Infierno en Sunset Street

Down at General Hospital, recovering from her acid-induced statutory gang-rape at the hands of Sunset Strip "long-hairs", twenty-something teenager Mimsey Farmer gets snippy with her police captain daddy, Aldo Ray, and sneers, "Things that happen to me aren't usually fatal." Maybe not, Mimsey, they can sure damage a girl's career. Unbelievably bad expose' of the wild life of teenagers who terrorize LA by standing around passively on the Strip wearing groovey clothes and carrying signs that say things like "We want peace, not police." Career high-point for Mickey Rooney's kid, who does more flipping of his hair than any given season of Charlie's Angels. Most ludicrous [and longest] moment: Mimsey accidentally drops acid and does a very long, robotic interpretive dance with lots of arched-back, breasts-out wanna-be Ann-Margret faux-eroticism. Groovey, Baby. Best line: "Who's the rat-fink that put the finger on us?" Favorite character: the girl in the cool green dress who takes acid and spends the rest of the movie draping herself across various pices of furniture, railings, window sills, etc. and trying to laugh demonically. Great micro-scene by Margaretta Ramsey as Mimsey's pre-Jerry Springer alcoholic hag-mom.

I must concur that this is the Reefer Madness of the 60's, only funnier.

The producers are so out of touch that a lot of the hippie culture seems to straddle the beatnik era, with the kids congregating in smoky dives called Pandora's Box, and the bad girl sports black Carolyn Jones-type hair and wears arm bracelets, and she brings to mind Peter Seller's sinister female companion in "Lolita".

And in the annals of memorable screen images, few can compare with Mimsey Farmer's extended Martha Graham modern dance reaction to dropping acid.

All this, plus Mickey Rooney's kid saying "groovy" a lot.

Inspired by actual incidents in 1960's Los Angeles, this typically contrived and trite take on the situation tries to be enlightening, but more often comes off as amusing. Farmer is a lovely high school teen who lives with her drunken mother and hasn't seen her policeman father for over 4 years. She falls in with a crowd of kids who stay out late and drink and do drugs or worse. After being picked up once for breaking curfew, she ventures out again and comes to regret it, her seemingly insignificant decision kicking off a chain of events that leads to the title riot. Ray, as her father, gives a pleasant, solid, if somewhat wooden performance. Most of his scenes involve sitting in a bland police station and talking with his somewhat prissy British partner Evans (whose own wife admits that the police force made fun of him when they moved there!) Farmer is gorgeous, all teased hair and fun 60's clothing. She gives an adequate performance topped off by a screamingly funny acid trip routine which starts off robotic and ends up Ann-Margret. Other "kids" in the cast include Rooney (Mickey's son) who is mostly hidden behind tinted glasses and a mop of hair that he overacts with constantly, raven-haired Mock who sports some kooky, but fun 60's get-ups and lean, cute Haydn, who resembles a young Tom Cruise, but with an edge. Not to be believed is pink-haired (!) Petra as Farmer's slovenly, child-like lush of a mother who pretty much just leans and lays around the furniture whining while exposing a fleshy shoulder. As the film opens, a crisp narrator warns of the "youth problem" while stock footage of actual L.A. is uneasily combined with studio sets. Packed, dark streets are hilariously cut to bright, clean sparsely populated sidewalks. Adults in the area complain about the outlandishly dressed and coiffed teens who (gasp!) walk around in turtlenecks, cardigans, sportcoats and the like (the band members too!) Little did they know how good they had it! These men wouldn't be able to enter a Wal-Mart or a mall today without having a heart attack on the spot! A few actual hippies are brought in to plead their case and these realistic people clash noticeably with the actor-types who portray the other characters in the film. One thing to be said about the movie is that it goes a long way to present both sides of the situation and gives a surprisingly balanced account of the issues (especially considering the generation of the men who produced the film. ) The music sways from groovy fun to ear-splitting noise, but it's neat to have a record of the style of the times. Ray has a fight scene at the end that is meant to be abrupt and shocking, but thanks to the uproarious music and staging, is akin to a scene from "Batman". All that's missing are the cartoon "Bop!" and "Thwaap!" balloons. There's an impossibly annoying reporter in the film who does more to incite trouble than anyone. He somehow teleports from the hospital to a live TV studio within minutes, at the end of the film, to deliver his dry commentary. The film is worth a look for a glimpse at how this issue was presented at the time and for some of the music and clothes, but can't be taken seriously as a document of the times.

