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I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!
Harold Fine is a self-described square - a 35-year-old Los Angeles lawyer who's not looking forward to middle age nor his upcoming wedding. His life changes when he falls in love with Nancy, a free-spirited, innocent, and beautiful young hippie. After Harold and his family enjoy some of her "groovy" brownies, he decides to "drop out" with her and become a hippie too. But can he return to his old life when he discovers that the hippie lifestyle is just a little too independent and irresponsible for his tastes?
Release : | 1968 |
Rating : | 6.2 |
Studio : | Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, |
Crew : | Director of Photography, Director, |
Cast : | Peter Sellers Jo Van Fleet Leigh Taylor-Young Joyce Van Patten David Arkin |
Genre : | Comedy Romance |
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I'll tell you why so serious
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
Best movie ever!
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
This film was a real disappointment. I found it evidently manufactured by an older mainstreaming Hollywood machine. Jokes were very dated. Jokes seemed to be for those unfamiliar with "The Hippie Problem" facing conservative America. Jewish humor was overdone. Music was forgettably bad. Big splashy posters were good. I recall that hippies lost their clothes at the drop of a hat. Hippies did not sleep with boots on their feet. Marxian humor couldn't save "overcrowding small room" scenes. Not a funny movie. A timepiece that was assembled by old Hollywood. Many hippie references in movies produced in American 1960's missed the mark. Sensationalizing costumes and shuffling wig wearing young people climbing in and out of psychedelically painted jalopies did not reflect the times.
With a strange title, but a memorable title song, this film is meant to be a satire on the hippie era and emancipating oneself. It is popular among those who were around in the 1960s, but is questionable whether the film will amuse other audiences. It is not very funny, with jokes that are more so absent than lame, a rather dull story, and really not very much to it at all. As usual, Peter Sellers brings some sparks to the material; the rest of the cast do very little with their roles, and some verge on being over-the-top. The film deserves credit for the title song, Seller's performance, and perhaps providing a snapshot of an era long past. It is not a particularly good film though. Hy Averback would have more success later on, directing episodes of the TV series 'M*A*S*H'.
I don't feel like I can rate this movie much higher than 7, although I did rather enjoy it. It began slow, but once Sellers meets his female match in Nancy's character, things start to move. I was personally a fan of all the "inadvertent" troubles Sellers's character kept getting into once he picked up the new psychedelic car, and how he was getting beaten down by all of the things in his own life. I'm sure that, at the time, the scene with the "groovy" brownies was quite new and perhaps had not been seen at all on TV or in movies, but it seems pretty predictable now (particularly with its use in "That 70s Show" and Never Been Kissed). The best thing about it is that it seems to provide a pretty good snapshot of the late 60s, from which my own remembrances of the era are in the form of not being born until 7 years after this movie was made.
Peter Seller's (modern) comedy is set in early 70's California. In many ways, this coming of age comedy is the story of Peter Sellers. Leaving his wife for the single life and "swinging" with several women until marrying his 5th or 6th wife, Sellers kept moving, searching for something else. Much like the final scene, Sellers is seen alone running after the unknown as he continues to find himself. While this is a comedy, the movie has many (hidden) dramas among the mix of laughter and jokes. Also, the movie uses many stereotypes to get laughs. Not that PC for today's audience, it is still funny. Having 10 Mexicans in 1 car, having the Jewish family ask how much the bumper cost at the garage, the hippies preaching peace and the yuppies talking about sex all get laughs in this Peter Sellers comedy.