If the Monkees were a made-for-TV response to the success of the Beatles, then the Monkees’ first movie, Head, was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of films like Help! and A Hard Day’s Night. Who could producers tap to script the project? Director Bob Rafelson knew just the guy — B-movie actor and struggling screenwriter Jack Nicholson.
“Jack was fabulous,” Monkee Peter Tork told The Guardian. “We adored him, all of us. Michael (Nesmith) practically fell in love with him, in a manly sort of way.”
Micky Dolenz co-signed on the band’s love of Nicholson. “He was such a wonderful, charismatic, funny guy,” he explained. “Jack spent a lot of time with us. He hung out on the (TV show) set and came out on tour, just picking up the vibe.”
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The four Monkees — Dolenz, Tork, Nesmith and Davy Jones — collaborated with Rafelson and Nicholson on the story. The fellas spent a late 1967 weekend in a hotel room in Ojai, California, smoking weed and rambling ideas into a tape recorder.
But pot-fueled story notes weren’t enough. With the recordings in hand, Nicholson dropped LSD and fashioned the hazy groupthink into a psychedelic screenplay. The result was Head, a title that was both a drug reference and an excuse for Rafelson’s next movie to be marketed with the line, “From the guys who gave you Head.” (That next movie? Another Rafelson/Nicholson collaboration called Easy Rider. The movie was shot alongside Head, which is why the Monkees movie is graced with cameos from Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda.)
Nicholson even directed a few scenes, including Tork’s favorite, a bit in which he reveals what he learned from an Indian mystic, man.
Hard to believe with its drug-drenched origins, but Head turned out to be a mess. Variety called it “ridiculous nonsense.” Roger Ebert gives a clue about the comedy’s trippiness: “You may, for metaphysical private reasons of your own, appreciate the scene where The Monkees play dandruff in Victor Mature’s hair.” Even Tork admitted, “It was probably more confusing to me than it was to the average moviegoer.”
Despite the Monkees’ TV popularity, the movie bombed — fans were turned off by the group’s turn to druggy weirdness, while real counterculture types wanted nothing to do with it. It made only 16 grand at the box office.
But as movie disasters often do, Head has developed a cult-classic reputation over the years. Quentin Tarantino told Dolenz it was one of his all-time favorites. Director Edgar Wright also admits he’s borrowed from Head in his films.
And the movie’s screenwriter remains a fan. “Nobody ever saw that, man, but I saw it 158 million times,” Nicholson told The New York Times in 1970. “I loved it. Filmatically, it’s the best rock ‘n’ roll movie ever made. It’s anti-rock.”