User reviews

This legendary film is most legendary for its music scenes by the Standells(whose versions of the two songs they do are different from the ones appearing on the soundtrack album!) and the Chocolate Watchband (who are a VERY exciting live band and whose appearance totally justifies their devoted cult following). The actual movie has a kind of "Dragnet" feel, minus Jack Webb's patented hard-boiled ambience. With an actor as impressive as Aldo Ray in the lead--as a fair-minded police chief with a complex family situation who is drawn into the melodramatic situation that provides the film's plot--at least we are provided with a solid performance in a central role. And the young Mimsy Farmer's LSD dance is as bizarre as I'd heard it was. The rest of the film plays like a TV episode with a little extra sleaze added. Director Arthur Dreifuss was no stranger to exploitation films, having directed Black-cast and teen-oriented quickies in the 1940s AND directing the 60s classic The Love-Ins. Producer Sam Katzman had attempted to cash in on youth culture in the mid-50s with his two Bill Haley films and in the early 60s with his two Chubby Checker films (Don't Knock the Twist was excellent!). Frankly, this film takes the same youth/adult conflicts shown in those films and transposes them into 1967 Los Angeles. The difference is that the music is not the main element here-- it's only a backdrop to the Adult/Youth conflict. This film actually means well and presents a fair-minded analysis of the situation, and Ray is quite sympathetic and convincing, but the overall effect is reduced by weakly written roles for the (overage) teenagers and a "riot" that is anti-climactic and a conclusion that seems abrupt. Still the music scenes with the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband are GREAT, as are the songs by the exciting band who performs "Jolene" or something like that in a club scene. Perhaps this could be put on a DVD double-bill with another 60s AIP teen-exploitation flick?

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.

Hard to find but worth the search! This movie was filmed in 1967 and could easily have been made by Dragnet's own Jack Webb. The over-the-top hippiness of this movie is what makes it a classic. If you have ever seen hippy episodes of Dragnet, this is the same scene, man. The Chocolate Watchband perform as does The Standells. Its nice to see these 1960s bands performing live in a set that probably resembles what it was like to see them live back then. The klead singer of the Chocolate watchband sings with two maracas in each hand and emits a strange Jim Morrison vibe in his half-shouting way of singing and his stage movements. Who influenced who, I wonder? The kids hang out at a club called "Pandora's Box" and some dance, some read and others are just there into their own trips. Mimsy Farmer plays Andy, a fresh face on the strip who is led down the road to perdition with a sugar cube of LSD slipped into her drink at a "freak-out". Mimsy had just finished work as Gloria the bad boys gal on "Hot Rods To Hell" the same year. She will seem vaguely familiar as she bears an uncanny resemblance in some light to Meredith McRae back in her "Petticoat Junction" days. Mimsy is slipped drugs and the obligatory trip scene in this movie is one in which she rolls around the floor in a minidress and performs what amounts to a weird interpretive dance which I am sure was filled with profound meaning in 1967 but is rather lost on me. The men wear Sonny Bono caveman vests, the women wear bright neon miniskirts. If this is your bag, baby, definately try to find this movie.

This was filmed in Joe Friday's L.A, while Joe was on a fishing trip with Gannon. The music,especially in the hospital fight scene,sounds like it was lifted from a Bat Man episode. This is typical of the older Hollywood crowd (in this case AIP) trying to cash in on the "hip" sixties,with unintentionally hilarious results.The "hippies" all look like shoe clerks, whose wardrobe truck got mixed up with the Monkees TV Show. A few of them have long hair and beards, but they are dressed like they have a job interview at Radio Shack.The "protest" outside the bars is "totally realistic". The signs looked like they were painted as part of a six grade art project. There are a few generalized anti - war placards("Peace not War"), but nothing to suggest a Vietnam protest. The female police officer, who is carding the kids in the bar, looks like a London meter maid. I know I missed something, but why is the second in command of this L.A police unit British. Was he on loan from the Liverpool PD to show our cops how to handle "mods" and "rockers". All in all, a very amusing look at the "youth culture", through the eyes of the silent generation. Acting honors go to the LSD babe, who almost escapes a police raid, even though she can't walk three feet.My favorite line is from Aldo Ray (his finest hour). The police arrive in front of the party house with two marked patrol cars parked directly in front. Six cops, including four in uniform are standing in front of the house conversing for five minutes. Ray says, " We had better go inside, I think they spotted us."

