Product Description

One day you're a career 9-to-5er with a pending marriage. The next you chuck it all for beads bell-bottoms and free love. That's how things are for Harold Fine a dedicated lawyer about to become a more dedicated dropout. Like the brownies served by Harold's new girlfriend I Love You Alice B. Toklas has a hidden magical ingredient: Peter Sellers whose flower-power performance here is in the same league as Dr. Strangelove Inspector Clouseau and other "best Sellers." Director Paul Mazursky and his co-writer Larry Tucker spread good vibes aplenty as Harold discovers tuning in and turning on can turn out daffily disastrous. Leigh Taylor-Young and Jo Van Fleet co-star in this Age-of-Aquarius time capsule that's timeless fun.Running Time: 94 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569750173 Manufacturer No: 75017

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20035 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2006-06-20
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.com
Poor Harold Fine (Peter Sellers)... he's a suit-and-tie-wearing Jewish professional who's being pressed by his fiancée (Joyce Van Patten, in a supremely whiny and irritating performance) to nail down a wedding date. Harold's bored and dissatisfied with his life, though; when he meets Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young), a hippie-chick friend of his brother's, he decides to tune in, turn on, and drop out, in a big way. He flees the altar, leaving Joyce standing alone, and pursues the counterculture life. Soon, though, Harold discovers that the hippie life isn't all it's cracked up to be, with its hipper-than-thou hypocrisy adding up to little more than a different brand of conformity. Screenwriter Paul Mazursky skewers the shallowness of the '60s with dead-on humor and some hilarious set pieces; the scene where Harold and his straitlaced parents eat some of Nancy's "funny" brownies is especially memorable. Sellers's comic timing and physical awkwardness, paired with Mazursky's dialogue, makes this one of the better '60s-time-capsule flicks. --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Reviews

I love you, Peter Sellers!!
This is a very good movie. I had seen it thirty-something years ago, and always remembered certain parts, but I had forgotten other things and it was great to watch it again. I think it is not only very funny, but also a rather fair evaluation of the pros and cons of the alternative lifestyle that the hip community proposed way back in the mid-to-late 1960's. Peter Sellers, as always, fleshes out the character in his inimitable way. All in all, a highly recomendable movie for those who want to know/remember how life was before Internet and Jihad.

A TRIP back in time...
Along with THE PARTY and THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST, this is one of my favorite films from the psychadelic 60's... though its a bit sad: a comedy, but in retrospect, an homage to a lost revolution - - In fact, in many ways its a play on a fantasy I'm sure we've all had at one time or another... the idea of escaping from the monotony of a boring life and job and... being free - - only then, it was actually a trendy idea... still, Harold Fine (played by Peter Sellers) would have been the least likely guy to ever go ahead and do it... a 30-something year old attorney, unhappily engaged, square and stabley employed... but that was before a young hippie dippie chick came into his life, and he was able to sample her groovy brownies, expand his mind, and learn that maybe 9-5 wasn't as full of "tsures" as he thought it was.

Not to many extra features except a theatrical trailer, the movie is juicilly remastered... and the dialogue, images and music are really a trip back to the 60's. - - True, the film is best remembered for the hash brownie scene the film starts rolling way before then and keeps on getting better and better starting with the most "beautiful" and sub-union scale funeral you've ever been to... of course its hard to top and elderly Jewish couple high on hash and dancing the horah and playing minerature golf.... but that's just the begining of the madness.

Based on a great book with a great premise... an additional surprize about the movie was Peter Seller's ability to act so straight and square... then make the transformation from neurotic square to... to a hippie on the verge of a nervous breakdown. (Compare to Coburn's role in The President's Analyst.)

Don't rent this one... buy it... I get the munchies for it once every couple of years or so - - its worth the purchase... (By the way, another under-rated little morsel from this era is Goldie Hawn in Butterflies Are Free, though I think Leigh Taylor-Young's hippie dippie chick's got her beat on this one...!)

All in all, this is a hillariously cynical look at the "WE" generation, and along with THE PARTY one of my all time favorite PETER SELLERS films.

An area is not a date!
Sellers is perfect in the restricted anxious role as the repressed asmatic Jewish raised status quo lawyer, Harold Fine. Joyce (Joyce Van Patten) remarks when his car is pinned in due to an unforseen parking challenge, "You are afraid to move Harold!" A few minutes later she confesses, "I am 33 years old & that is not an easy thing for me to say!" " Then asks, "Am I going to be your wife or am I going to continue to be your concubine?!"

His doting mother fabulously played by Joyce Van Fleet confuses him when she unexpectedly enters his office crying about a recently deceased family friend (Ed Foley) who supposedly saved his life but Harold doesn't remember & Harold mistakenly thinks she is referring to his beloved father.

This film is a wonderful vintage time capsule of the 1960's yet it is just as relevant today as it was then. I was very saddened to discover that the actor David Arkin, (who played Sellers' bohemian brother, "Herbie") comitted suicide in 1991. I can't help but feel that the strange optimism which was so strong in Mazursky & Tucker's screenplay alluded Arkin.

That being said......The screeenplay is wonderful & the actors are perfectly suited for their roles. The psychedlic music/score is fantastic. The scene where hippyi-chick Nancy & Harold accidentally get his parents high with Nancy's brownies (thanks to the famous recipe by Toklas NOT Ruebens!!!) is the ultimate munchy laughing scene. I have never laughed so much in unison with film characters as I have in this film. You have to see it to understand the power in this scene. I am totally convinced afer viewing this excellent film that actors are correct - comedy IS more difficult than tragedy.

This movie makes me wonder what was so different about the 60's as right now? I feel the same sentiments as all the main characters in this film feel. The very beautiful Leigh Taylor-Young (Nancy) innocently asks our repressed hero, "Why are you afraid of me?" This in my humble opinion is the seed of the film's story: Why are WE afraid of freedom?

I've come to the conclusion that integrity is what is missing today. This film comically yet very perfectly depicts man's eternal search for his True Self. The last lines in the movie are poignantly uttered by Sellers: I don't know where I'm going & I don't care...I don't care! There's got to be something beautiful out there! There has to be! I just know it!"

A very funny relevant (even in our jaded 21st century), even if vintage (dated) movie about a man seeking the meaning of Self. Simply beautiful!