I saw this movie on German TV probably in 1971. It was fascinating to me. It seemed like a documentary about the 60s lifestyle fizzling out against the background of upscale Hollywood actors pretending to be hippies keeping the experiment going. That was actually happening to many people who worked in the creative field at the time. The innocent 60s dream was dying and politically motivated violence took over that couldn't be ignored. The 1970s was like waking up from a nice dream only to discover that reality became a nightmare. Artists lost their sense of direction. Didn't know whether to create a bubble and preserve the dream, or adjust to the stark realities of the 70s. This movie captured the threshold of this transition. The 60s experiment became boring, which the movie also captured. What was once outrageous and ground breaking became a yawn. The bourgeoisie was no longer upset about witnessing communes, topless women, and shameless living arrangements. That has been digested by society already. The underground has been normalized by Hollywood. All that's left is Hollywood living its own myth. That's what seems to be happening with Vargas' characters. They live in their happy bubble while the world was falling apart in the TV's news reports, the dawn of the 70s. Vargas' character came to Hollywood to make a movie about Hollywood society in their time, only to discover all movies covering this subject have already been made, or it's simply too late to capture anything worthwhile. The last hooray of the 60s was probably Woodstock and Essy Rider, that were just about to happen when Vargas made this movie. Hollywood missed the 60s almost entirely. If it wasn't for Corman getting some movies like The Trip made, Hollywood might have skipped the 60s going straight from the 50s into the 70s. The 70s gave us Scorsese, Coppola, and Spielberg, who changed Hollywood forever. Just like Hollywood skipped the 60s, Vargas skipped Hollywood never to return.