Poor Aldo Ray must've really needed the money. After a brief blush of success in the 1950s and early '60s, Ray, a sturdy, handsome actor, somehow spiraled down into cheap war movies and drive-in flicks like this one. Police lieutenant's wayward daughter is befriended by trouble-making hippies in Hollywood; soon, she becomes the victim of their sexual advances (although I didn't see her resisting all that much). Contrary to the film's title, there's very little fighting here--some picketing and shouting, but where's the riot? Worse than a relic of this by-gone era, "Riot on Sunset Strip" may go so far as to represent a world that never even existed. * from ****

AIP apparently took the counter-culture to heart and, throughout the late 1960s, a whole flurry of films were made about the problems and aspirations of youths across America. I guess these were the flip-side of the myriad “Beach Party”-type movies made by the same company earlier in the decade (I’ve watched a fair number of the former but none of the latter, though I may be able to remedy that soon since a triple-bill is scheduled on local Cable TV for next week)!

This is surely the least of the hippie/drug films I’ve come across (produced by Sam Katzman, no less!) – but one that’s so goofy it’s nonetheless entertaining! Everything about it is so simplistic, clichéd and, well, bad that while no riot is actually depicted in the film, the on-screen action itself emerges to be a consistent (if largely unintentional) laugh-riot!! Perhaps a sure sign of just how ‘perceptive’ the film-makers were vis-a'-vis their subject matter is the fact that none of the three rock bands seen performing in nightclubs during the course of the film went anywhere thereafter!

Rather than give details of the plot, one would do better to list those moments or elements that stick (as opposed to stand!) out: dialogue such as “It’s what’s happening!” in reference to the typical nightlife on The Strip, the boozed antics of female lead Mimsy Farmer’s pitiful Mum, her LSD-induced would-be wild dance (prior to being gang-raped!), estranged cop father (formerly sympathetic to the kids) Aldo Ray’s phoney punch-up with the culprits at the hospital, the relentless denigrating comments made by the ‘pillars of the community’ (and particularly an elderly reporter) about the youngsters, etc.

Many examples of Counter-culture Cinema have dated badly – especially the more politically-oriented ones (and even some that were highly-thought of at the time); this one, strictly a potboiler and made by a handful of veterans (which, apart from Katzman, included director Dreifuss, scriptwriter Orville H. Hampton and Oscar-winning cinematographer Paul C. Vogel) to boot could never hope be taken seriously as a treatment of this turbulent era – the best it can muster is function as a campy time capsule…

"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.

this was a very funny film cause its like total crap think of reefer madness, then you'll get the idea get stoned and watch this you'll laugh your ass off this was a very funny film cause its like total crap think of reefer madness, then you'll get the idea get stoned and watch this you'll laugh your ass off

this was a very funny film cause its like total crap think of reefer madness, then you'll get the idea get stoned and watch this you'll laugh your ass off

this was a very funny film cause its like total crap think of reefer madness, then you'll get the idea get stoned and watch this you'll laugh your ass off

There may well have been a movie or two built around the emerging youth "counter-culture" before RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP, but none of them seems to have left quite the impression that Arthur Dreifuss's movie did. Between its line-up of musical contributors (The Standells, The Chocolate Watchband . . . .) and exploitation plot featuring Mimsy Farmer and a put-upon-looking Aldo Ray, plus relentless late-night showings on local stations for decades after its theatrical run rendered RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP, along with Richard Rush's PSYCH-OUT (1968), the two most oft-quoted and cited cinematic touchstones of 1960s counter-culture (along with concert documentaries such as MONTEREY POP and WOODSTOCK). As it happens, RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP was a case of art capitalizing on real-life, released just a few months after the actual events referred to in the plot (making this an even faster turn-around off of real-life than Phil Karlson's fact-based THE PHENIX CITY STORY, or Roger Corman's Sputnik-inspired sci-fi thriller WAR OF THE SATELLITES). Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth," recorded by the Buffalo Springfield, was built around the same events, and one early episode of Dragnet, "The LSD Story," was also set against the backdrop of the Sunset Strip's youth explosion.

"Riot on Sunset Strip" has the look and feel of a Jack Webb late sixties' "Dragnet" TV episode. At least Jack Webb productions were funny.

I simply can't get through the boring story. The less said about it the better. Aldo Ray isn't even worth mentioning. So I won't mention him.

Only interesting thing about this film is the appearance of the mysterious Chocolate Watchband, whose records are still in demand today. Their sound was like an American Rolling Stones, and the footage of the band is interesting. Standells are on hand, too. Their title tune is a forgettable rocker.

