I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968)
Grade: 76
Peter Sellers made a number of bad movies, particularly towards the end of his career. But he also made many good ones, movies that showed his tremendous range and talent as a comedy actor.
In "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!" Sellers portrays a frustrated white collar worker, approaching middle age and henpecked by both his mother (Jo Van Fleet) and his clinging, shallow fiancee (Joyce Van Patten).
Disillusioned with his life, Sellers reject both it and his fiancee. He becomes a hippie, living with winsome flower child Leigh Taylor-Young. But he comes to realize that his new life is just as empty as before, as is his new relationship.
"I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!" is a satire. It effectively contrasts and ridicules the values and lifestyles of hippies and squares in 1968 America. The squares are always struggling: to succeed, to conform, to win approval, even to survive. The hippies live in a delusional world of empty assertions of love, aimless lifestyles, and banal philosophies.
What the hippies and squares have in common is that they have both no clue just how foolishly they are behaving. The movie asks the question, "What is the best way to live?" and gives the reply, "We will laugh at you no matter which way you choose."
Fortunately, this well-directed film is funny consistently enough that the audience will laugh too.
kollers@shell.mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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