Head

Head. 1968 Columbia Pictures; now owned by Rhino Entertainment Group.
Starring: The Monkees
Also Appearing: Annette Funicello, Victor Mature, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Teri Garr, Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston
Producers: Bob Rafelson & Jack Nicholson
Director: Bob Rafelson
Available from Amazon.

We open with the dedication of a new suspension bridge in a large city somewhere. After a politician overcomes his problems with constant feedback from his microphone disrupting his speech, Micky Dolenz interupts the ceremony, with David Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith hot on his trail. Dolenz leaps off the bridge into the river below, but is rescued by two mermaids.

And things just got weirder and more surreal from there. The plot vaguely suggests that the Monkees are trying to escape their own image or the limitations of their TV show, but failing at almost every attempt.

Head, depending on who you believe, was either the Monkees' attempt to break out of their bubble gum image in collaboration with Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson, or an attempt by Rafelson and producer Bert Schneider to bury the entire band after just a couple of years. The movie originally ran 110 minutes, but was edited down to less than 90 minutes after a poor audience response during its first screening in Los Angeles back in August 1968. Head was still a commercial flop, being the antithesis of The Monkees television series (which alienated those teenyboppers who managed to see the movie), and the "hipper" audience they were reaching for rejected the film out of hand. The bizarre TV advertising campaign, with a close-up shot of the head of a gentleman named John Brockman smiling after 30 seconds with the word "head" superimposed on the screen, didn't even mention the Monkees.

Recommended film, but do not expect a 90 minute version of the TV show, which was what I expected when I first saw Head on TNT sometime in 1994.

(Had a sequel for Head been made, the film's title was chosen so that the advertisements would start off with the inevitable tagline "From the people that gave you Head..." That's one of the greatest jokes ever. Laugh, people! Laugh!)