Skidoo

Weirdness abounds in Skidoo. At age sixty-two, Otto Preminger dropped acid (truly) and embarked on this generational jest, posing the Establishment, here disguised as the Mob, against the hippies, led by love guru John Phillip Law, appropriately named Stash. Tough Tony (Jackie Gleason), a retired gunsel, is called back for one more hit, and it isn't from a bong, though his daughter's dropout BF could provide heaps of hallucination. Tony ends up in the joint (not that one), alongside cell chums The Man (Frank Gorshin), Blue Chips Packard (Mickey Rooney), and Beany (Richard Kiel). When LSD finds its way into the mess-hall chow, garbage cans sprout legs and dance, literally. Lording over the proceedings is “God,” played by Groucho Marx, who runs the Mob from a yacht, captained by (who else?) George Raft. Shot on location in San Francisco, Skidoo is a long, strange trip that, like film, uses chemistry to seek enlightenment.

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