Warren Beatty's self-designed vehicle (he produced and co-wrote) assigns him the role of a womanizing hairdresser who careers along a standardized course for philanderers, ending up in a heap of repentent whimpers. The beauty parlor itself is used merely as a pivot for making quick connections to various stations on the Beverly Hills social circuit. It's a putdown comedy, and the winking observation of manners and mores elicits very few laughs. Still, Robert Towne's dialogue shows a good ear for the discordancies and disjunctions of polite conversation. And Jack Warden's impersonation of a business exec, always self-conscious, always sizing people up, is quite lovely. It is he, more than Julie Christie or Goldie Hawn or Lee Grant, who best represents the hopes and illusions of coiffure art -- a plain fellow, rounded, balding, lipless, but spruced up with teased red-orange hair and a with-it, well-tended mustache. Directed by Hal Ashby. (1975) — Duncan Shepherd