Watched: January 24 2026

Director: Barry Shear

Starring: Christopher Jones, Shelley Winters, Diane Varsi, Hal Holbrook, Richard Pryor, Millie Perkins, Ed Begley

Year: 1968

Runtime: 1h 37min

Happy New Year, everyone! Sorry for the lack of activity, but we’ve been very busy and important people, travelling the world everywhere from Cambodia to Kirkenes on the Norwegian/Russian border (alright – only those two places, but still. Very important!) with little time to watch movies or write about them. Now we’re back and we bring you 2026’s first review, Wild in the Streets (1968).

Remember Privilege? Well, Wild in the Streets is its slightly sillier American cousin. Max Flatow (Jones) grows up with an overbearing mother, a volatile family life, and some psychopathic tendencies. He runs away and reinvents himself as Max Frost – an incredibly accomplished pop star surrounded by other precocious young people ranging in age from 14 to 25.

Max is approached by Congressman Johnny Fergus (Halbrook) who is running for Senate and who wants to lower the voting age to 18. His sons are huge fans of Max, and Fergus sees him as a way of getting support from the younger generation. However, the politician gets more than he bargained for when Max and his vast following become more and more involved in the politics of it all. First, they insist on further lowering the voting age – not to 18 but 15. They then manage to get Max’s girlfriend Sally LeRoy (Varsi), a former child star with a strong penchant for acid and an equally strong aversion to clothes, voted into the Senate to really change things up. And change things they do…

Parallel to all this, Max’s estranged mother Daphne (Winters) does her best to capitalize on her son’s success while desperately clinging to her own fading youth. She also completely steals the show! And possibly commits vehicular manslaughter (which somehow never comes back to bite anyone in the ass. We were expecting Chekhov’s Dead Child™, but we never hear of the incident again).

We quite enjoyed this, although when it comes to the idea of abusing pop cultural icons for political power, we personally think Privilege was a better executed version. However, we loved the swinging ’60s vibe, Max’s truly horrible hairstyle (you need to see it from the back!), Sally LeRoy’s fashion sense (less is truly more), the crazy mama Daphne, and the fact that no one really came off well in this. It was a wild ride indeed! Still, as over the top as the story arch and the portrayal of the political process were, the plot was still not as silly as electing a failed business man and reality TV star as president. But somehow less dangerous.

Now, as ancient over-forties (Sister the Youngest had her 40th birthday in December! Happy birthday!), we were naturally sceptical to the idea of anyone over 35 being considered obsolete and put out to pasture. On the other hand, if someone allowed us to retire at 30 and then put us in a commune with free drugs from the age of 35, we might not be entirely opposed to the idea… Although we suspect we’d be over it pretty quickly. Expecially as the compound was full of other people. Which Hell truly is made up of.

What we learned: The power of rock compels you. Dealing in absolutes is rarely productive. And again – stop blindly worshipping people!

MVP: Max’s mom! Shelley Winters, you absolute legend.

Next time: Yellow Submarine (1968)