This relic was truly fascinating. Bad, not terrible enough to be unwatchable, but bad enough to be thoroughly entertaining.

When talking to the cops, the girls say stuff like "My name is Elisabeth Ann, but my friends call me Liz Ann" and "My name is Andrea and my friends call me Andy". And cop replies, "Are they really your friends, honey?" For some reason I found that scene absurdly humorous. That is a good example of the writing and acting in this movie.

Andy's acid trip is truly trippy man. It's like a freaked out yoga session.

The movie is very earnest, like Glenn or Glenda, but also very out of touch. Hee hee a good time.

By the way, there was no riot. Guess it wasn't in the budget.

Like the tag-line says: "The Most Shocking Film of Our Generation!" Well, that may be an exaggeration, but the film is still an entertaining relic from the 60s, and a classic from good old AIP.Producer Sam Katzman, known as the ''King Of The Quickies'' was responsible for this then-topical exploitation epic. Katzman's films (dating as far back as the 1930's) may have been on the ''frugal'' side, production wise, but his 60's output (''Hot Rods To Hell'' ''The Love -Ins'' and ''The Young Runaways''), all dealing with rebellious youth, were nicely produced and well photographed, thanks to his production team, some of whom worked for MGM in the old days, as well as iconic TV shows like ''The Twilight Zone''. The story was written to exploit the real life riots on the Sunset Strip back in 1966., and this film reached theaters within weeks of those events. It was combined with an also true incident involving the daughter of an LA Policeman who was raped (though this had no real-life connection to the Riots on the Strip). Aldo Ray is good as the police lieutenant charged with keeping the peace between the "establishment" and the "longhairs". Mimsy Farmer is his lovely, lost daughter, burdened with an alcoholic mother, Hortense Petra.( Mrs. Sam Katzman, who had small parts in most of his films) and bitterness for the father she hasn't seen in years. She becomes involved with a small group of kids who include beautiful but amoral Laurie Mock, teenyboppers Tim Rooney and future ''Rocky'producer, Gene Kirkwood.Worst of all is would-be rapist Schuyler Hayden. Music, supplied by such groups as The Standells, The Chocolate Watchband and The Enemies, is good, as is the background score by Fred Karger (two-time husband of Jane Wyman). Yes, the story is on the weak side, but the acting is fine, especially by future cult star Farmer, and Mock. The production is also praiseworthy, given the low budget. Look for Anna Mizrahi (soon to be the wife of acting guru Lee Strasberg, as Helen Tweedy, the sympathetic wife of Ray's partner, Michael Evans) and ball players Jim Lefebvre and Al Ferrara as cops. The film has achieved well deserved cult status because of the bands who supply the music. But, also of more than passing interest, is Mimsy's very sexy, choreographed ''freakout'', which is filmed (by MGM'S Paul Vogel) in beautiful psychedelic colors, and excellently scored by Karger. Indeed, Farmer's popularity in Europe is a direct result of this film. Low-Budget or not, it's extremely well photographed and edited, which is why it holds up as well as it does today. MGM is finally releasing the movie on a limited, ''On Demand'' basis, and if the print used for the DVD is as vibrant as the one shown on various pay-TV stations, it should be great!. It will be WIDESCREEN as well. I, for one, can't wait. Postscript-6-25-2011: I just received the DVD from Screen Archives Entertainment today. I'm happy to report that it exceeds my expectations. Although there have been bootleg copies circulating for some time now, (no doubt copied from pay-TV broadcasts) and they don't look at all bad, this official release beats them all. Though the DVD itself states that the best available elements were used for the transfer, (another way of saying that no restoration was done), the film is presented here for the first time in Anamorphic Widescreen, and it looks terrific. The color is vivid, print damage is miniscule, and the picture is sharp. The 2 channel sound is equally impressive. Sadly, no trailer was included. Incidentally, the TV version of this film ran 7 minutes longer, and it's a shame that one wasn't used. Still, for fans of the film, this is a MUST HAVE.