Mondo Hollywood is a documentary

Documentary

A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...

 "mondo movie

Mondo film

A mondo film is an exploitation documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations...

" by Robert Carl Cohen, released in 1967. Filmed over the preceding two years, it was described by Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

as a "flippy, trippy psychedelic

Psychedelic

The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...

 guide to Hollywood".

Description

The film starts with the legend:

"All persons and events depicted herein are real. Any similarity to fictitious persons or events is purely coincidental."

The film presents a series of vignettes of the more extreme aspects of life in Hollywood - and Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 as a whole - of the period, focussing on "the Hollywood the public does not know". Personalities who appear in the movie include proto-hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

 Gypsy Boots

Gypsy Boots

Gypsy Boots , born Robert Bootzin , was an American fitness pioneer, actor, and writer. He is credited with laying the foundation for the acceptance by mainstream America of "alternative" lifestyles such as yoga and health food...

, stripper

Stripper

A stripper is a professional erotic dancer who performs a contemporary form of striptease at strip club establishments, public exhibitions, and private engagements. Unlike in burlesque, the performer in the modern Americanized form of stripping minimizes the interaction of customer and dancer,...

 Jennie Lee, S&H Green Stamps

S&H Green Stamps

S&H Green Stamps were trading stamps popular in the United States from the 1930s until the late 1980s. They were distributed as part of a rewards program operated by the Sperry and Hutchinson company , founded in 1896 by Thomas Sperry and Shelly Hutchinson...

 heir Lewis Beach Marvin III, celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring

Jay Sebring

Jay Sebring was an American hair stylist for celebrities, and the founder of the hairstyling corporation Sebring International. He is also known as one of the murder victims of the Manson Family.-Early life:...

 (later murdered by the Manson

Charles Manson

Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...

 gang), psychedelic pioneer Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass), singer Bobby Jameson

Bobby Jameson

Robert Parker Jameson , known as Bobby Jameson, is an American singer and songwriter, who was briefly hyped as a major star in the early 1960s and later recorded with The Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa and others...

 (with his then-girlfriend Gail Sloatman), housekeeper Estella Scott, actors Margaretta Ramsey, Theodore Charach and Valerie Porter, fashion designer Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich was a Austrian-born American fashion designer and gay activist.-Biography:Born in Vienna, Gernreich fled Austria at age 16 due to Nazism, and later migrated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, California...

, artist Vito Paulekas

Vito Paulekas

Vitautus Alphonsus "Vito" Paulekas was an American artist and bohemian, who was most notable for his leading role in the Southern California "freak scene" of the 1960s, and his influence on musicians including The Byrds, Love and Frank Zappa.Paulekas was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of...

, surfer Dale Davis, skydiver Jim Arender, and beautician Sheryl Carson. Each personality provides a narrative for their own scenes. The film also shows various social and political gatherings, including an anti-communist crusade, Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre is a movie theater at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It is on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame.The Chinese Theatre was commissioned following the success of the nearby Grauman's Egyptian Theatre which opened in 1922...

, a visit to Universal Studios

Universal Studios

Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

 by Princess Margaret, the aftermath of the Watts riots

Watts Riots

The Watts Riots or the Watts Rebellion was a civil disturbance in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California from August 11 to August 15, 1965. The 5-day riot resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, and 3,438 arrests...

, a UCLA peace rally, and a children's fashion show. Other individuals shown briefly in the movie included Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

, Sonny and Cher, Bobby Beausoleil

Bobby Beausoleil

Robert Kenneth "Bobby" Beausoleil is a convicted American murderer and associate of the Charles Manson "Family" who is serving a life sentence. He killed music teacher and fellow associate Gary Hinman on July 27, 1969, and has been imprisoned since his arrest for that crime...

, Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

, Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...

, Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...

, Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 and several transsexuals.

Production

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

Mike Curb

Michael Curb is an American musician, record company executive, NASCAR and IRL race car owner. A Republican, he served as the 42nd Lieutenant Governor of California from 1979-1983 under Democratic Governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr...

, and the soundtrack featured songs by Davie Allan and the Arrows

Davie Allan

Davie Allan is a guitarist best known for his work on soundtracks to various teen and biker movies in the 1960s. Allan's backing band is almost always the Arrows , although the Arrows have never been a stable lineup....

, 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

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

 Film Festival in 1967, and was then scheduled to be shown at the Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

 Festival. However, the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 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."

The ban was later lifted. In 1978, when Mike Curb was running for election as lieutenant governor

Lieutenant governor

A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...

 of California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, his opponent, the incumbent Mervyn M. Dymally

Mervyn M. Dymally

Mervyn Malcolm Dymally is a California Democratic politician of mixed Indian and Afro-Trinidadian heritage. He served in the California State Assembly and the California State Senate , as the 41st Lieutenant Governor of California , and in the U.S. House of Representatives...

, claimed that the film was "pornographic" and that Curb "sang falsetto in a bath tub scene with two lesbians." Curb at first denied singing in the film, but then admitted it. He 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

Director's cut

A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...

" version was premiered at the Moondance Film Festival on 10 June 2006.