The Love-Ins

During the late 1960s, Hollywood tried to cash in on the hippie drug craze going on in much of the United States. And, in most cases, they produced films with dubious messages and often starring down-and-out stars who were essentially slumming it for a paycheck (such as Lana Turner and Jennifer Jones).

When the story begins, a group of students are being expelled from a university for producing an underground newspaper. One of the professors, the 'cool' Dr. Jonathan Barnett (Richard Todd) quits in sympathy over the overreaction of the school and soon he finds himself a minor celebrity...adored by the hippies. After appearing on "The Joe Pyne Show" (sort of like "The Morton Downey Jr Show"), he moves to San Francisco and he moves in to a flat occupied by 147 people and some of his old students.

At first, he's more an observer of the Haight-Ashbury scene, but soon (too soon really) he's a cult leader...wearing white robes and with students sitting at his feet and waiting for him to dispense knowledge...which is mostly about liberation and LSD use. To say he has delusions of godhood is pretty much on point. After one of these old student (Susan Oliver) has a bad Acid trip, the other student (James MacArthur) becomes very suddenly jaded and realizes that Barnett and the drugs are awful. This change, like the change in Barnett, is way too fast to be realistic. So what's next for these folks? Tune in and see....or not.

There are quite a few problems with this film, even if it is an interesting window into a certain subculture of the late 60s (led by Professor Timothy Leary). First, many of Barnett's teen and early 20s disciples are quite old and very square (such as Mark Goddard (31), James MacArthur (30) and Susan Oliver (35))....and becausse of this, they are ridiculous and come off as phonies. Second, the music in the film is pretty awful....or at least much of it. Several times, it seems as if a dozen folks with no musical abilities just started performing their own personal song! Third, and most importantly, the film is chock full of one-dimensional characters. There is no middle ground between the ultra-squares and the hippies most of the film. And, folks go from loving Barnett to hating him almost instantly!

What I did appreciate about the film was how it unknowingly actually predicted the dark side of this 'Summer of Love'.....showing the dark side of the hippie movement. However, it also wasn't exactly subtle nor realistic....and seemed to say that hippies were bad...which is a gross over-generalization.

Overall, the film is interesting from a cultural sense but also imbalanced and phony as well. Please don't, like my daughter, assume all the late 60s was like THIS! Some of this is quite realistic....and much of it isn't.