Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

bigverybadtom Undoubtedly more shocking when it came out in 1968 when the hippie culture was a relative novelty which had become too big to ignore, this movie comes across nowadays as essentially a time capsule.The story is about a stereotypical Jewish lawyer whose stereotypical Jewish family wants him to marry a certain woman, but before that happens, he meets a hippie girlfriend of his hippie brother, and she bakes him Alice B. Toklas brownies, and the lawyer eats one and trips out. But it is not merely the effects of eating the brownies (the rest of the lawyer's relatives eventually do the same) that makes the lawyer decide to drop out and try the hippie life; he was already disillusioned with his old life to begin with. But will he find happiness among other hippies? The movie has mild laughs, but never builds up any real strength, and it seems that it was meant for its era, but with the hippie culture having become as quaint as the barbershop quartet, it does not hold up well decades later.

Bill Slocum Los Angeles lawyer Harold Fine (Peter Sellers) is one hash brownie away from a total re-examination of his life. But is he really ready for the consequences of a mid-life freak-out?Watching "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" today is to see how the hippie subculture was seen by Middle America back when the Beatles were still together and Woodstock a year or so down the road. Fine doesn't want to upset his Jewish mother (Jo Van Fleet), but those brownies combined with radiant hippie chick Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young) is too much for him to resist.One problem with "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" is that it's really two slapped-together films in one. The first, running an hour, is a well-observed character study, light on laughs but diverting, featuring Harold as prisoner of his middle-class American existence. The second, Harold's hippie freak-out, is a half-hour "Love, American Style" episode utterly at odds with the Harold Fine we have come to know. Sex with Nancy, sure, but are you supposed to believe Harold would be handing out flowers at intersections with just a little help from Duncan Hines? Sellers looks a bit like John Lennon with a long-hair wig, but it isn't enough to convince.Director Hy Averback worked on several of my favorite "M*A*S*H" episodes, but he's out of his element with this early cinematic treatment of the counterculture. Kids in bad wigs say "groovy" and "far out" in a way that feels as strained as seeing someone shout "Twenty-Three Skidoo" in a 1920s movie or "Friend Me On Facebook" today. Nancy even wants to go to the funeral of a Fine family friend because she thinks death is beautiful. Groovy!Taylor-Young is part of my problem with this movie. She's beautiful, yes, in that impossible must-be-from-California-or-Sweden way, but she's really put there for sex appeal only, despite setting up an interesting character the film never develops. After she and Harold come to a crisis over her free-love style, she falls by the wayside. Taylor-Young plays her character so wide-eyed and innocent you want more of a resolution of her relationship with Harold. Instead she's left as a go-go-dancing fantasy figure.To the extent Sellers does shine here, he does so playing off the other characters, particularly Van Fleet and Van Patten, the latter of whom steals what's there of the show as the grasping, aging wanna-be wife. When Harold offers an "area" for when they might be married, she responds: "I know from areas, but I want is a date."Otherwise, this is a sub-par movie with some fun moments that never really come together, disappointingly so given that there's real potential to see Sellers cut up here. Instead, he plays one of his most buttoned-down characters for an hour, followed by a totally different, wacky guy thereafter. If only Sellers and the writers had done more to connect the dots, "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" might have been a worthy Sellers comedy.

binaryg I saw this in '68 when I was about in the same place Harold Fine was, in his social development. I was already married and had kids though. At the time of its release this seemed like an important movie. It was funny and satiric but it ended in a positive note for someone ready to drop out. If we'd only known where that was going to lead, but it was fun for a time.I'm so glad I revisited this over 40 years later (yikes!!) Some of the film I remembered as if I saw it yesterday. Some scenes I had no recollection of. Peter Sellers is marvelous and the rest of the cast is fine. It is a time capsule of a film and really blends film styles. It has a definite TV flavor. Hy Averback mostly worked in TV so that's not a surprise. The film though, is authentic to the time and it was fun to watch for this old hippie.

caspian1978 Peter Seller's (modern) comedy is set in early 70's California. In many ways, this coming of age comedy is the story of Peter Sellers. Leaving his wife for the single life and "swinging" with several women until marrying his 5th or 6th wife, Sellers kept moving, searching for something else. Much like the final scene, Sellers is seen alone running after the unknown as he continues to find himself. While this is a comedy, the movie has many (hidden) dramas among the mix of laughter and jokes. Also, the movie uses many stereotypes to get laughs. Not that PC for today's audience, it is still funny. Having 10 Mexicans in 1 car, having the Jewish family ask how much the bumper cost at the garage, the hippies preaching peace and the yuppies talking about sex all get laughs in this Peter Sellers comedy.