The made-for-TV musical group's surrealistic 1968 film, penned by Jack Nicholson, got no love at the box office, but American Cinematheque has resurrected it. Forty years ago, the Monkees' only feature film, Head, hit theaters -- and people have been scratching their heads ever since.
Though far from a masterpiece like the Beatles' “A Hard Day's Night" from 1964, the film, starring Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith, is a surreal time capsule -- a psychedelic, stream-of-consciousness blast from the past. It's as if Jean Cocteau had consumed lots of LSD and decided to make a rock movie. Only its true history is a lot trippier, considering that Jack Nicholson wrote the script and a motley crew of the era's icons appears in the film.
Tonight, the American Cinematheque's '60s-centric “Mods and Rockers" series will present a 40th anniversary screening of “Head," featuring Tork and Jones, plus other cast and crew members, in person. When Head was released theatrically in November 1968, the Monkees could not have been less hip, admits Martin Lewis, the “Mods and Rockers" producer who's hosting the event.
“With the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, and the riots in Chicago, Paris and London, everything was very serious," Lewis says of the time. “Suddenly, though it had only been two years since the Monkees were created, it seemed like 20 years."
Surprisingly enough, Head has quite the pedigree. It was directed by Bob Rafelson and produced by Bert Schneider, who also did the TV series. And it was written and produced by none other than Nicholson, who also makes a brief appearance in the movie. (Two years later, the three would collaborate on the classic drama Five Easy Pieces.)
