"Riot on Sunset Strip" is mostly about a father and his estranged daughter whom he hasn't seen in over four years until one night when the past catches up with him. Divorced from his wife, who's a hopeless alcoholic, Lieut. Walt Lormier, Aldo Ray, puts all of his work and energies into being a policeman in charge of keeping the Sunset Strip safe from unruly young people. Unknow to Lormier his daughter Andy, Mimsy Farmer, is one of them.
Living the wild life because she has no home life at all Andy gets in with the wrong crowd and ends up getting stung out on hallucinogenic drugs. Later in the movie Andy gets gang-raped by some of her "friends" whom she hung out with.
Realistic film about the 1960's drug and counter-culture with Aldo Ray playing a tough but caring cop who's dedication to his job as a policeman took something away from his responsibility as a father to his daughter Andy who goes from harmless parting Saturday nights to almost overdosing on hard drugs. With fine supporting roles by Michael Evens as Sgt. Tweedy, who is Lieut. Lorimer's best friend, and Anna Mizrahi as Mrs. Tweedy who tries to get him and Andy together before she ends up getting wasted on drugs or even dead.
Not as preachy and sanctimonious as most films about the youth culture was back then and even gives the young people a chance to make their point which if anything is very honest and reasonable compared to the older folks who want the "Strip" protected for them and their businesses from "The Invasion of the Longhairs".
The final sequence in the police station between father and daughter was very simple and at the same time very moving and made watching the movie, with all the bad and negative events in it, worth while.
