Twitter

A look back on cinema of the 1970s wouldn’t be complete without considering the work of countercultural icon and filmmaking legend Hal Ashby. From 1970 to 1979, the notoriously bearded and shaggy-haired Ashby churned out seven key films of the New Hollywood era, crafting a string of fascinating features that would go on to become some of the most beloved and seminal works of the decade.

After moving from Utah to Los Angeles in the early 1960s, Ashby eventually got his start in the industry working as an assistant editor at different Hollywood studios around town, where he employed his keen eye for detail and honed his editing chops, which would later come to influence his frenetic yet perceptive directorial style. From his Beau Bridges-led gentrification comedy The Landlord and the morbidly affectionate Harold and Maude to his jagged portraits of post-Vietnam life with The Last Detail and Coming Home to delightful satires like Shampoo and Being There, Ashby’s work, even at its most idiosyncratic, has his touch of bittersweet sincerity, exploring eccentric outsiders making their way in the world.

Today, celebrate Hal Ashby’s birthday with a look back on four of his best films which highlight the director’s keen eye and idiosyncratic directorial style.

Harold and Maude

In December of 1970, Variety began its review of Hal Ashby’s now-classic film with the line: “Harold and Maude has all the fun and gaiety of a burning orphanage.” Opening on Christmas Day, the film was far from a box office smash; it alienated audiences with its audacious love story between a wealthy young depressive and a elderly bohemian. Yet while more prudish audiences were left with a rotten taste in their mouths, Ashby’s endearing existential comedy became a cult sensation and remains so to this day.

Starring Bud Cort as Harold, a fatalistic young man consumed by a morbid obsession with death, the story begins when he meets a free-spirited octogenarian named Maude (Ruth Gordon) while they’re both attending a funeral — for fun. Exuberant, rebellious, and attune to the magic of life, Maude serves as the perfect foil to Harold, and in turn teaches him how to live and how to love. Their emotional connection awakens his world, but just as he’s beginning to join the living, Maude has chosen to make an exit. Ashby’s bizarre and delicately crafted sophomore feature reminds us what it means to be free and to “go out and love some more.” [Where to stream Harold and Maude]

The Last Detail

In 1974, Jack Nicholson took home the Best Actor award at Cannes for his performance in Ashby’s The Last Detail. In the decades of work he’s done since, it’s his role as Billy “Badass” Buddusky that still holds up as one of his finest and most complex roles. With legendary screenwriter Robert Towne adapting Darryl Ponicsan’s novel of the same title, the script was penned specifically for Nicholson. With his then-recent status as a viable star on the rise, Columbia Pictures was pleased when Nicholson signed on for the role, and it was he who convinced Ashby to come onboard the project.

Together, Ashby and Nicholson produced a scruffy and brutish fever pitch of masculine energy and the struggle for personal identity. Starring alongside Nicholson is Otis Young, and the pair play two naval officers ordered to escort a young sailor (played by Randy Quaid, who earned an Academy Award nomination) to prison after he attempts to steal a donation can. As they guzzle down beers and smoke endless cigars, the trio become subjects in a road movie that wavers between desolation and madness in the snow-covered dead of winter. [Where to stream The Last Detail]

Shampoo

As suggested by writer, producer, and star Warren Beatty, quoted in Seth Cagin’s
Hollywood Films of the Seventies: Sex, Drugs, Violence, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Politics, “[Shampoo] is about a lot of quite nice, myopic people going to hell in a handcar and not noticing.” As a rosy-hued satire of late 1960s Los Angeles, the film was released in 1975, but it’s setting is seven years prior over a 24-hour span on the eve of Richard Nixon’s presidential election. Rather than honing in on poltics, however, the film focuses on the lack thereof amongst its self-centered LA lovers. While audiences at the time were turning on and getting off on their newly awakened consciousness, the characters in Shampoo were too busy getting off on their own interpersonal woes to notice the changing world around them.

Co-written by Robert Towne, the film stars Beatty as a Beverly Hills Casanova/hair dresser named George Roundy (inspired by Manson victim Jay Sebring, who died alongside his ex-girlfriend Sharon Tate on that fateful night in August 1969). George maneuvers through his glamorous world alongside his three love interests (played by Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and Lee Grant). Beatty’s George is desperate to open a salon of his own, but he can’t seem to keep his pants on long enough to secure the means to do so. As Ashby’s fourth feature and most star-studded effort to date, Shampoo allowed him to use affinity for playful tales of the human heart while exploring his own way to approach the evolving sexual politics of the time. [Where to stream Shampoo]

Being There

Listed as one of his “Great Movies,” Roger Ebert’s May 1997 review of Ashby’s Being There describes the film as “rare and subtle bird that finds its tone and stays with it.” A peculiar mix of sharp wit and genuine simplicity, the unique atmosphere of the movie is upheld by its star Peter Sellers. Although the second-to-last role of his career, Sellers’ fascinating ability to transform into a character makes for a wonderfully specific and considered performance that feels right at home in Ashby’s world of outsiders.

Starring the iconic actor alongside Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, and Jack Warden, Being There centers on Chance, a sheltered gardener who’s never left the confines his benefactor’s home. But when his employer dies and Chance is thrust into society for the first time, he subsequently is struck by the chauffeur of a business mogul and his wife. The couple mistake Chance’s vague manner of speaking and gardener’s uniform for affluence and invite him into their home, and eventually into their lives. Known for its ambiguous final shot, in retrospect the film pays a beautiful tribute to Sellers as we see him glide out of frame and into the unknown. [Where to stream Being There]

Hillary Weston is a film and culture writer living in Brooklyn. You can find her work on BlackBook, Nylon, and MUBI.

Like what you see? Follow Decider on Facebook and Twitter to join the conversation, and sign up for our email newsletters to be the first to know about streaming movies and TV news!

Photos: Everett Collection