Film seems fairly dated for its time. Tape the music segments and forget the rest.

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.

In HOT RODS FROM HELL, the headliners are Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain as two marrieds with a small boy and a teenage girl who get harassed by young punks in a speedster, and the daughter's played by brunette actress Laurie Mock while the bad girl holding onto the roll bar is blonde cult starlet Mimsy Farmer...

The same year, 1967, in RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP, Farmer is the good girl, and like Laurie Mock has a veteran actor as a dad (Andrews), Farmer has Aldo Ray. But let's not forget Gene Kirkwood, the future ROCKY producer who was Mimsy Farmer's third-wheel buddy in HOT RODS and is Laurie Mock's buddy in RIOT. Basically, the teenagers are in reverse. Add to that Mickey Rooney's son, Tim, rounding out the rebellious teens while in HOT RODS, Mickey Rooney Jr.'s band plays during the 11th hour (both, of course, are Mickey Rooney's sons)...

But RIOT is no HOT RODS as it hardly goes anywhere. Although it's not too bad for a drive-in flick exploiting the young counter-culture, the generation gap, and drugs: which literally peaks at a crash-pad get-together when Mimsy's soda gets spiked with acid, and unrealistically, within seconds (instead of the usual forty-five minutes) she's doing an exotic psychedelic dance as if she'd tripped and stripped before...

But most of the time's spent earlier, at a local club with a few grungy garage bands and the foursome hanging out, which cuts back and forth to open-minded sheriff Aldo Ray having a conversation with local conservative business owners, which is like JAWS in reverse: they want the customers to actually leave The Strip so their kind of business can hopefully return....

It's too bad Laurie Mock and Gene Kirkwood can't be more rebellious and devil-may-care the way Farmer and Kirkwood are in HOT RODS. Mimsy's drawn-out dance both steals the movie and robs it from the other characters, who basically just sit there, tripping, watching...

And what everything amounts to isn't really spoiled in the title as there's no actual riot. More like a chance for dad Aldo Ray to bond with his estranged daughter in a contrived happy ending...

As two-years later EASY RIDER introduced the glory of the tragic ending that'd sustain through the following decade. But here, for the most part, what goes on, despite the seriousness, edginess and discontentment of the hippies, is a sheep's party derived from a wolf's invitation.

This is one terribly goofy movie. Dorky, borderline retardation presented as a shocking drama. Other reviewers who love this movie must be 100 years old. Idiotic non-acting and imbecilic dialog galore. If I was at a party with any of the people in this movie, I would steal their stuff and leave. One of the geekiest things I've ever seen. The band The Monkees belong in here, not the decent bands that actually make appearances. I would rather go to the toilet than watch this. Bea Arthur is cooler any of these chicks. Could this be any cheesier? Rue McLanahan is probably behind this movie somehow. What a limp depiction of this period of time. There's no way that everyone in the 60's was this ridiculous. This movie royally sucks, I hate it.

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.

From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, many middle aged producers tried to make movies about the emerging counter culture" and most of them failed miserably. They simply could not understand what was going.

Since only a relatively small segment young people in a just few of the largest cities (LA, San Francisco, New York) really understood the profound social changes that were beginning to occur, the movie producers could put almost anything on film and their audiences across the rest of the USA would believe it.

"Riot on Sunset Strip" is a low budget piece of trash and anyone today who watches it should be warned ... "The 60s was NOT like this."

If you want to know what the 60s were all about, I recommend "Woodstock," "Alice's Restaurant," and the very best - "Easy Rider."

I wasn't aware that a bunch of juveniles protesting on the streets constituted a riot, but then again, I didn't write the screenplay.

Aldo Ray plays a police lieutenant who is trying to hold L. A. together and promote harmony between the fuzz and the populace. It seems the cops are rousting teens for typical crap like smoking joints, underage drinking, and impersonating actors. As one of the teens explains, "the only reason grass is illegal is that the public doesn't understand. It's an anachronism." Well, it isn't anymore. Just ask Colorado. Ray meets with a bunch of semi-intelligent long-hairs, and they reach an agreement in principle: the kids will police themselves, and the police will kid themselves that the kids are policing themselves.

