Harvey Keitel is a record producer for one of the big labels. He wants to sign Earth Wind & Fire, but the geniuses who wear suits want the happy bubble gum pop sound purveyed by a one-hit-wonder family group of Bert Parks, Cynthia Bostick, and Jimmy Boyd; every other label has one, and some have two. Keitel is ordered to apply his magic, so he takes Miss Bostick tooling around Philadelphia in his Morgan while she acts surprised when every disc jockey asks how you tell a boy chromosome from a female chromosome. Keitel wines Asher and dines her and beds her and weds her, happy as a clam in chowder.

It's a look at the world of money in recording back in the day, with Keitel standing in for all the cool young rebels. Clearly, the movie producers knew they had a talent on their hands and were trying to move him from Scorsese hood to matinee idol. I guess they're still trying.

Harvey Keitel gives a typically top-rate performance in one of his first-ever lead roles as brash, ambitious, uncompromising young staff producer Coleman Buckmaster, a real talented hot shot with a discerning "golden ear" and the son of a famous jazz pianist to boot. Coleman's eager to cut some tracks with the smokin' R&B outfit the Group (none other than Earth, Wind & Fire in their awesomely funky prime),but his rigidly commercial greedhead label A-Chord Records run by uptight, mob-connected middle-of-the-road square Jerry (a properly unhip Ed Nelson) wants him to record a hit single for the hideously insipid Carpenters-like pop pap trio the Pages, an allegedly squeaky clean bunch which includes smarmy pedophile step-dad Franklin (a perfectly vile Bert Parks),bitchy, neurotic daughter Velour (a fine, flighty turn by perky, comely brunette Cynthia Bostwick),and hedonistic smack addict son Gary (former 50's juvenile sitcom staple Jimmy Boyd). The extremely naive and idealistic Coleman must learn pronto how the music business truly works and play the lowdown dirty game as best he can or else he'll lose both the Group and his credibility.

Adopting an acrid, incisive, corrosively harsh and unsparingly biased script from syndicated columnist and rock journalist Robert Lipsyte, director Sig Shore (who's most famous for producing "Superfly") shows a decidedly cynical and unflattering depiction of the various bribes, pay-offs, broken promises, back-stabbings, duplicities and double-dealings which are an unpleasant, yet intrinsic part of the largely corrupt rock music business, with particularly thoughtful thematic asides concerning Art vs. Commerce, fighting to retain one's artistic integrity, and the then recent push to homogenize rock into bland, useless, creatively stagnant mainstream respectability. Moreover, this gritty, downbeat gem offers a rare fascinating, minutely detailed and wholly believable backstage glimpse at the recording process as recording booth console cowboy Coleman struggles gamely in his own words to "make chicken salad out of chicken s**t." Appearing in nifty bits are disc jockey and legendary "fifth Beatle" Murray the K as leering, lecherous DJ Big John Little (Velour bites his hand after Big John paws her thigh during a live on-air interview!),New York soul DJ and host of NBC's "Friday Night Videos" Frankie Crocker as his own jazzy'n'jivin' self, R&B singer-songwriter Doris Troy (she penned the lovely "Just One Look") as a church pianist, and tubby, bald-pated 70's blaxploitation favorite Charles MacGregor as a priest at a wedding. The rather poor sound and Allan Metzger's sloppy cinematography inadvertently add to the film's overall ragged, rough-around-the-edges documentary-style authenticity. Although technically a bit lacking, this movie overall still rates as one of the great, most bitterly pessimistic unsung behind-the-scenes rocksploitation gems from the 70's.

One of those movies that you don't hear a lot about, and it's not bad, really, for a music group's outright propaganda piece: herein promoting the soulful funk/disco outfit Earth, Wind & Fire. And with Harvey Keitel as a sane version of record-producing phenom Phil Spector, this should've been a goldmine... or at least silver...

But the problem with THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD is it spends too much time on an uninteresting romance between Keitel's Coleman Buckmaster and the lead singer of a white milquetoast singing trio, who have as little talent as Earth, Wind & Fire's fictional band The Group has soul and motivation...

Sadly, we only see the latter jamming twice: the best during an opening credit sequence liken to, say, a car racing flick with a line of rod rods revving at the starting gate as The Group warms up each instrument with funky delight...

Then when Keitel's given the task to instead record a single for the other outfit, called The Pages, the ingenue alone is the best thing going: But mostly for her looks: think exploitation starlet Angel Tompkins had she joined The Partridge Family...

Introducing Cynthia Bostick as one of those progressive 1970's women who says what she means and holds little back, acting like cocky go-to dudes did in the 1950's while making the producer/artist courtship anything but subtle, or intriguing. She practically throws herself into Keitel's arms, and there could have been some worthy sparks flying, especially in the recording studio where things go way too easily for both...

As an actress, Bostick only has three credits to her name (the rest on television). And ironically, the only other potentially great character is played by a tough looking Italian with this his sole effort, named Charles McGregor, as a mobster-like industry mogul, who seems more fitting a movie where a far too subdued Keitel would have fit much better. He has a way of making threats without saying much to his sellout underlings Michael Dante and Ed Nelson, both repeating the exposition/plotline mantra: that Keitel's "Buck" needs to think about money over artistic integrity...

So it's that much more frustrating for Earth, Wind & Fire not having a more active part, musically and otherwise, and it seems like Maurice White and company were ready and willing: this could have been their very own ROCK AND ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, and four years beforehand.

Ultimately, a fantastic twist end explaining how Keitel bedded down the ingenue so quickly, and without any obstacles, makes up for the slow, uneventful buildup. But overall, as an attempted realistic/edgy glimpse into the music industry, THAT'S THE WAY OF THE WORLD simply doesn't pay enough dues.