Most of us who see this will watch the Something Weird presentation which pairs this with "Hippie Revolt."
"Mondo World" is the more miss-able of the two films. It has its moments of unintentional humor that we watch Something Weird films for, but they are few and far between. Probably the best moment is when a women is trying out a dress in a ill-lit boutique looks at the owner and says, "Could this be made any shorter?" The dress coming down to about a centimeter below her crotch. The film never defines "mod" but shows a collection of unrelated phenomena. Outside of the drug use, they might unnerve a grandmother in Kansas, but no one else. Guys with short hair on surfboards? Guys on dirtbikes? It's not a cultural revolt, it's people with a little spending money and leisure time, although the leering narrator seems to think differently. For the most part, this film seems to be the kind of second feature shown at drive-ins intended to bore people into putting away the speaker and leaving after fifteen minutes or so.
"Hippie Revolt" aka "Something's Happening" is a little more worthwhile; it at least works as a cultural document. Noteworthy in the running time: scenes of the Haight-Ashbury district of the time, which it is claimed had about one person every six square feet. I don't know if that was accurate, but the people did seem packed. The camera panned for a minute on a weekly community group seminar on how to avoid gangbangs, venereal disease, beatings and starvation, letting us know that not all was peace and consensual sex among these young, pad-crashing transients. Then the film moves to a commune called "Strawberry Fields," where it was revealed that the locals had problems with these hippies moving into the area. As no one seems to be doing anything productive, I might have problems myself. The property probably is still an outdoor slum thanks to these people. Mostly this part of the film lets us know that people zonked on drugs can sound really, really dumb. "The total presence of God and the total absence of God, it's like, the same thing," says a nubile young girl in a short dress, while a man nods in agreement; no doubt wondering how much more of this crap he will have to listen to before she will let him get into that dress.
Easily the best part of the disk is the extras. You get to see previews for sleazy, and I mean, sleazy, roughies like "Smoke and Flesh" and "The Dean's Wife." And deleted scenes from "Mondo Mod" showing nudity. (If and when you see a nice body in these extras, keep in mind: she's probably expecting her first great-grandchild right about now.) Best of all were the posters of drive-in movies shown while a voice-over used a drive-in in Greenville, SC plays. I found it amazing that two movies, "The Miracle of Birth" and "Birth of Triplets" were advertised here over and over. I didn't know 'birth films' were a genre? Either that, or obstetricians were a big part of the drive-in audience....
