"You Are What You Eat" is an artifact capturing that brief patchouly scented moment when the world's youth migrated toward its free love Mecca, the Haight Ashbury. Before the mean spirited chill of hard drugs, Charlie Manson, Nixon and Pol Pot shocked everyone back to their senses. It's puzzling, incoherent and unflatteringly besotted with unattractive flakes pontificating nonsensically, yet still rather engaging. The truncated 40-minute copy in circulation seems to be missing several key elements.
Scenes of notorious San Francisco pot dealer Super Spade which are described in reviews at the time of the film's release are nowhere to be seen. The fact that before "You Are What You Eat" was even released Super Spade was murdered and left in a sleeping bag beneath a cliff by the Point Reyes lighthouse seems ominously portentious. Rumors after his death of imminent mob control of the Haight caused a whole, new emigration of older hipsters to the countryside in search of some utopian dream that wasn't there.
Tiny Tim duets with his then girlfriend Eleanor Baruchian on "I Got You Babe" while mania-addled girls (inserted from The Beatles 1965 Shea Stadium concert) scream for their idols. Nature, leaves and flowers accompany a plaintive " Don't Remind Me Now of Time" sung by Peter Yarrow with whispers of "in the sky". Hell's Angels Motorcycles and a black screen precede the film's first title "The Heart Attack" (a narrator recounting how a loved one died after seeing motorcycles and while taking pictures of the Pope).
Youthful frolics include a desert ceremony with bearded conga drummers, ritualized dancing, body painting and a proper "Freak Out" with Zappa on stage (the music in fact a jam featuring John Simon & The Electric Flag with Michael Bloomfield on lead guitar).
The action cuts off in an abrupt ending with credits that can only be read when played in slow motion. We need to see the other 35-minutes to properly judge this peek at the freak scene in full flower. I think a nice clean transfer from the original negative to DVD (with 5.1 surround sound) is in order.
Scenes of notorious San Francisco pot dealer Super Spade which are described in reviews at the time of the film's release are nowhere to be seen. The fact that before "You Are What You Eat" was even released Super Spade was murdered and left in a sleeping bag beneath a cliff by the Point Reyes lighthouse seems ominously portentious. Rumors after his death of imminent mob control of the Haight caused a whole, new emigration of older hipsters to the countryside in search of some utopian dream that wasn't there.
Tiny Tim duets with his then girlfriend Eleanor Baruchian on "I Got You Babe" while mania-addled girls (inserted from The Beatles 1965 Shea Stadium concert) scream for their idols. Nature, leaves and flowers accompany a plaintive " Don't Remind Me Now of Time" sung by Peter Yarrow with whispers of "in the sky". Hell's Angels Motorcycles and a black screen precede the film's first title "The Heart Attack" (a narrator recounting how a loved one died after seeing motorcycles and while taking pictures of the Pope).
Youthful frolics include a desert ceremony with bearded conga drummers, ritualized dancing, body painting and a proper "Freak Out" with Zappa on stage (the music in fact a jam featuring John Simon & The Electric Flag with Michael Bloomfield on lead guitar).
The action cuts off in an abrupt ending with credits that can only be read when played in slow motion. We need to see the other 35-minutes to properly judge this peek at the freak scene in full flower. I think a nice clean transfer from the original negative to DVD (with 5.1 surround sound) is in order.