Riot On Sunset Strip (1967)

Composer(s):
Fred Karger

Released in:
1967

Reviews

The Garage Rock 'Nashville.'
by filmfactsman (May 1, 2006)
King of the B-Movie Producer Sam Katzman, ever watchful of trends, based this 1967 AIP film on the Sunset Strip violence of 1966, following police harassment of mobs of teenagers there. "The Most Shocking Film Of Our Generation!" (promised the publicity ads), "Riot on Sunset Strip" was supposed to blow the lid off the wild going-on in Hollywood, California teenage nightclubs. Future Italian cult film star Mimsy Farmer ("Four Flies on Grey Velvet") plays Andy, a troubled teen who falls in with the wrong crowd at a local rock club. She had already played a 'bad' girl in "Hot Rods to Hell" (1967), so at a wild party, someone slips LSD into her Diet Pepsi, whereupon five (5) Wild Boys (NOT Duran Duran) take sexual advantage of her (after she performs a wild, genuinely erotic fertility dance).

As fun as this wild, acid-crazed youth business is, the best reason to see the film is the great footage of garage-rock heroes in the nightclub scenes. The Standells (of "Dirty Water" fame) play the great title track and the otherwise unavailable "Get Away from Here" (even the original soundtrack album contains a different version). The Chocolate Watch Band serve up some scorching pre-punk anthems and the underrated Enemies also perform in the film (but not on the soundtrack album). The last band cut a few singles on the MGM label before singer Cory Wells decided to reunite with Danny Hutton to form Three Dog Night.

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