Wild in the Streets is a 1968 film

1968 in film

The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...

 featuring Christopher Jones

Christopher Jones (actor)

William "Billy" Frank Jones, better known as Christopher Jones, is an American character actor, born August 18, 1941 in Jackson, Tennessee....

, Hal Holbrook

Hal Holbrook

Harold Rowe "Hal" Holbrook, Jr. is an American actor. His television roles include Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 TV series Lincoln, Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator and Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo. He is also known for his role in the 2007 film Into the Wild, for which he was nominated for...

, and Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...

. It was produced by American International Pictures

American International Pictures

American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...

 and based on a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by writer Robert Thom. The movie, described as both "ludicrous" and "cautionary," was nominated for an Academy Award and became a cult classic

Cult Classic

Cult Classic is a Blue Öyster Cult studio recording released in 1994, containing remakes of many of the band's previous hits.-Track listing:# " The Reaper" - 5:05# "E.T.I...

.

Background

Wild in the Streets was first released to theaters in 1968. Its storyline was a reductio ad absurdum

Reductio ad absurdum

In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...

 projection of contemporary issues of the time, taken to extremes, and played poignantly during 1968 — an election year with many controversies (the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, the Draft

Conscription in the United States

Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...

, Civil Rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

, the population explosion, rioting and assassinations, and the baby boomer

Baby boomer

A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...

 generation coming of age).
The original magazine short story, titled "The Day it All Happened, Baby!" was expanded by its author to book length, and was published as a paperback novel by Pyramid Books

Pyramid Books

Jove Books, formerly Pyramid Books, is a paperback publishing company, founded in 1949 by Almat Magazine Publishers . The company was sold to the Walter Reade Organization in the late 1960s. It was acquired in 1974 by Harcourt Brace which renamed it to Jove in 1977 and continued the line as an...

.

The movie features cameos

Cameo appearance

A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...

 from several media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

 personalities, including Melvin Belli

Melvin Belli

Melvin Mouron Belli was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by detractors as 'Melvin Bellicose'. He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, Sirhan Sirhan, the Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha...

, Dick Clark

Dick Clark (entertainer)

Richard Wagstaff "Dick" Clark is an American businessman; game-show host; and radio and television personality. He served as chairman and chief executive officer of Dick Clark Productions, which he has sold part of in recent years...

, Pamela Mason

Pamela Mason

Pamela Mason was a British actress, author, and screenwriter who appeared in a number of British films.-Early life and career:...

, Army Archerd

Army Archerd

Armand Andre "Army" Archerd was a columnist for Variety for over fifty years before retiring his "Just for Variety" column in September 2005. In November 2005, Archerd began blogging for Variety and was working on a memoir when he died.-Life and career:Archerd was born in The Bronx, New York, and...

, and Walter Winchell

Walter Winchell

Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...

. Millie Perkins

Millie Perkins

Millie Perkins is an American film and television actress.Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Millie grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Her father was a merchant marine captain...

 and Ed Begley

Ed Begley

Edward James Begley, Sr. was an Academy Award-winning American actor.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Begley began his career as a Broadway and radio actor while in his teens. He appeared in the hit musical Going Up on Broadway in 1917 and in London the next year. He later acted in...

 have supporting roles, and Bobby Sherman

Bobby Sherman

Robert Cabot "Bobby" Sherman, Jr. , is an American singer, actor and occasional songwriter, who became a popular teen idol in the late 1960s and early 1970s.He graduated in 1961 from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California...

 interviews Max as President. In a pre-Brady Bunch role, Barry Williams

Barry Williams

Barry William Blenkhorn , known professionally as Barry Williams, is an American actor best known for his role as Greg Brady in the ABC television series The Brady Bunch.-Early life and career:...

 plays the teenaged Max Frost at the beginning of the movie.

A soundtrack album

Soundtrack album

A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...

 was also successful, and the song "Shape of Things to Come

Shape of Things to Come (song)

"Shape of Things to Come" is a song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil from the film Wild in the Streets, performed by the fictional band Max Frost and the Troopers on their 1968 album Shape of Things to Come. The song was also released without vocals by Davie Allan and the Arrows...

" (written by songwriters Barry Mann

Barry Mann

Barry Mann is an American songwriter, and part of a successful songwriting partnership with his wife, Cynthia Weil.-Career:...

 and Cynthia Weil

Cynthia Weil

Cynthia Weil is a prominent American songwriter. She is famous for having written many songs together with her husband Barry Mann....

) and performed by the (fictional) band Max Frost and the Troopers

Max Frost and the Troopers

Max Frost and The Troopers was a fictional rock music group created for the exploitation film Wild in the Streets, released in 1968. The film featured Christopher Jones as the highly influential singer Max Frost. The songs performed by Frost and his band, a group that was never formally named in...

, featured in the movie, became a #22 hit on the US Billboard charts.

