Harold Fine (Peter Sellers) is a successful button downed LA accident attorney living life by the numbers with a modicum of passion. Preparing listlessly to marry he runs across flower child Nancy (Leigh-Taylor Young)who offers him an alternative view as well as some mind altering weed brownies that in combination cause him to go Leary and drop out. Hooking up with Nancy they live in his car for awhile before getting a crash pad complete with hanger ons. While Harold is really tuned into Nancy he's turned off by the chaotic leisure and presence of the dead beats. Caught between two worlds, conflicted about where he belongs Harold seesaws with modern day existence.
Alice falls somewhere between Reefer Madness and Up in Smoke with its comic exploration of the notorious herb. While it is free of the bug eyed crazies that populated Reefer its just as dishonest with the response by its cast of characters (freaks and straights of all ages) who manage to peak two bites in then go on an oh wow laughing jag for half a day. Made within a year of The Summer of Love and a year before Woodstock it is more a burlesque attempt for mass consumption that would later be more fully informed by the gravitas of Cheech and Chong. Quaint and broad as it may be it does re-classify pot however from the insane drug of Dragnet and Reefer Madness with the comic attitude taken towards Prohibition in silent and early sound films.
Sellers rolls well with the fatuous script and Taylor-Young fills the hippie chic bill with ease but Jo Van Fleet as Harold's mother overacts outrageously along with a bit of feigned stoning by the rest of the cast that beats this labored idea into the ground in no time..
Alice falls somewhere between Reefer Madness and Up in Smoke with its comic exploration of the notorious herb. While it is free of the bug eyed crazies that populated Reefer its just as dishonest with the response by its cast of characters (freaks and straights of all ages) who manage to peak two bites in then go on an oh wow laughing jag for half a day. Made within a year of The Summer of Love and a year before Woodstock it is more a burlesque attempt for mass consumption that would later be more fully informed by the gravitas of Cheech and Chong. Quaint and broad as it may be it does re-classify pot however from the insane drug of Dragnet and Reefer Madness with the comic attitude taken towards Prohibition in silent and early sound films.
Sellers rolls well with the fatuous script and Taylor-Young fills the hippie chic bill with ease but Jo Van Fleet as Harold's mother overacts outrageously along with a bit of feigned stoning by the rest of the cast that beats this labored idea into the ground in no time..