Peter Anton The drama between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward carried this film for me until the arena scene. Newman idealizing to the crowd during utter chaos is the most unlikely and disappointing scene I've ever seen in the movies. It all broke down at that point for me. Like actors playing on stage on a sinking cruise ship, the floor fell out beneath them. Successive scenes seemed as in a dream or suddenly a reel from another film was being shown by mistake. Don't waste your time on this travesty of an abortion. You'll wish you had gotten drunk at your local pub instead. There would be better conclusions there about the state of the country and world than you'll come away with from this film.

bkoganbing A lot of what was predicted in the film Network about the media was also put forth in this film about radio WUSA. Sad to say it was laid on a bit too thick by its players and director.Paul Newman who had a lot of faith in this project plays an itinerant disc jockey who both gets a job at this New Orleans based radio station WUSA and takes up with hooker Joanne Woodward, a girl whose heart really isn't in her work anyway.As station owner Pat Hingle says, "this is a station with a point of view" and Hingle expects that point to be emphasized at all times. At that time the Richard Nixon White House was big on telling us that they were looking toward the great 'silent majority' of Americans who took the 'my country right or wrong' dictum to the exponential height. That's WUSA's point of view.Newman is not a terribly sympathetic figure here which is one of the reasons the film flattens out. He sees what's wrong, but just goes with the flow. A whole lot like the characters with one exception in that other Louisiana based political drama, All The King's Men.One who doesn't is Anthony Perkins who plays this rather pitiable 'survey taker' whose job is really to foster racial discontent by getting minorities thrown off welfare. I imagine there were many a Perkins out there, but this one doesn't like being taken for a fool and he reacts most violently. Perkins is probably the character you most remember from WUSA.WUSA correctly predicted the advent of right wing talk radio about fifteen years before it became a fact. Rush Limbaugh would have been right at home on Pat Hingle's station. They've even got a right wing political preacher played by Laurence Harvey as part of their family. Harvey's another interesting character, but he's also laid on a bit thick for my taste. He should have adapted a more subtle approach to the part.I wish I could rate such a prescient film as WUSA a bit higher, but the heavy handed approach just gets in the way.

dsolgoo-net I think this is one of Newman's better films, on the level of Hud and The Hustler. Newman plays Reinhart, a man at the end of his rope. He's finished. He's quit. He has no hopes. He used to play saxophone but he couldn't make the scene so he's a "communicator" now, having gotten himself a job at WUSA, a right-wing radio station.He meets Geraldine (Joanne Woodward) who hasn't. She's got a story. She was married once and the boy put a gun to his head. I guess casting her as a prostitute was the only way they could think of telling a story of a guy moving in with a girl that quickly in 1970. But what's important is the story she has to tell and how Reinhart fits into that story. Other than that glitch the acting is superb and the dialog superlative.Perkins plays a creepy bleeding heart, appropriately named Rainey, with such authority that it's enough in itself to make you understand Reinhart's cynicism. "W-W-W-W-What's going on R-R-R-R-Reinhardt?" Rainey asks, confronting Reinhart about the goings-on at WUSA. One of Reinhart's hippie friends interrupts: "Go to the zoo and watch the monkeys, man. That's what's going' on."Reinhart has a different answer: "I too am a moralist," he says with undisguised contempt, "so I understand your dilemma... but there IS a solution to it." "Oh yeah?" responds Rainey, "and w-w-what would that be, Reinhart?" "Drop dead," says Reinhart, "DROP DEAD!" It's one of Reinhart's defining lines, the other being (in reaction to Geraldine's thrill that he's got a job at WUSA) "Yeah, great: I'm part of a pattern in someone else's head.")If you're interested in the extremes of political personality, this is one of the best. It reminds me of Henry Miller's comment in Reds that people out to solve the world's problems either don't have any of their own or don't have the guts to face them. Reinhart's a man in the middle. He knows his problem and he's not only got no solution - not for him or anyone else - he's pretty certain there is none. Yet he's no nihilist. On the contrary, he's an ideological purist. Like Rainey, Reinhart is appropriately named. Look up "rein" in a German-English dictionary. Welcome to the future. There's likely to be a lot more Reinharts as the years go by. How will we avoid the tragedies that occur when their hopelessness meet our hopes? I hope Paramount releases this movie on DVD one September 11th.

fardarter As a relatively recent resident of the US, I continue to be astonished at how quickly American audiences forget their own history. I saw WUSA many years ago when I still lived in my native Italy (the Italian version was titled "Un Uomo Oggi" = "A Man Today"!). Two snippets of the film have been with me for all these years. The first is the radio host that invites all to drop what they are doing, go to the window, open it, and start screaming something like "I am fed up and I will no longer put up with this!" The second snippet is the last line delivered in the movie by the character interpreted by Paul Newman -- and I will not say what it says to avoid spoiling it. The themes are big and understandably audiences nowadays are impatient of 'dialog that sounds like speeches' (to quote an unfair reviewer on this site). The south, the issues of bigotry, racism, the Seventies, civic disobedience. At least the dialog has something to say, unlike so many films of the past 30 years. There is so much recent American history in this movie that it should be a mandatory assignment for college-age kids. Most people happily ignore its existence. Is there a way to convince anyone to make this piece available in DVD? It is too important to be neglected. No matter what Roger Greenspun says in his review appeared in the New York Times of November 2, 1970. In those days the Vietnam War coverage in the media made every single political reference seem like another opportunity for constipated American audiences to launch into yet one more conspiracy theory. And the Grenspun review blames WUSA for being 'ponderously allusive'. Maybe, with the hiatus of the past thirty-something years, the allusiveness will seem by now much less allusive and, who knows, we might enjoy this beautiful rendition of Robert Stone's novel. Besides the big issues, however, the movie is quite enjoyable. My vote of 8 only evaluates the viewing pleasure as entertainment.