In 1969, the students in the Theater Arts Dept. at Santa Monica City College were asked if they would like to act in a movie. A large group of young actors were needed to play a group of hippies who liked to party a lot. Trust me, it was beyond type casting! I was the President of the "Theater Guild" and had invited Sid Davis, the film's producer, to speak to us.
To give you an idea of the times, from 1967 -1970: other speakers were members of "The Committee" and "The Credibility Gap" (Howard Hessman, David L. Landers, & Harry Shearer). We also had "General Waste-More_Land" come & speak. Campus concerts included "Country Joe & The Fish", "Sonny Terry & Brownie Mc Gee", and probably Phil Ochs & John Prine. We all saw "The Who", "The Doors", "The Band", "The Grateful Dead" and everybody else who played at the Whiskey, The Troubadour, the Ash Grove, The Shrine Auditorium, or at the Hollywood Bowl. We marched for Dr. King. We locked arms in the middle of Olympic Blvd. underneath the Avenue Of The Stars overpass, and the Anti-war rally "Another Mother For Peace", became the "Century City Riot." Civil Rights Photographer, Charles Brittin, captured the initial attack on the group of sitting protesters by the LAPD Riot Squad.
The student actors did their best to bring their own life experiences to the film, & to add their reality to the Pot parties, while trying to rein in a lot of over-the-top bits they were asked to do. As students, we challenged anything we thought was contrived. We were definitely quite a hand-full for poor Sid. Keep in mind that this is where Dustin Hoffman got started before moving on to the Pasadena Playhouse. Anyway, our opinion was that neither the writer, the producers, nor the director, had ever smoked a joint. It was our duty to try to make the scenes real. Like I said, we were quite the hand-full.
We also had no idea what the film was about. None of us were briefed, or got to read the script before we signed on. We were not even told what the title of the film was. We just filmed one scene at a time. Lets just say that if strong willed, opinionated, inexperienced, and unpaid student actors had been told that this was an anti-pot film, this flick would never have been filmed in California.
If there is a lesson here for you filmmakers, it's this. If you need to cut costs by using unpaid help, understand what the help is giving you, and what they want in return. To be successful you really must have the tools of a truly great teacher! i.e.: the insight of Freud, the curiosity of Charley Rose, the vocabulary of Gore Vidal, the patience of Mother Teresa, the leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the humanity of Albert Schweitzer, the tenacity of Winston Churchill, the vision of Susan B. Anthony, the creativity of Gordon Parks, the persistence of Thomas Edison, the generosity of Santa Clause, the commitment of Lewis and Clark, and the fearlessness of Sitting Bull.
I think there is a lot to be learned from this film. Not so much from the anti marijuana lecturing, but from the back-story and the fact that a whole lot of school administrators actually thought that this approach, non-informative, would be effective. They may have been right. We will never know. Sid understood his market, had a long and productive career, and kept a lot of film people employed.
Bless him!
To give you an idea of the times, from 1967 -1970: other speakers were members of "The Committee" and "The Credibility Gap" (Howard Hessman, David L. Landers, & Harry Shearer). We also had "General Waste-More_Land" come & speak. Campus concerts included "Country Joe & The Fish", "Sonny Terry & Brownie Mc Gee", and probably Phil Ochs & John Prine. We all saw "The Who", "The Doors", "The Band", "The Grateful Dead" and everybody else who played at the Whiskey, The Troubadour, the Ash Grove, The Shrine Auditorium, or at the Hollywood Bowl. We marched for Dr. King. We locked arms in the middle of Olympic Blvd. underneath the Avenue Of The Stars overpass, and the Anti-war rally "Another Mother For Peace", became the "Century City Riot." Civil Rights Photographer, Charles Brittin, captured the initial attack on the group of sitting protesters by the LAPD Riot Squad.
The student actors did their best to bring their own life experiences to the film, & to add their reality to the Pot parties, while trying to rein in a lot of over-the-top bits they were asked to do. As students, we challenged anything we thought was contrived. We were definitely quite a hand-full for poor Sid. Keep in mind that this is where Dustin Hoffman got started before moving on to the Pasadena Playhouse. Anyway, our opinion was that neither the writer, the producers, nor the director, had ever smoked a joint. It was our duty to try to make the scenes real. Like I said, we were quite the hand-full.
We also had no idea what the film was about. None of us were briefed, or got to read the script before we signed on. We were not even told what the title of the film was. We just filmed one scene at a time. Lets just say that if strong willed, opinionated, inexperienced, and unpaid student actors had been told that this was an anti-pot film, this flick would never have been filmed in California.
If there is a lesson here for you filmmakers, it's this. If you need to cut costs by using unpaid help, understand what the help is giving you, and what they want in return. To be successful you really must have the tools of a truly great teacher! i.e.: the insight of Freud, the curiosity of Charley Rose, the vocabulary of Gore Vidal, the patience of Mother Teresa, the leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the humanity of Albert Schweitzer, the tenacity of Winston Churchill, the vision of Susan B. Anthony, the creativity of Gordon Parks, the persistence of Thomas Edison, the generosity of Santa Clause, the commitment of Lewis and Clark, and the fearlessness of Sitting Bull.
I think there is a lot to be learned from this film. Not so much from the anti marijuana lecturing, but from the back-story and the fact that a whole lot of school administrators actually thought that this approach, non-informative, would be effective. They may have been right. We will never know. Sid understood his market, had a long and productive career, and kept a lot of film people employed.
Bless him!
