Up Against the Wall--and here's your ticket stub

A two-parter. First, a clip I had never seen, even though I was familiar with the song. It's from the 1968 AIP youth-exploitation film Wild in the Streets, with Christopher Jones (whose bod almost got Ryan's Daughter an R-rating) as Max Frost, a demagogue rock'n'roller who takes over the government (his drummer was played by Richard Pryor). I never saw the movie, hating such cynical crap then and now. But the theme song was cool: "The Shapes of Things to Come," performed by a band masquerading as Max Frost and the Troopers. I've learned that the song was written by (surprise, surprise) Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, whose other ditties include "We've Got to Get Out of This Place" (our real anthem at the time) and "Kicks."

So here's pretty-boy Chris Jones lip-synching "The Shapes of Things to Come" in a scene so boring you wonder how they took over.