about Hair
Last night C wanted to watch the movie version of Hair, and I failed my will save to tear myself away. You may take an extended rant as read here about how the movie is "based on" the musical only to the extent of the names of the characters and the titles of the songs, tempered slightly by the fact I never actually saw the musical-but the changes wrought to the soundtrack were drastic enough to turn me off. But anyway, that wasn't what I wanted to remark on.
What I wanted to remark on was the cast: Hair was the movie that made stars out of Treat Williams and Beverly D'Angelo; John Savage already had established credits; Annie Golden never really broke into star status; but all of them have long, long, long lists of credits pretty continuously since 1979. At the other extreme, Hair is the one and only credit in IMDB for Don "Woof" Dacus, and Cheryl "Hud's fiancee" Barnes has two. Some made it big, some sank without a trace; that would seem to argue for judgment strictly on the talent, with little or no halo effect.
What I wanted to remark on was the cast: Hair was the movie that made stars out of Treat Williams and Beverly D'Angelo; John Savage already had established credits; Annie Golden never really broke into star status; but all of them have long, long, long lists of credits pretty continuously since 1979. At the other extreme, Hair is the one and only credit in IMDB for Don "Woof" Dacus, and Cheryl "Hud's fiancee" Barnes has two. Some made it big, some sank without a trace; that would seem to argue for judgment strictly on the talent, with little or no halo effect.