Hal Ashby’s deceptively sunny direction of Robert Towne and Warren Beatty’s sex-comedy screenplay is brimful of Barbie hair, open shirts and Triumph motorcycles, as libidinous pompadour George (Beatty) juggles four Beverly Hills sirens with his own nascent career plans. Yet the oppressive setting (Nixon’s ’68 election night), Beatty’s stunningly lugubrious performance and his eventual comeuppance all feed a brash vein of cynicism that shapes the entire movie.
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