The Love-Ins

1967
Approved
1h 31m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

A college professor resigns in protest to the dismissal of student underground newspaper workers and later joins their "hippie movement" and becomes their "Messiah."A college professor resigns in protest to the dismissal of student underground newspaper workers and later joins their "hippie movement" and becomes their "Messiah."A college professor resigns in protest to the dismissal of student underground newspaper workers and later joins their "hippie movement" and becomes their "Messiah."

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IMDb RATING

4.4/10

280

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

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4.4280

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5CinemaSerf

The Love-Ins

This is sort of worth it for the last fifteen minutes, but otherwise it's a pretty awful waste of our time and their efforts - such as they are. James MacArthur and Patricia Oliver are being disciplined by their university for the school rag publishing material just a bit to close to the bone for the principal. In protest, Richard Todd ("Dr. Barnett") quits and is soon a spokesman for their free love style existence. Initially, he holds to his liberté, égalité, fraternité existence but the adulation and success, as well as a little romantic attention from his erstwhile student gradually corrupts his soul and soon someone is heading for a fall. It's really only at the end of this film, that we get anywhere near a point to it all. The proof that absolute power (or a variation thereof, in this case) corrupts absolutely - even those with the most benign intentions. Todd is hopeless, however - he really is a fish out fo water; MacArthur and Oliver are just too preppy and cute to evoke any sort of passion for what they are trying to achieve - indeed the whole "niceness" of the first flower-power, anti-establishment 75 minutes is quite hard to sit through. The censors rejected it... I can't think why?

gortx

The UNauthorized Timothy Leary story

An obvious cash-in on Timothy Leary and his "turn on, drop out" LSD preachings of the 60's. Of course, this being corporate Hollywood, they turn the Timothy Leary character (well played by Richard Todd) into a money hungry CULT leader "who must be stopped!" Amusing for today's self-appointed "hip" audiences by its dated hippie iconography and the fact that the evil head hippie is played the TV series LOST IN SPACE's Goddard!

1wes-connors

Drop In, Turn On, Tune Out

Hip professor Richard Todd (as Jonathan Barnett) resigns from his university, protesting the expulsion of implausible hippies James MacArthur (as Larry Osborne) and Susan Oliver (as Patricia Cross). Mr. MacArthur and Ms. Oliver publish an "underground" newspaper. Mr. Todd believes defending the publication of their "Tomorrow's Times" is a freedom of speech issue; but, his college administration terms it a "pornographic rag". After advocating LSD use on Joe Pyne's TV show, Todd is evicted from his apartment. Jobless and homeless, Todd moves into MacArthur and Oliver's San Francisco pad. There, he becomes a Timothy Leary-type hero. Mark Goddard (as Elliott) plays a dealer who can take you really far out.

Counterculture garbage from producer Sam Katzman and director Arthur Dreifuss.

Bad trip, man.

Bummer.

* The Love-Ins (1967) Arthur Dreifuss ~ Richard Todd, James MacArthur, Susan Oliver

1moonspinner55

It's a backlot orgy of love, peace, and heterosexuality...

After university professor Richard Todd "drops out"--in protest of the expulsion of two clean-cut students who print an underground newspaper, The Tomorrow's Times--he takes a jaunt to San Francisco to check out the action: bubble-blowing, hip-shaking, body-groping kids frolicking in the park (but nothing too outrageous: the dancing blonde has flesh-colored undies beneath her dress, and all the couples are strictly boy-girl). Quickie product filmed on the Columbia backlot brings up 'relevant' themes such as religious cults, but has so little to say about its own era that everything ends up cheapened by the exploitation. Poorly-made and naïve (and, ultimately, conservative), "The Love-Ins" nearly runs the risk of being endearing. * from ****

3Marco_Trevisiol

Career nadir for its star

Richard Todd was a notable acting figure in the British film industry for roughly 15 years. He was Oscar-nominated for his first major role and then had a starring role in an Alfred Hitchcock film. From then on he was a reliable acting presence in array of action and war films giving convincing performances.

But his acting persona and style had fallen out of favour by the mid-1960s as kitchen-sink dramas and 'Swinging London' type films became popular. The drying up of roles perhaps disorientated him as that's the only way one can explain his appearance in the American film 'The Love-Ins'.

The film is a cheap and tedious take on the counter-culture sweeping America at the time. What is surprising is for an exploitation picture, apart from an 'Alice In Wonderland' LSD sequence, it's not even entertaining as camp.

But the film's most dispiriting aspect is Todd's performance. In the central role of playing a supposedly Timothy Leary-like figure that captures the hearts and minds of San Francisco youth, Todd is totally unconvincing and displays none of the charisma or personality such a role required. His inability to even attempt to adjust his usual acting style just underlines how miscast he is.

In a career with many quality films and performances, this is a sad career low.

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Trivia
The term "love-in" was one of many co-optings of Timothy Leary's famous mantra "Tune in, turn on, drop out", which gave rise to the original San Francisco "be-in" gatherings of 1967, a pun on the word "being". Another example is a "sit-in" protest, or John Lennon and Yoko Ono's public "lie-ins" from their hotel beds.

Quotes
Dr. Jonathan Barnett: You know, when I heard Larry use the words "a friend", "someone who understands you", I didn't realize he was introducing me. I was expecting to see the Chief of Police. Not that I'm putting down the Establishment, I wouldn't do that for the world. After all, do they tell us what we should believe? No, of course not. I'd even go on record and say they don't care what your beliefs are - providing they don't conflict with theirs.
Dr. Jonathan Barnett: [he continues] And yet, we of the Western world are supposed to be free people. Free to live as we want; free to love as we want; free to dress as we want. But are we given these freedoms? No, of course not. Society wants us to conform to a pattern which would make us all become vegetable. We must not let this happen. We must not conform. And we will definitely not become vegetable!
Dr. Jonathan Barnett: [he continues] The Establishment has left us a world full of strife, prejudice and avarice, not unlike the Roman Empire before its decline. Yet all the legions of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero could not still the ringing truths of the underground voice of those great dissenters, the early Christians. Nor could the voices of Moses, Buddha or Muhammad be stilled, so be it. And we shall not be stilled. We shall not be stilled, for we know the answer. We know that, with the world the way it is in today, we must love. We must share. We must not harbor any bitterness nor practice any violence. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt love they neighbor.