Welcome to my new short series called Hippie Hotties where I plan to talk about a hippie-era movie that stretched the limits of free love and sex by showing off some sexy nudes on the big screen. This era of experimentation led to some pretty far-out films, so let's take a look!
Alice B. Toklas was the female partner of famous 20th-century writer intellectual Gertrude Stein. The two famously hosted intellectuals and artists from all over the world at their Paris home in their notorious salons. Alice was a particularly good cook and she was known for making her very own special fudge. The special ingredient? You guessed it! Grass! After she published a cookbook in 1954, Alice B. Toklas' recipe for hash fudge became shorthand for other deserts cooked with pot. In fact, Toklas is likely where we get the phrase "toke up" when it comes to smoking. That's who Alice was, but the movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is definitely not about the famous lesbian lovers. It is, of course, about smoking grass and loosening up. That is really good news for lovers of skin, by the way.
The movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is not necessarily a typical "hippie" film. By that I mean, it was not made by hippies. It was made by famous character comedian Peter Sellers who could disguise himself in any role. Surely, you remember Sellers for playing multiple characters to perfection in the Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove as well as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther films which did give us some sexy 1970s babes.
In the romantic comedy, Peter plays a neurotic and successful lawyer named Harold Fine. He is as straight-laced as they come! However, Harold is bored and nervous as he approaches his wedding to his fiance Joyce. He finds excitement in an especially alluring hippie chick that he gets close to at a funeral (a chill, normal place to meet women). He goes home with the flower power fox who winds up making him a batch of pot brownies. Wouldn't you know it? He has a brownie and it totally changes his world, man. The movie is directed by Hy Averaback and Harpers Bizarre does a very catchy theme song that is about to be stuck in your head.
After he totally trips out on the brownies, he decides to leave his old life behind and plunge into the groovy world of the counterculture. The problem? His fiance, his job, and his family are not at all happy. By the way, Joyce Van Patten plays the straight-laced Joyce who is far too conservative in the movie to show any nudity. That being said, she went nude in 1972's Bone (although this backburger scene may have been a body double). She definitely gave bone-rs with this insanely graphic scene. If Joyce had acted like this with Peter Sellers, there would have been no way that he would leave her for some random hippie chick.
The hippie chick that Harold leaves everything behind for is played by Leigh Taylor-Young who gets frisky with him in one scene. But Harold finds out, as with anything in life, that the grass is always greener on the other side - even when the grass makes you feel totally groovy, man. The hippie life is just as unsatisfying. His new girlfriend thinks monogamy isn't "hip" and sleeping in the back of a van is not as comfortable as his bed. In the end, he blends his worlds by introducing Joyce to a pot brownie and deciding to marry her.
However! He winds up leaving her at the altar and runs away from both worlds saying that he does not know what he will do next but "there's got to be something beautiful out there". Honestly, this feels SO typical of this time period for me. I mean, remember the ending to Harold and Maude? Harold dancing away after Maude is gone? This ending kind of reminds me of that except that Harold Fine hurt everyone's feelings on the process of FiNdiNg HiMseLF.
This is not Sellers' only hippie movie role. He starred opposite Ringo Starr in the much more psychedelic 1969 film The Magic Christian where he instead played an eccentric billionaire. The best part? Raquel Welch is in the movie as a seductive priestess. We can talk about this movie more in-depth another time because there are magical mams aplenty, but Raquel is going to make your own magic mushroom grow.
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is not widely remembered these days and it was mildly received by critics at the time. If anything, the song might be its most lasting legacy. I feel like that is because it was made by an "outsider". Many of these hippie films fall into two camps: they were either made by experimental artists who were tripping on acid or they were made by a studio-backed director who wanted to see what this whole flower child thing was all about. I think audiences could smell their authenticity - or lack thereof - from 7,000 miles away. That being said, it certainly is one of the most watchable plots of any hippie movie. At the very least you can fully understand and cherish Leigh's lady lumps:
