Hy Averback directed I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, an eccentric romantic comedy, set in the 1960s counterculture, starring Peter Sellers.
The film’s eponymous theme song was performed by the sunshine pop group Harpers Bizarre.
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Theatrical release poster
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Attorney Harold Fine is cornered into setting a date for marriage by his secretary-fiancée, Joyce. However, because of a fender bender, he ends up driving 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 femme. After spending a nice a night together, she 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” a revelation, and begins renouncing aspects of his “straight” life.
He leaves his fiancée at the chuppah just moments before they are to be wed, and starts living with Nancy, trying to find his inner self with the aid of a guru.
Ultimately he discovers that 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 once again leaves her at the altar and runs out of the wedding onto a city street.
He claims that he doesn’t know for sure what he is looking for, but he believes that “there’s got to be something beautiful out there.”
The film was written by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker, making their debut as writers.
Mazursky was intended to direct the film while Tucker was meant to produce. However, when Peter Sellers signed on as star, a directing search started, which went from Jonathan Miller (who Sellers rejected) to Mazursky (who he accused of fooling around with his wife Britt Ekland).
Sellers eventually asked for Mazursky’s help in collaboration after one week of filming (which led to Mazursky being the “first mate” of what Sellers thought was a sinking ship)/
Before the film ended, there were even plans to do a screen adaptation of The Russian Interpreter.
However, an exchange about “vibrations,” when Mazursky tried to get Sellers to act tougher against Leigh Taylor-Young, led Sellers to kick him out; Mazursky had to sneak out to see dailies.
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas opened at Pacific’s Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles on August 29, 1968. As promotion, artist Andy Warhol painted a butterfly on Leigh Taylor-Young’s thigh during a party at L’Etoile in New York on Sept 30, 1968.
Many critics, such as the N.Y. Times Vincent Canby, claimed that it is “a derivative comedy,” featuring Peter Sellers in “sometimes funny (trying to spread love among the police), but more often grotesque (in some embarrassingly intimate bed scenes).”
Geeted with negative reviews, which charged the film with presenting a stereotypical view of hippiedom, the movie was a commercial flop.
Peter Sellers as Harold Fine
Jo Van Fleet as Mrs. Fine
Leigh Taylor-Young as Nancy
Joyce Van Patten as Joyce
David Arkin as Herbie Fine
Herb Edelman as Murray
Salem Ludwig as Mr. Fine
Louis Gottlieb as guru
Grady Sutton as funeral director
Janet Clark as Mrs. Foley
Jorge Moreno as Mr. Rodriguez
Ed Peck as man in dress shop
Credits
Directed by Hy Averback
Written by Paul Mazursky, Larry Tucker
Produced by Charles Maguire
Cinematography Philip Lathrop
Edited by Robert Jones
Music by Elmer Bernstein
Distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Release dates: August 29, 1968 (LA); Oct 18, 1968 (US)
Running time: 94 minutes
Box office $1.1 million
