Welcome to my new short series called Hippie Hotties where I plan to talk about a hippie-era movie that stretched the limits of free love and sex by showing off some sexy nudes on the big screen. This era of experimentation led to some pretty far-out films, so let's take a look!
Stuart Hagmann directed today's poignant story about campus protests and the political youth movement. A college student on the rowing team doesn't really care about politics, but he gets involved with the rising revolutionary movements on his college campus to meet chicks. He does meet some groovy political babes, but he also gets swept up in the movement. Let's check out The Strawberry Statement for an interesting look at the phenomena of the hippie era.
Bruce Davison plays our leading man, Simon, and his best friend is played by Bud Cort of Harold & Maude fame. A very young Bob Balaban also plays a college organizer. Hagmann had previously directed the spy series, Mannix, so he was an interesting choice for this hippie film that has a very indie feel.
Kristina Holland immediately shows up naked within the first few minutes of the movie. She runs out of a guy's room topless and then returns in her nude-colored bra and panties as she plays Irma, the chick that our leading man's roommate is sleeping with. After hearing the way he talked about her to his roommate, she decides that she doesn't want to see this new guy. She asks for help zipping up her dress so that she can get out of there.
His roommate immediately mentions "The Strawberry Statement" which is what the students' demands for change are called by the school's authority figures. He explains that their demands for change on campus are called that because "telling them we have an opinion is like telling him we like strawberries". Strawberries are delicious, so it is a confusing statement from the school's deans, but I think they mean that it is stupid or pointless. The movie detours from these revolutions when our leading man falls in love with a girl played by Kim Darby and we get to see his adventures in love for about an hour.
We do see the boys chat up other hot hippie chicks in the movie and plenty of actresses make very early appearances in this film. Jess Walton and Jeannie Berlin both show up clothed to protests and would go nude in future films.
He and his girl have a brief breakiup in the movie and ur leading man gets unfairly beaten up by members of the row team. When he returns to his revolutionary friends, they use his bruised face to say that he was beaten up by the cops. Of course, we know that's not what happened and it does not really go anywhere, but it does make a socialist hippie chick seduce him.
This long-haired, redhead played by Kristin Van Buren asks him, "did you know Lenin liked women with big breasts?" Honey, everyone does, but never mind that as we see how this scene plays out. He is still hung up on his chick, so he nervously responds "Did you see The Graduate?" Then he advises that she should. Um, kid...forget Mrs. Robinson. This sexy socialist IS trying to seduce you.
He gets overwhelmed and nervous as she decides to give him something "a hero like him deserves". She tells him to relax as she makes her way down to his pants. We then hear music as the camera pans over to a photo of Che Guevera instead of showing us the goods. We can dig this revolution.
After this, he reunites with his girlfriend which is the stability he needed to join his comrades on campus and demand fair practices on campus. What are their demands exactly? They want the school to admit more non-white people, to update several of its practices and curriculum, and to cut its donations to the US military. Our leading man makes a passionate plea to one of the dean's secretaries by telling her, "You've been hearing about revolution, right? You've seen it on television and read about it in the newspapers. It's not there. It's here." Hey, that's a far-out quote!
From there, the movie is mostly about campus protests. The students stage a sit-in in the school gymnasium where they loudly sing "Give Peace a Chance" as the riot gear officers prepare to fight them outside. The officers rush in while the students are peacefully protesting and begin spraying gas. The movie shows what this is like from a truly specific angle for a white. We see everything from the students' perspective and it's all incredibly innocent, so when the officers rush in like that it feels dystopian.
But that's what it felt like to a lot of these kids at the time! Remember Kent State? That escalated wildly. These things really were happening at college campuses around the country. It was an incredibly tumultuous time for young people who suddenly found themselves being drafted for a faraway war. T
This film is based on the very real happenings across American campuses as well as the non-fiction book The Strawberry Statement: Notes from a Campus Revolutionary which was released by its 19-year-old writer in 1967 and took place at Columbia University. This film was supposed to be shot at Columbia, but they withdrew the offer so the crew went all the way to Berkeley instead.
The movie ends with Simon getting beaten up by a group of officers. A cheery folk song starts to play as we get a flashback of Simon's growth throughout the movie. This ending, and the content in general, really remind me of Medium Cool. Down to the cinema-verite way the film is shot. There is a sad ending, presumably a death, and it feels very sudden - but the film doesn't really show us the death. It ends on things outside of it, proving a point perhaps that the world keeps turning even if we die fighting for what we believe in.
The Strawberry Statement is almost two movies wrapped into one. The first half is a coming-of-age story about Simon and his college friend and the last half hour is all devoted to college revolutionaries. It's like a college buddy movie with a political bent. It's worth a watch for a unique and intimate look at campus protests at the time and it is fairly light-hearted up until the end. The ending would have been groovy if only everyone had just given peace a chance!
