Le baiser papillon

I Love You Alice B. Toklas is one nostalgic film, especially for those who partook in the hippie movement. It expresses some of the joy and frustrations of what it entails.

Peter Sellers is your 40 something Jewish lawyer from Los Angeles who has put off matrimony, concentrating on work and material success. Now he's ready to take the plunge with Joyce Van Patten and nothing thrills his parents Salem Ludwig and Jo Van Fleet than to see their son final settle down.

But a chance encounter with hippie chick Leigh Taylor-Young on the Freeway where she's hitchhiking and he tunes in, turns on, and drops out. The second is the most important when after a night of some wild sex Taylor- Young gives him some of those marijuana laced brownies so popular in the day. Even his fiancé and parents partake and the result is the most hilarious scene in the film.

I suppose that people have to have a fling at something equivalent of hippie when they're young. Sad to say there is a time when one has to buckle down and assume a few responsibilities for yourself. If we all could be hippies that would be nice, but we all never will be. It was no accident that they were called flower 'children'.

Which brings me to the ending of this film. Sellers eventually has issue with Taylor-Young and they split, but can't commit to his former life and the relationships therein. Director Hy Averback gives us a happy ending which is both funny and yet sad in a way because we really don't know what Sellers will do because he doesn't know himself. I feared the worst for Peter.

A nice cast supports Sellers and Jo Van Fleet has to be singled out as the ultimate Jewish mother. Also take note of Herb Edelman as Sellers brother-in-law, confidante, and a rebound man from way back.

Nice film. Too bad we aren't all hippies. And it would have to be all of us to make it work.

One of the best comedies of the 1960s and one of the most subversive as well...it's difficult to believe that Warner Bros. released I LOVE YOU ALICE B. TOKLAS. Peter Sellers, in his most American role, plays Harold Fine, an uptight mama's boy putting off any commitment to girlfriend Joyce Van Patten. He falls head over heels for free-spirited Leigh Taylor Young and all hell breaks loose. Sellers is brilliant, Van Patten is pretty funny, and Taylor-Young is striking. The movie is nearly stolen by Jo Van Fleet as Sellers mother, a shrike to be sure, and hysterical eating a "special" brownie. She's priceless...once again giving a great performance as a character of a substantially more advanced age...she was 54 playing 43 year old Sellers mother! Hy Averback's direction is clever and the film is filled with a lot of funny gags...a highlight is Sellers and crew driving ALL OVER Los Angeles in search of a funeral.

This is a very funny send up of the flower child generation. Peter Sellers plays an uptight, Jewish lawyer who falls for one of his hippie brother's girlfriends. After that, he descends into hippiedom. The film is filled with some of the funniest scenes around. The funniest part of the movie is Sellers as a hippie with hair down around his cheeks and psychedelic clothing, but still wearing horn-rimmed glasses. The musical score, which uses sitars as satire, is really great, too. It's very much worth seeing, although it overstays its welcome. Its humorous observations (and imaginations) about hippies get a bit repetitive in the film's second half. 8/10.

Harold Fine (Peter Sellers) is an uptight lawyer, a member of the Establishment. His longtime girlfriend Joyce finally has pinned Harold down on a wedding date, and his life seems to be settling down. But wait! Harold meets Nancy, a friend of his hippie brother, at a family funeral. Turned on by her free thinking, free loving, and free living, Harold leaves Joyce at the altar to be with Nancy. He drops out of society and into hippiedom! Sellers isn't the most likely person to play this role, but he's very good in it. Leigh Taylor-Young, as Nancy, is positively ravishing. The movie takes you back to the late sixties, even if you've never been there. All the sights and sounds are lovingly created by director Hy Averback. And the script! Nearly every aspect of counterculture society in the late sixties is covered, and there's hardly a stagnant scene. In particular, the wild parties at Harold's apartment and the scene where the policeman come upon Harold and Nancy in the backseat of his car are real gems.

Screenwriters Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker have a deft idea here--but it only takes an hour on the clock to use up the essence of their idea, leaving nothing but dead space on the screen for thirty more minutes. Milquetoast Jewish lawyer in Los Angeles, about to marry his domineering secretary (an idea which is approved by his demonstrative mother), is reunited with his estranged brother, a flower-child circa 1968. Through the brother's sometime-girlfriend, a comely lass who knows a great recipe for hash brownies, the lawyer realizes he's living an existence without love or freedom. It's wonderful watching bespectacled, buttoned-up Peter Sellers learn how to be liberated...yet, once the lawyer grows his hair out and dons love beads, the picture has nowhere in particular to take us. The satire is unsubtle in its prodding of targets, while writers Mazursky and Tucker ultimately bite off more than they can chew (while leaning precariously on pretentiousness). Still, there are some mild, breezy laughs early on, and the production is bright. ** from ****