Robert Carl Cohen (b. 1930), who had previously made Inside Red China (1957), Inside East Germany (1959), Committee on Un-American Activities (1962), and Inside Castro's Cuba (1963), was producer, director, photographer and editor of the film. The music director was Mike Curb, and the soundtrack featured songs by Davie Allan and the Arrows, and others.
Reception
The film was promoted as "starring Jayne Mansfield", who had recently died, even though she only appears in it very fleetingly. It was first shown at the Mannheim Film Festival in 1967, and was then scheduled to be shown at the Avignon Festival. However, the French government banned it from being shown, stating:
This film, in the opinion of certain experts of the Commission [of Control], presents an apology for a certain number of perversities, including drugs and homosexuality, and constitutes a danger to the mental health of the public by its visual aggressivity and the psychology of its editing. The Commission proposes, therefore, its total interdiction.[5]
The ban was later lifted. In 1978, when Mike Curb was running for election as lieutenant governor of California, his opponent, the incumbent Mervyn M. Dymally, claimed that the film was "pornographic" and that Curb "sang falsetto in a bath tub scene with two lesbians". Curb denied participating in the film, but accepted that he had provided music for it after the filming had been completed. Mike Qualls, editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, stated that "Nothing in the entire 88 minute film could be described as pornographic". Curb won the election.
The film was later described as a "cult classic ... [which] captures the underside of Hollywood by documenting a moment in time ... when an inquisitive trust in the unknown was paramount, hope for the future was tangible and life was worth living on the fringe." A re-edited and expanded "director's cut" version was premiered at the Moondance Film Festival on 10 June 2006.[4]
