''I Love You, Alice B. Toklas'' is a 1968 American
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
film directed by
Hy Averback
Hyman Jack Averback (October 21, 1920 – October 14, 1997) was an American radio, television, and film actor who eventually became a producer and director.
Early years
Born in Minneapolis, Averback moved to California with his family when he w ...
and starring
Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...
. The film is set in the
counterculture of the 1960s. The cast includes
Joyce Van Patten
Joyce Benignia Van Patten (born March 9, 1934) is an American film and stage actress. She is best known for her roles in films like '' The Bad News Bears'' (1976), ''St. Elmo's Fire'' (1985) (as Mrs. Beamish), and as Rob Schneider's septuagenari ...
,
David Arkin,
Jo Van Fleet
Catherine Josephine Van Fleet (December 29, 1915["The Bi ...](_blank)
,
Leigh Taylor-Young
Leigh Taylor-Young (born January 25, 1945) is an American actress who has appeared on stage, screen, podcast, radio and television. The most famous films in which she had important roles include ''I Love You, Alice B. Toklas'' (1968), '' The Hors ...
(in her film debut) and a cameo by the script's co-writer
Paul Mazursky
Irwin Lawrence "Paul" Mazursky (April 25, 1930 – June 30, 2014) was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. Known for his dramatic comedies that often dealt with modern social issues, he was nominated for five Academy Awards: three t ...
. The title refers to writer
Alice B. Toklas, whose
1954 autobiographical cookbook had a recipe for
cannabis brownies. The film's eponymous theme song was performed by
sunshine pop
Sunshine pop (originally known as soft pop) is a subgenre of pop music that originated in Southern California in the mid-1960s. Rooted in easy listening and advertising jingles, sunshine pop acts combined nostalgic or anxious moods with "an appre ...
group
Harpers Bizarre
Harpers Bizarre was an American sunshine pop band of the 1960s, best known for their Broadway/sunshine pop sound and their cover of Simon & Garfunkel's " The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)."
Career
Harpers Bizarre was formed out of t ...
.
Plot
Attorney Harold Fine is cornered into setting a date for marriage by his secretary/fiancée, Joyce. Because of a fender bender, he ends up driving a
hippie vehicle, a psychedelically painted station wagon. When taking his hippie brother, Herbie, to the funeral of his family's butcher he encounters Nancy, Herbie's girlfriend, an attractive, free-spirited, barefoot
flower power
Flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and nonviolence. It is rooted in the opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The expression was coined by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsbe ...
lady. She takes a liking to Harold, and after they spend a night together in his home, makes him
pot brownies. However, she departs without telling him about its special ingredient, and not knowing what they are he eats them and feeds them to his father, mother, and fiancée, who dissolve in laughter and silliness. Harold considers the "
trip
Trip may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Trip (''Pokémon''), a ''Pokémon'' character
* Trip (Power Rangers), in the American television series ''Time Force Power Rangers''
* Trip, in the 2013 film ''Metallica Through th ...
" a revelation, and begins renouncing aspects of his "straight" life. He leaves his fiancée at the
chuppah
A ''chuppah'' ( he, חוּפָּה, pl. חוּפּוֹת, ''chuppot'', literally, "canopy" or "covering"), also huppah, chipe, chupah, or chuppa, is a canopy under which a Jewish couple stand during their wedding ceremony. It consists of a c ...
moments before they are to be married, starts living with Nancy, and tries to find himself with the aid of a guru. Ultimately he discovers the hippie lifestyle is as unfulfilling and unsatisfying as his old lifestyle—Nancy says that monogamy "isn't hip"—and once more decides to marry Joyce. At the last minute, he again leaves her at the altar and runs out of the wedding onto a city street saying he doesn't know for sure what he is looking for but, "there's got to be something beautiful out there."
