Hal Ashby's vicious social satire Shampoo sees self-absorbed Los Angeleans in 1968 preoccupied with their sexual liaisons and petty grievances, oblivious to the upcoming election that would see Richard Nixon triumph and bring about the end of their swinging lifestyle. George (Warren Beatty) is a lothario hairstylist in his mid-30s stubbornly clinging to youth, but his refusal to grow up is starting to cost him dearly, as his favourite ex-girlfriend Jackie (Julie Christie) is moving on with her life while George struggles to keep his other lady friends Jill (Goldie Hawn) and Felicia (Lee Grant in an Oscar-winning role) from finding out about each other. An attempt to get funding for a salon of his own from Felicia's husband throws everyone together in a lavish election night party where George's tangled web quickly begins to unravel.

Coming directly after the 1974 Watergate scandal that undid Nixon's presidency, Shampoo remains a fevered flashback to one of the most tumultuous times in American politics. What began as a star-vehicle becomes a layered look at a self-righteous society in decline, thanks to Ashby's sardonic view of Hollywood liberalism and a thoroughly nasty screenplay by Chinatown writer Robert Towne, and Beatty's willingness to subvert his own playboy image: as a man clinging to youth, riding a motorcycle from one tryst to another and gradually realising that the world he knows is about to change forever.