Unknown to Ray, his estranged daughter (Mimsy Farmer) is hanging out with the wrong crowd. The crowd includes Tim Rooney (yes, Mickey's son) and Laurie Mock. The crowd ends up breaking into an expensive home, and some of them start dropping acid. Mimsy gets slipped a mickey, and within seconds, she trips out into a 5-minute dance routine set to some far-out psychedelic music. Apparently this was not choreographed by a human being. The dance includes mopping the floor with her hands and lining up at center to snap a football. Mimsy is then taken advantage of by several hooligans.

Ray and other officers arrive at the scene, just in time to let everyone escape except Mock, who is laughing convulsively, probably because she realizes her acting career is over. Ray discovers his daughter and she is taken to the hospital. Mock squeals on Mimsy's attackers, and they are arrested and brought to the same hospital, which gives Ray an excuse to beat the crap out of them. The only mistake he makes is not reading them their rights first.

TV journalist Bill Baldwin, playing a TV journalist, wastes no time going on the tube to tell everyone that Ray was abusive to the suspects. Now the Strip is about to explode, since the juvies figure Ray used excessive force. Local business owners are looking forward to some butt-kicking. As one says, "Well, they're bound to lay the wood to a few heads, but isn't it worth it?"

Ray heads to the strip, tells a cop not to hit a kid, and everything calms down .

There is a short rumble inside a club called "Pandora's Box," but that's just between the patrons. There are too many musical interruptions by bands I never heard of playing songs I never heard of. One guy does a Mick Jagger impersonation and shakes his maracas, but he looked more like an epileptic to me. Mimsy's hair is too big, and it's not until about the last 5 minutes of the movie that you realize she can act. Mock doesn't act, but since she spent most of the film wearing a backless short green dress, I didn't care. Ray is average (which for Ray, is good). I've always thought his best performance was as the only sane person in "God's Little Acre," a film I could not stand, except for perhaps Tina Louise's remarkable front porch.

This movie is a languid, occasionally ridiculous attempt to offer a "with-it" view of the actual events that had happened a few months earlier, with Mimsy Farmer offering a slo-mo druggie dance to electric boog-a-loo music.

Aldo Ray offers a performance as the police lieutenant in charge of the juvenile division that indicates that he is trying to keep things calm, but no one connected with the production seems to have heard of warrants, probable cause or procedure.

i saw this movie as a first run release way back when as a 14 year old kid. i had to lie to my parents about my whereabouts as they thought the subject matter would corrupt me. after watching it for what must have been the 30th time earlier today i am convinced that dave aguilar (chocolate watchband) is the most underrated rock frontman of the psychedelic era. had fate been kinder and the recording industry less cruel we might very well be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the band while playing along side the stones. and for those who have not heard the band reformed in in it's original form minus one in 1999 and recorded a live album.

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.

See this film for the performance footage of legendary bands like the Standells and Chocolate Watchband and also for future Eurotrash starlet Mimsy Farmer's LSD freakout dance. Other than those highlights this film is dragged down by too much melodrama which was all too common in the string of Juvenile Delinquent films in the 50s. The Hippies are represented as drunken, riot-prone thugs and rapists while the Establishment are seen as uptight squares who fully endorse conformity through police brutality. Aldo Ray as the police captain and a nightclub owner represent the sensible side of the Establishment while a small band of well-spoken college-educated Hippies represent the sensible side of the Counterculture. What's always interesting in these 60s exploitation films is how the older generation businessmen like Arkoff and Katzman view the youth culture of the time. Director Dreifuss himself was 60 when he directed it, so what you're seeing is a distorted view of youth through older eyes which gives these films the camp appeal they have today.

As Reefer Madness was to the youth of the 30's, so Riot on Sunset Strip was to the Baby Boomers. So out of touch, it is actually funny, not serious as intended. This film lacked a grasp of the time, mood and the music. The mood of the 60's was anti-war, not I don't like my mommy and daddy. I've wasted 90 minutes before, but it was seldom less fun. In short, this film is trite and definitely out of touch with the era of peace and love.

There is a scene in this movie where the kids are partying in some house, tripping on acid and having sex (a rape actually, not OK). When the cops show up everybody bails out the back and jumps the fence, except one girl who is laughing so hard she can't get away. As a teenager I saw stuff like that and worse. It gives me the chills just thinking about it. I'm glad somebody captured some of that messed up stuff on film. Should you see this movie? I would watch it again if I could find it.There were also some other movies about teenage partying (other than Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed & Confused). One in particular was about some Jr High Kids who locked the adults up in the school, I'd like to know the name of that one if anybody remembers.