The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart

At university I was part-time apsirant film-maker, part-time aspirant womaniser, and full-time aimless waster. Unsurprisingly this film struck a huge chord with me, when I stumbled across it during those bewildering days!

A great little film, lots of fun, just don't expect any niceties like, erm, a recognisable plot or a meaningful ending. The film-within-a-film - Stanley's outrageously bad student short "Headless" - is a real hoot and worth the price on its own!

Oh and if you like this, check out student rebellion in "The Strawberry Statement" and more of the young Don Johnson in "A boy and his dog", both recommended.

This is an interesting movie with an early Don Johnson, pre-dating A Boy And His Dog by a couple of years. He is a drop-out schoolkid/junky who lives on his own, but is mad about a girl at his college. He chases her/gets her/goes mad on drugs and then drops out. A great fun movie. Stanley Sweetheart is an excellent character with lots of quotable lines for you and your friends. He makes his own (hilarious) movies. Most recommended when bored late at night

Freak-out anything-goes flick from 1970, does a great job of capturing east-coast hippie scene. Some of the scenes from this movie must have been very shocking to the few who saw it upon its initial release, as it pulls no punches in its depiction of nudity and sex and sex and nudity. More or less, this movie seems to have been made to reflect the emerging sexual openness and promiscuity of the time. Not much of a story line, but entertaining to watch, i would recommend it for those looking for a fix of late '60's/early '70's underground culture. A definite drug movie. Do not watch while operating heavy machinery...

This could be the definitive film of Andy Warhol's New York sub-culture...and a rare one to find at that! It captures the decadence, the confusion, the drugs, the music and the 'boredom' of this underground world, and it all revolves around the character of Stanley Sweetheart. Don Johnson, in his first film role, plays this character brilliantly, capturing all of this insatiable desire for sensation in this beautifully androgynous performance. There also seems to be an underlying text of hidden homosexual desires, which Stanley continually suppresses, although he seems drawn to Danny character. It's a fascinating work of decadence and decay, and you can just feel Andy Warhol overlooking the whole world of Stanley's decline.

A lot of big name actors have started their careers in some risque material (Sylvester Stallone, Ellen Burnstyn, Shannon Elizabeth), but I was surprised to see Don Johnson's name. I thought The Harrad Experiment (1973) was the furthest he got, but this one is more adult than that one. Don is Stanley Sweethart, a Columbia student, and the movie is about his lovelife in the "Free Love era" of the 60's. When not making love to the various women he charms or two-times, he makes a career of filming Russ Meyeresque epics. The acting is a hell of a lot better than an Andy Warhol production; Don still had that distinctive voice coming out of his mouth even then, but there are some pointless scenes. Yes, there's a lot of skin, Don included, but at the time, he didn't know he'd make it big. A curiosity piece, probably impossible to rent on video, but it should be shown on Canadian T.V. on occasion.