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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.

I saw this in '68 when I was about in the same place Harold Fine was, in his social development. I was already married and had kids though. At the time of its release this seemed like an important movie. It was funny and satiric but it ended in a positive note for someone ready to drop out. If we'd only known where that was going to lead, but it was fun for a time.

I'm so glad I revisited this over 40 years later (yikes!!) Some of the film I remembered as if I saw it yesterday. Some scenes I had no recollection of. Peter Sellers is marvelous and the rest of the cast is fine. It is a time capsule of a film and really blends film styles. It has a definite TV flavor. Hy Averback mostly worked in TV so that's not a surprise. The film though, is authentic to the time and it was fun to watch for this old hippie.

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 ****

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! is probably my definitive 60s romp.

This movie has so many classic comic moments, I don't know where to begin. It was written by Paul Mazursky and might just be the high point of his illustrious career.

In between great stuff like where Howard, his fiancee and Jewish parents unwittingly eat pot brownies and the scene where Howard's scene turns into a bummer, there's some decent commentary of the hypocricies of the 60s. Plus a focused Sellars performance as Harold Fine with some great Jewish humor.

I'm tempted to quote this movie non-stop.

If you are any kind of fan of Peter Sellars, I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

I was born 8 years after this film came out, so I'm a little out of touch with the generation. BUT! Look closely at this film. Sure, it stereotypes hippies and seems a bit out of date. What this film really is becomes a search for one man (Petter Sellers) to find out who he is, and to avoid the traps of life that he suddenly sees as conventional. As Harold Fine, he questions what life and marriage have to offer and he seeks to discover what else is out there. The pot brownie sequence opens up his world to new dimensions, he breaks off his marriage to be with a hippie chick, he drops out, he tries to free himself. Do I relate to Harold Fine? Heck yes! The film mirrors much of Peter Seller's life himself, confunsed, unsure, searching. The scene with his guru cracks me up- Sellers face is priceless as he tries to stop trying and learn who he is.

This film deserves a lot more attention then what it receives. This isn't just a time capsule into the dropout 60s world- it's a good time capsule into soul searching.