The brilliant comic Peter Sellers stars in this slapstick send-up of America on the verge of the counter-cultural revolution. It's one of the few 1960s satires of the hippie culture that doesn't appear to be concocted by grumpy old men, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas. Harold Fine (the protagonist) is a staid Jewish attorney and engaged to the equally straitlaced Joyce (Joyce Van Patten), Harold wistfully dreams of having a more exciting lifestyle. Through a fluke, Harold is obliged to drive a station wagon emblazoned with "psychedelic" imagery; it is with this vehicle that he picks up his flower-child brother Herbie (David Arkin), and Herbie's groovy chick Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young). Rather enjoying the company of people outside of his establishment orbit, Harold lets Nancy stay over at her place, and she plies him with marijuana-spiked brownies. His inhibitions released by the spiked pastries, Harold kicks over the traces, grows his hair to shoulder length, and embarks upon an affair with Nancy. But when the effects of the brownies wear off, Harold suddenly feels like the rather foolish middle-aged man that he is. The beauty of I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is that it patronizes neither the hippies nor the Establishment characters; both groups are shown as human beings rather than agit-prop stereotypes. Paul Mazursky co-wrote the script and Hy Averback Directed.1968, 92 min. Rated R.
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