late sixties. It does so in a very authentic and credible way. I grew up in those days, and although I could never understand the motives and logic of my rebellious contemporaries, Getting straight presents a recognizable picture of all the elements. The atmosphere of freedom, profligacy, enjoyment and naivety is factual. The story is replete with fighting against the police, but it remains good-natured. It truly was like that (most of the time). Even the film music is typical. Back then I realized naturally that the counter culture was an illusion. But it did remove some of the unwarranted authority, and thus increased our freedom. In the film script this struggle is enacted on a university - the students were indeed an avant garde. Other movies about the subject (Strawberry statement, Fritz the Cat, The revolutionary, perhaps Hair) all paint a gloomy picture of the student movement. A society needs a certain responsibility in order to survive. Getting straight employs a more subtle approach, and focuses on the personality of the main character, Harry. Harry exemplifies the counter culture. He is a likable leader: bright, witty, and authoritative. However, a closer examination reveals that he is also unstable and abusive. In fact he possesses many of the evils, that were the target of the counter culture. He tries to exploit his landlady, he deceives during exams, he can not control his rages, and worst of all, he humiliates his loyal girl-friend Jenny. The script sympathizes with Harry, but also makes fun of him. For instance, after a one-night stand in the bedroom of a woman, he says: "It is time to go. Shall I call a cab for you?" In rare moments Harry indeed realizes that his attitude is self-destructive. The climax is his oral masters exam before a committee. One of the professors rejects the scientific standpoint of Harry. In a visible internal battle Harry tries to give in, but he fails to bring in this generosity. Once again he throws a fit, in this crucial moment of his life, and thus loses his masters. At the same time, outside the students rise up, and plunder the university buildings. Still Harry tries to justify his behavior: "It is not important what you do, but who you are" and "I do not belong here". It may appear strange, but I love this film, for its humanity and understanding of human deficiency. It is definitely recommendable, and a must-see for my contemporaries.

SWestDave Elliot Gould salvages what is otherwise a very mediocre movie. Candice Bergen's early reputation as a bad actress was molded in part by this film, where virtually the only thing she does in Getting Straight is whine, whine, & whine. I remember watching this film for the first time, and thinking to myself "Will somebody PLEASE slap her?" Her father's dummies, Charlie McCarthy & Mortimer Snerd, were better actors than her, and made better movies. Elliot Gould did M*A*S*H that same year, and built a well-deserved reputation as an excellent actor, even though he's had his cinematic ups-and-downs since then, like most actors. His work in Getting Straight is excellent, but unfortunately is balanced out by a typically bad performance by Candice Bergen.

shepardjessica This so-called exploitive campus revolt film from 1970 actually has some wonderful things going on in it. (I can't believe I still have the soundtrack and recently got the video). Elliott Gould was at the peak of whatever powers he had as leading man, without Donald Sutherland to play off (M.A.S.H.) or Dyan Cannon(B&C&T&A - supporting role), and he's perfect as Harry (who I think is in every scene). Candice Bergen was never more beautiful (still learning to act after five years in film - and right before Carnal Knowledge), and throw in Jeannie Berlin, Harrison Ford (not boring for a change), and a host of other young up-and-comers at the time, along with Jeff Corey (James Dean's acting teacher, who played elder Hickock in In Cold Blood, and Wild Bill Hickock in Little Big Man) as Gould's semi-mentor, with campus revolt in a frenetic, casual (until later) sort of way.I know a lot of people worship The Stunt Man directed by the same man, Richard Rush ten years later ( and that film is better than this; but not that great), but he did have his own style (I'm not sure what happened to his sensibilities or career). Throw in Robert F. Lyons as Gould's buddy (does anybody remember that guy?) and there's real possibilities, not politically, but in those areas of film that carry over into thought and heart and hope. This is not even close to being a definitive campus revolt flick from that time, but it has aspects (every other scene almost) that have stature ABOUT real topics with semi-interesting characters along the way, without taking SIDES about Viet Nam or rebellion. If you come across it, you'll find some other actresses and actors that were well on their way (if yo're interested in that) and the ending is strange, but somehow appropriate in an uplifting and yet depressing way. It's worth anyone's time who is, at all, interested in that time period (concerning youth vs. establishment). To make a long story short, it's not some dopey, campus comedy with nudity and platitudes and wise-cracks (except for a few scenes concerning Gould's car and landlady). It's nothing important to convey the ideals, emotions, and contemporary feel of that era, but it hits some spaces and is also funny in a human way that is appropriately not cynical (even for then).

nurebel887 While it would be easy for many to catagorize "Getting Straight" as a period film,it nonetheless is a timeless homage to those poor souls who are casual victims of circumstance.From the beginning of the movie we see as protagonist Harry Bailey is set upon by all of his much younger and very politically naive fellow college students who think that if only Harry would join up with them,then their causes of the moment would be complete.It doesn't dawn upon these people that Harry is much older,with a completely different set of priorities than he had before going off to fight in the Vietnam war.At this time in Harrys life,he wants to finish his masters degree in order to be given a teaching credential.Once he gets this,he can go about the business of molding future system challengers and left-wing banner carriers.The only thing that stands in his way is his own naivite and egalitarian mind-set that he has reserved for all but himself."Getting Straight" shows us all the inevitable complications of fence-sitting and ignoring our potential in life.