A montage of the weird, a freak-out film that appeared when the expression was in fashion and in flower, along with the flower people. The film was one of the first exponents of the mobile camera-rock track-optical effect school of filmmaking, and it is much a document as it is a documentary. A repellent and fascinating depiction of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, along with Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and the East Village in New York. Tiny Tim amounts to something resembling a recurring motif and narrator.
Freak Out Dancer (uncredited)
After his wife leaves him, a disillusioned director dives into the drug scene, trying anything his friend suggests.
Long considered a cult classic, "Mondo Hollywood" captures the underside of Hollywood by documenting a moment in time (1965-67), when an inquisitive trust in the unknown was paramount, hope for the future was tangible and life was worth living on the fringe. An interior monologue narrative approach is used throughout the film, where each principal person shown not only decided on what they wanted to be filmed doing, but also narrated their own scenes. The film opens with Gypsy Boots (the original hippie vegan - desert hopping blender salesman), and stripper Jennie Lee, working out 'Watusi-style' beneath the 'Hollywood' sign -- leading into the 'sustainable community' insight of Lewis Beach Marvin III, the S&H Green Stamp heir, who lived in a $10 a month garage while owning a mountain retreat in Malibu.
