Cinema: Blow Dry

SHAMPOO

Directed by HAL ASHBY

Screenplay by ROBERT TOWNE and WARREN BEATTY

Shampoo is a problem. At its best moments it is crafty, funny and high-spirited, but sometimes—even simultaneously—it is wormy and disingenuous. Just when a hard edge is crucial, the people who made it fall away from their best instincts and strongest insights into gross sentimentality.

Warren Beatty, who produced Shampoo and took a strong hand in the script, appears as a satyric—if not entirely satiric—Beverly Hills hairdresser named George, whose specialty is a nifty cut and a fast bedding for selected clients....