“Model Shop” (1969)- once in a while you stumble upon an obscure gem, and I did with this interesting film

This YouTuber who liked discussing cities in films did a video on this film and Los Angeles at the time.

It’s available to stream on YouTube

Tarantino discussing the film.

I agree with him and the female host, Lockwood gives a compelling performance. At the time his performance was criticized and people who saw it felt he gave a terrible performance, but I disagree. He comes off as someone who is depressed and feels nothing, just flowing through the day. That feels intentional to me.

It’s a shame Lockwood never had a mainstream career or was respected as an actor. The studio cast him as the lead in this as a vehicle. He was just coming off 2001 so they felt this could be a vehicle for him.

He says the failure of this film hurt the careers of its cast. Sad. Lockwood deserved better.

age 87 / a survivor / he probably has some stories

Gary Lockwood was a very masculine man. He definitely deserved a more mainstream career. He could have had some of Steve McQueen’s roles.

R5 and I’d love to hear them

I saw Model Shop at some retro theater in Manhattan in the 1980s. I recall being very impressed with it and wondering why it was never mentioned by any film periodical or book. I later rediscovered Model Shop around 2018 when it was re-released on Blu-Ray. I appreciated it even more with the second viewing. Gary Lockwood gave a great performance. He also was probably at the height of his attractiveness at age 30, both looks and his body. The film is also an amazing snapshot of the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles in the late 1960s.

Model Shop

It’s a visually striking movie, and Lockwood is effortlessly sexy. He’s mostly known for playing second-fiddle to Keir Dullea in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

He was married to Stefanie Powers at the time, I believe, a starlet in films like “Palm Springs Weekend” and “McClintock!” (a hymn to the spanking fetish) who became a TV star with “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Hart to Hart.”

But OP you haven’t mentioned the most important reveal of the film, the thing that puts all the rest into context — the Lockwood character is about to be drafted and sent to Vietnam and his anxiety and aimlessness is something a lot of young men of the time could identify with.

R10 what was visually striking about it?

I didn’t mention it because every synopsis of the film mentions it. If you google the movie you’re gonna see that 😉

This is the movie that inspired Jakob Dylan and his friend to make Echo in the Canyon. There are clips from it in their film.

The film flopped, but you could always count on one viewer who did see it, since he watched everything...

Model Shop was a small budget French style film. The director was a French director and this was his first American film. He wanted to bring the French New Wave style films that were popular over there to the states and make them popular here. Of course they needed to be American set and made.

I don’t think anyone expected it to be a hit but not to do as poorly as it did. It was deemed a failure and tanked the careers of almost everyone involved, but no one acknowledges the film never even had a nationwide release. It was released in NYC first and then LA in limited runs and then released in a few more theaters before being pulled. I know someone who saw the film in NYC back in 1969 at a theater that showed art films, foreign films and indie films. It wasn’t even shown at a regular theater.

So the fact they deemed it such a massive flop without even truly trying is a bit extreme. Them allowing the actors to pay the price for its failure is even worse.

R14 here, and with all that said, yes, this is the exact film Don Draper would like. A very small, low budget, obscure film most never even heard about.

His uncle, Mike Yurosek, is credited with creating baby-cut carrots.