The revolution will not be patronized. Wrapping up his M.A. at a small college, Harry, a Vietnam vet with the requisite cynicism, is caught between fuddy-duddy faculty and dissident students. Played by a glib, mercurial Elliott Gould, Harry views the left and the right with equal disdain. What he does love is learning, the purity of ideas-but the tree of knowledge is about to get napalmed. When the police go on a rampage, clubbing anything with tuition, the students rebel in a frosh–like frenzy, taking over the school. Upon its release, Getting Straight irked the critical class for its equivocal exposé of campus unrest. Harry does indeed waffle about allegiances as he walks unscathed through the student upheaval, a Hallmark version of hell. But what's most fascinating is how the personal and the political merge-when his gal Jan (a well–candied Candice Bergen) finally yields to his affections, she quips, "It's the least I can do to prevent World War III."