Cast
*
Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...
as Harold Fine
*
Jo Van Fleet
Catherine Josephine Van Fleet (December 29, 1915["The Bi ...](_blank)
as Mrs. Fine
*
Leigh Taylor-Young
Leigh Taylor-Young (born January 25, 1945) is an American actress who has appeared on stage, screen, podcast, radio and television. The most famous films in which she had important roles include ''I Love You, Alice B. Toklas'' (1968), '' The Hors ...
as Nancy
*
Joyce Van Patten
Joyce Benignia Van Patten (born March 9, 1934) is an American film and stage actress. She is best known for her roles in films like '' The Bad News Bears'' (1976), ''St. Elmo's Fire'' (1985) (as Mrs. Beamish), and as Rob Schneider's septuagenari ...
as Joyce
*
David Arkin as Herbie Fine
*
Herb Edelman
Herbert Edelman (November 5, 1933 – July 21, 1996) was an American actor of stage, film and television. He was twice nominated for an Emmy Award for his television work. One of his best-known roles was as Stanley Zbornak, the ex-husband of ...
as Murray
*
Salem Ludwig as Mr. Fine
*
Louis Gottlieb
Louis Gottlieb (October 10, 1923 – July 11, 1996) credited as Lou Gottlieb, was an American bassist and comic spokesman for music trio The Limeliters. He held a PhD in musicology and was considered one of the so-called "new comedy" performers, ...
as guru
*
Grady Sutton
Grady Harwell Sutton (April 5, 1906 – September 17, 1995) was an American film and television character actor from the 1920s to the 1970s. He appeared in more than 180 films.
Early years
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Sutton was raised ...
as funeral director
* Janet Clark as Mrs. Foley
*
Jorge Moreno
Jorge Moreno is a Cuban-American musician and entrepreneur whose career has ranged from winner of the 2002 Latin Grammy Award for Best New Artist,Ed Peck
Ed Peck (March 26, 1917 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor. He is best known as Officer Kirk in ''Happy Days'' (1975–1983).
Early life
Peck was born in New York City on March 26, 1917.
Career
Peck played a captain in the Broad ...
as man in dress shop
Critical response
On review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 14%, based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 4.50/10.
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' called it "a very derivative comedy", with Peter Sellers "sometimes funny (as he tries to spread love among the police) but quite often grotesque (in some embarrassingly intimate bed scenes)." ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' was more positive: "Film blasts off into orbit via top-notch acting and direction. Sellers' performance – both in scenes which spotlight his character as well as ensemble sequences in which everyone is balanced nicely – is an outstanding blend of warmth, sensitivity, disillusion and optimism";
Roger Ebert found some of the movie "good and pretty close to the mark, and Sellers is very funny," he disliked the film's stereotyped view of hippiedom, concluding, "If they'd dropped Sellers into a real hippie culture, we might really have had a movie here."
Home media
''I Love You, Alice B. Toklas'' was released by
Warner Home Video
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros.
It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Vide ...
on June 20, 2006,
as a Region 1 widescreen DVD and years later in 2014 as a DVD-on-demand title via
Warner Archive
The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...
.
See also
*
List of American films of 1968
This is a list of American films released in 1968.
'' Oliver!'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Top-grossing films
# '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''
# '' Funny Girl''
# '' Planet of the Apes''
# '' Rosemary's Baby''
# '' The Odd Couple''
# ...
*
List of films featuring hallucinogens
This is a list of films featuring hallucinogens.
List of films
See also
* List of drug films
References
{{Reflist, 30em, refs=
{{cite news , last=Arnold , first=Joel , url=https://www.npr.org/2013/07/12/199110836/to-the-beaches-of-chile-ha ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{Hy Averback
1968 films
1968 in cannabis
1968 romantic comedy films
American films about cannabis
American romantic comedy films
Films about Jews and Judaism
Films directed by Hy Averback
Films scored by Elmer Bernstein
Films set in Los Angeles
Films shot in Los Angeles
Hippie films
Warner Bros. films
1960s English-language films
1960s American films