I Love You, Alice B. Toklas

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is a 1968 romantic comedy film starring Peter Sellers, directed by Hy Averback with music by Harpers Bizarre.[2] The film is set in the counterculture of the 1960s. The cast includes Joyce Van Patten, David Arkin, Jo Van Fleet, Leigh Taylor-Young (in her film debut) and a cameo by the script's co-writer Paul Mazursky. The title refers to the writer Alice B. Toklas, whose 1954 autobiographical cookbook had a recipe for cannabis brownies.[3]

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas
VHS video cover
Directed byHy Averback
Produced by
Written byPaul Mazursky
Larry Tucker
Starring
Music byElmer Bernstein
CinematographyPhilip H. Lathrop
Edited byRobert Jones
Distributed byWarner Bros.-Seven Arts
Release date
  • October 7, 1968 (1968-10-07) (New York, US)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.1 million (rentals)[1]

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 flower power young 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" a revelation, and begins renouncing aspects of his "straight" life. He leaves his fiancée at the chuppah 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

Critical response

Vincent Canby in The New York Times 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)."[4] Variety 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";[5] 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."[6]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 14%, based on reviews from 7 critics.[7]

Home media

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas was released to DVD by Warner Home Video June 20, 2006,[8] as a Region 1 widescreen DVD and years later in 2014 as a DVD-on-demand title via Warner Archive.

See also

References
  1. "Big Rental Films of 1968", Variety, 8 January 1969, pg 15.
  2. "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968) - Hy Averback - Cast and Crew - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  3. "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968) - Articles - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies. January 2010. Archived from the original on December 10, 2010.
  4. Canby, Vincent (October 8, 1968). "Screen: 'I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!':Peter Sellers Stars as Lawyer Turned Hippie". The New York Times.
  5. "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas". Variety. January 1, 1968.
  6. Ebert, Roger. "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas Movie Review (1968)". Chicago Sun-Times.
  7. "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  8. Cornelius, David (June 16, 2006). "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas". DVD Talk. Retrieved October 19, 2020.
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