Man, what a mess.
Yes, another example of old-line Hollywood attempting to deal with the pop culture youthquake of the late 1960's, and failing miserably. This thing lurches back and forth between a Douglas Sirk like melodrama and an LSD exploitation film. Jarring changes in pacing and tone abound. Even the accompanying background score shifts disturbingly from string-drenched light orchestral goop to fuzz-laden rock and roll freak-out.
Somehow I get the feeling that both Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert yanked a lot out of this film for their own delirious happening, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," released a couple years later. Fans of that craziness should be right at home here.
Lana Turner overacts appropriately here, and I am not going to blame any of the actors here (except for Mossberg -- this was her last film credit, probably appropriately), but I will take the writer, director, and the entire crew to task for their dubious contributions.
The fact that this film was actually produced in Mexico with a Mexican crew (though all American actors and shot in English) tells you a lot of the background. The set design has the over-the-top qualities of Mexican production design has in spades. The homes of the wealthy main characters are drenched in overdone luxurious furnishings. The freaky psychedelic club overflows with more colored lights and oil projection lamps than Bill Graham's storage room. The fashions worn are of the most extreme examples available at that time. These were clothes that might actually be worn by real people you might see on the street (maybe if you lived in Beverly Hills) but, just barely.
The Swedish accent of lead actress Karin Mossberg also throws another off-kilter element into the highly unbelievable proceedings. Explained away by the fact that she's been in boarding school in Switzerland for years, the fact that she looks nothing like the actor portraying her father is another example of the ongoing cognitive dissonance that makes this film a laugh riot. (I would also like to point out the ironic fact, that she did not recognize LSD laced into a sugar cube when exposed to it, due to the fact that she had been sheltered all these years in a boarding school in Switzerland. This conveniently ignores the historical fact that LSD was discovered by Dr. Albert Hoffman in a laboratory...wait for it....wait for it....in Switzerland).
To sum up, if you are ready for a ride into high camp, a film that screams to even the most submissive viewer, "Don't take me seriously," then you will be in a heaven of arranged artificiality. If you liked "The Trip," or "Skidoo" or "Beyond The Valley of the Dolls," and can appreciate all of them on the level of laughing at the fact that anyone could possibly take this kind of foolishness seriously, then you will have a riot of a time with this film.