"Wild in the Streets" was released on VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 home video

Home video

Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...

 in the late 1980s, and in 2005 appeared on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

, on a twofer disc with another AIP movie, 1971's Gas-s-s-s

Gas-s-s-s

Gas-s-s-s is a 1971 motion picture produced and released by American International Pictures. It was producer Roger Corman's final film for AIP, before leaving to found his own New World Pictures...

.

According to filmmaker Kenneth Bowser, the part eventually played by Christopher Jones was first offered folk singer Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs

Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...

.

Plot summary

Christopher Jones stars as rock singer and aspiring revolutionary

Revolutionary

A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...

 Max Frost (born Max Jacob Flatow Jr.; his first public act of violence was blowing up his family's new car). Frost's band The Troopers live together with him, their women, and others in a sprawling Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 mansion. The band includes his 15-year-old genius attorney Billy Cage (Kevin Coughlin) on lead guitar

Lead guitar

Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

, ex-child actor

Child actor

The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

/girlfriend Sally LeRoy (Diane Varsi

Diane Varsi

Diane Marie Antonia Varsi was an American film actress best known for her performances in Peyton Place – her film debut, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award – and the cult film Wild in the Streets...

) on keyboards

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

, hook-handed Abraham Salteen (Larry Bishop

Larry Bishop

Larry Bishop is an American actor, screenwriter and movie director. He is the son of Sylvia Ruzga and comedian Joey Bishop...

) on bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 and trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

, and anthropologist Stanley X (Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...

) on drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

.

When Max is asked to sing at a televised political rally

Political convention

In politics, a political convention is a meeting of a political party, typically to select party candidates.In the United States, a political convention usually refers to a presidential nominating convention, but it can also refer to state, county, or congressional district nominating conventions...

 by Kennedyesque Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 candidate Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook), who's running on a platform to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 (a genuine issue, not passed until 1971), he and the Troopers appear — but Max stuns everyone by calling instead for the voting age to become 14, then finishes the show with an improvised song, "Fourteen Or Fight!", and a call for a demonstration

Demonstration (people)

A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...

.

Max's fans (and other young people, by the thousands) stir to action, and within 24 hours protests have begun in cities around the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Fergus' advisors want him to denounce Max, but instead he agrees to support the demonstrations, and change his campaign — if Max and his group will compromise, accept a voting age of 15 instead, abide by the law, and appeal to the demonstrators to go home peaceably. Max agrees, and the two appear together on television, and in person the next day using the less offensive mantra "Fifteen and Ready".

Most states agree to lower the voting age within days, in the wake of the demonstrations, and Max Frost and the Troopers campaign for Johnny Fergus until the election, which he wins by a landslide. Taking his place in the Senate, Fergus wishes Frost and his people would now just go away, but instead they get involved with Washington

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 politics. When a Congressman from Sally LeRoy's home district dies suddenly, the band enters her in the special election

By-election

A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....

 that follows, and Sally (the eldest of the group, and the only one of majority age to run for office) is voted into Congress by the new teen bloc.

The first bill

Bill (proposed law)

A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....

 Sally introduces is a Constitutional amendment

Constitutional amendment

A constitutional amendment is a formal change to the text of the written constitution of a nation or state.Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation...

 to lower the age requirements for national political office — to 14, and "Fourteen Or Fight!" enters a new phase. A joint session of Congress is called, and the Troopers (by now joined by Fergus' son Jimmy, played by Michael Margotta

Michael Margotta

Michael Margotta is an American actor of Italian descent who currently serves as Artistic Director of The Actor's Center—ROMA after an industry appreciated but popularly under noticed career in Hollywood...

) swing the vote their way by spiking the Washington water supply with LSD

LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...

, and providing all the Senators and Representatives with teenaged guides.

As teens either take over or threaten the reins of government, the Old Guard (those over 30) turn to Max to run for President, and assert his (their) control over the changing tide. Max again agrees, running as a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 to his chagrin, but once in office, he turns the tide on his older supporters. Thirty becomes a mandatory retirement age, while those over 35 are rounded up, sent to "re-education camps", and permanently dosed on LSD. Fergus unsuccessfully attempts to dissuade Max by contacting his estranged parents (Bert Freed

Bert Freed

Bert Freed was a prolific American character actor, voice over actor, and the first actor to portray "Detective Columbo" on television.-Life and career:...

 and Shelley Winters), then tries to assassinate him. Failing at this, he flees Washington with his remaining family, but they are soon rounded up.

With youth now in control of the United States, politically as well as economically, and similar revolutions breaking out in all the world's major countries, Max withdraws the military from around the world (turning them instead into de facto age police), puts computers and prodigies

Child prodigy

A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...

 in charge of the Gross National Product, ships surplus grain for free to third world

Third World

The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...

 nations, disbands the FBI and Secret Service

United States Secret Service

The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...

, and becomes the leader of "the most truly hedonistic society the world has ever known". The final moments of the film indicate, however, that Max and his cohorts may face future intergenerational warfare from an unexpected source.