Riot on Sunset Strip
Film poster
Directed byArthur Dreifuss
Written byOrville H. Hampton
Produced bySam Katzman
StarringFrank Alesia
Aldo Ray
Mimsy Farmer
Michael Evans
Anna Strasberg
Tim Rooney
CinematographyPaul C. Vogel
Edited byBen Lewis
Music byFred Karger
Distributed byAmerican International Pictures
Release date
  • March 1, 1967 (1967-03-01)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1,200,000 (US/ Canada)[1]

Riot on Sunset Strip is a 1967 counterculture-era exploitation movie, released by American International Pictures. It was filmed and released within four months of the late-1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots.[2]

The film stars Frank Alesia, Aldo Ray, Mimsy Farmer, Michael Evans, Anna Strasberg, Laurie Mock, Gene Kirkwood, Tim Rooney, and features musical appearances by The Standells and The Chocolate Watch Band. Earlier that year, Farmer, Mock and Kirkwood appeared in Hot Rods to Hell, where Farmer portrayed the bad girl and Mock a vulnerable virgin. In this film, they switched characters.

The film attempts to capture the essence of the period around the Sunset Strip riot, and also adds a subplot that revolves around a young girl's troubled relationship with her divorced parents. Her dosage with LSD by a would-be seducer, the subsequent 'acid trip' she experiences, and her later discovery by a police sergeant as the victim of gang rape, are among the movie's peak moments.

The film is now available on DVD through the MGM Limited Edition Collection.

Production notes

"Riot on Sunset Strip", a classic song in the genre of garage punk, was written for the film by Tony Valentino and John Fleck of the Standells.

The film was made for MGM but they could not move fast enough to release it so Katzman sold it to American International Pictures.[3]

Cast

  • Aldo Ray as Walt Lorimer
  • Mimsy Farmer as Andrea Dollier
  • Michael Evans as Frank Tweedy
  • Laurie Mock as Liz-Ann Barbrey
  • Tim Rooney as Grady Toss
  • Bill Baldwin as Stokes
  • Anna Strasberg as Helen Tweedy (credited as Anna Mizrahi)
  • Hortense Petra as Margie
  • Schuyler Hayden as Herbie
  • Gene Kirkwood as Flip
  • Pat Renella as Perry
  • Forrest Lewis as Aynsley
  • George E. Carey as Arnow
  • John Hart as Pritchard
  • Dick Winslow as Curtis

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1967", Variety, 3 January 1968 p 25. These figures refer to rentals accruing to the distributors.
  2. ↑ Clifford, Terry. (May 8, 1967). "'Riot' Takes Superficial Look at LSD Parties". Chicago Tribune. p. b8.
  3. ↑ Mark McGee, Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland, 1996 p263
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