Getting Straight is a 1970 American comedy-drama film written by Robert Kaufman and directed by Richard Rush, adapted from a novel of the same name by Ken Kolb.
Harry Bailey (Elliott Gould), a Vietnam veteran and former student protestor, returns to college so he can get his Master's degree and become a teacher. He feels that he has outgrown activism, despite the fact that his on-and-off girlfriend Jan (Candice Bergen) is heavily involved in the protests on campus. Harry is torn between his sympathies with the protestors and their causes and his desire to become a teacher.
Getting Straight contains examples of:
- The Alleged Car: Harry drives a dented, rusted car with cracked windows and huge tears in the seats. He can't get it to turn off without lots of Percussive Maintenance that unintentionally turns the radio on. Part of the dashboard is so damaged that it electrocutes him when he touches it. Towards the end of the movie, the car finally dies when part of the engine suddenly explodes.
- Big Guy Rodeo: During a protest, a cop is beating a man who's lying on the ground. A woman jumps on his back and pummels his helmet with her fists. He throws her to the ground and is about to start beating her when the man jumps on the cop, knocking him to the ground.
- Book Safe: Nick Philbin (Robert F. Lyons) gives him a book with pot hidden inside.
- Double-Meaning Title: Can refer to Harry's determination to advance himself in establishment ("straight") society, or to his need to get his values and priorities "straight".
- Draft Dodging: After Nick drops out of college, he converts to Buddhism in the hopes of getting a religious exemption. When that doesn't work, he shows up carrying a purse and talking with a lisp, but nobody buys it. He arrives at campus, gleefully crowing about how he defeated the draft once and for all... by joining the Marines. He can't wait to serve his country by firing a machine gun from a helicopter. Harry is shocked by his attitude transplant. Nick soon gets rejected for being "constitutionally inferior," thereby dodging the draft without trying.
- Fish-Eye Lens: Used in P.O.V. shots from Harry's perspective when Vandenburg (Jon Lormer) is telling him to tell the other students about the small concessions the school has made to the protestors' demands, despite Harry's knowledge that giving them so little of what they want will only make things worse.
- Freeze-Frame Ending: The credits roll over a freeze-frame of the riot in the school.
- Match Cut: The movie opens with a shot of Earth as seen from the Moon. The Earth turns red, and then turns into an apple that one student tosses to another.
- Police Brutality: During a protest, police beat protestors with batons and spray them with fire hoses, knocking them down a flight of concrete stairs.
- Sperm as People: The students watch a sex ed video that shows animated sperm swimming around an egg. One student yells, "Back, back, you fools! We've been tricked! It's only a wet dream!"
- Teacher/Student Romance: Harry flirts with Sheila (Jenny Sullivan), a student in the remedial English class he teaches at the college. They have sex while he's temporarily broken up with Jan.
- Trash the Set: The movie ends with protestors storming the building and ripping the rooms apart, throwing paper and furniture everywhere.
- Waving Signs Around: A common sight on campus is students waving signs protesting the ROTC, the Vietnam War, and anti-drug laws and calling for the voting age to be lowered to eighteen.
