LSD Concentration Camps in the 1968 film "Wild in the Streets"

Following the Yippie protests of 1967, Wild in the Streets took Jerry Rubin's slogan "don't trust anyone over thirty" to an absurdist, dystopian extreme.
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Based on a short story by Christian-redemption author Robert Thom, the plot points of this exploitation film read like a checklist of 60s political panic buttons.
Max Frost, the spoiled child of upper-middle class parents, defies his erratic mother by becoming a psychedelics chemist and mad bomber. Years after trashing the family home and dynamiting the car, Max mysteriously resurfaces as a millionaire businessman & hippie rock star. With his band of free-loving (and implicitly homosexual/pedophillic) prodigies, he successfully scams congress into lowering majority age to 14. To pull this off he spikes the Capitol's water supply with LSD. Constitutional age restrictions now a thing of the past, Max uses his charisma and Beatles-scale fame to win the presidency.
This montage of clips represents the apotheosis of President Max's political dream. At his direction the militant youth of the nation take revenge on the elderly generation that once oppressed them. Max's own mother is hauled away as he looks on. Political allies and foes alike are swept up in the mass arrests and turned into grinning, tripped-out zombies.
Hawaiians, who dared defy the groovy dictator, suffer the worst fate of all...

[@gordanshaw7747]

It's actually a horrifying concept, to be forced into an LSD trip all day every day.

[@sicks6six]

i know

[@Blyledge]

Well, it's pretty unrealistic. LSD and its analogues have a bizarre pharmacological property: every day of continuous use the effective dose doubles. Somewhere in the range of day 10 to 20 it doesn't work at all. Unlike opiates you can't OD on it, so it essentially becomes inert. This is because LSD works by signalling the brain to release a cascade of endogenous neurotransmitters. Eventually its reserve runs out and there's nothing left to dump. You have to take a few days off for it to work again, and the cooldown period is proportional to the time you spent high. These incarcerated boomers would all sober up eventually. And then watch out, hippies!

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@Blyledge funny since natural DMT in Fescue Grass is shown to cause damage to cattle serotonin receptors. There is a tolerance built up but also toxic side effects. some research indicates LSD causes brain cancer. I've known two people who did lots of LSD and both got brain cancer - what are the odds?

[@kenbranaugh8251]

matter of perspective..

[@CaesarWarrington]

@@Blyledge The "hippies" are the boomers.

[@patrickyoung5862]

I seen this when I was eleven in 1968 with my older sister. It was at the time the coolest thing! Groovy Man!

[@efreet02]

Well as long as the camps' surroundings are going to be groovy, it sounds just fine to me. Plus you get to wear those cool purple robes. Of course, you wouldn't want to be in the same camp as Shelley Winters.

[@johnrogan9420]

Shelly Winters...great acting!!!!

[@scottmoore2231]

Can't be no worse than the sad reality of the way things are going now!!!!

[@johnrogan9420]

Contribute...contribute....contribute to yourself!

[@setpunks13]

Gotta love Shelley Winter's line: "I'm Aryan! I'm Aryan! I mean.....I'm young! I'm young!" lol Saw this on tv when i was nine. When I saw Hal Holbrook hanging from the tree, I was like "ok, my fucking mind is scarred forever'

[@terryburns184]

what a line!!

[@SherryeLyn]

That's not Shelly Winters. She's in the next scene, behind the fence.

[@delavalmilker]

@@SherryeLyn It is Shelly Winters, in both scenes.

[@JackHutton]

I just caught that line of hers- it’s amazing. And yeah, the hanging Hal Holbrook was scarring as a kid.

[@slapandtick1e]

the max frost & the troopers album that came out is actually very good for being made by a fictional band. this movie is very funny to watch now lol

[@SpleenieMartini]

How exactly nomadic can an island people be?

[@rockvilleraven]

Totalitarianism at its finest. Some people wanted a punk remake, it would not be even 1 percent as good as this one.

[@m-71tx26]

It doesn’t matter who’s in power. It’s always the same in the end. I’ve said it many a time before, the Revolution will eat its own children.

[@thomasmantellwilliam]

Don't drink the PURPLE KOOLAID!

[@strangehobbyist]

Simple revenge fantasy for youth groups disguised as alternate history. Or at least, that's one of several bizarre ways to describe this film...

[@Brownshoe24]

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century, Max Foster is an analogue of American president Richard Nixon.

[@kpadmirer]

I saw the previews when it came out. When I saw the cop-hating hippies running around in uniforms I knew that it had to be a joke.

[@michaelsimpson208]

Just imagine if this film was remade?!?

[@Unknown-bq9id]

Parts of this could be a horror movie--ESPECIALLY seeing Hal Holbrook hanging from a tree with his eyes open. Holy shit...

[@cnoevl67]

Best "Twilight Zone" episode ever, brought on by our own government.

[@4NickAder]

i had this on VHS years ago i wish i would have kept it

[@Blyledge]

This movie was made for you.

[@Blyledge]

@murderd2death All three. This was an exploitation film masquerading as a political parable. It appealed to prurient tastes in both older conservatives and young people who identified with the counterculture. Since the writing isn't that bright the conflicting ideologies weren't reconciled and the film is full of cognitive dissonance. The KZbin clip "Yippie utopia" depicts exactly the opposite. But the cuts from this and that were intermingled in the actual film. It's kind of dizzying.

[@mike9klf]

This is just sooo cool. I remember going to see it...

[@ynnektrub1]

Saw this at the drive-in with my girlfriend. The story concept is really pretty far-out, man. But even with my as-yet-to-be drug addled 18 year old brain, I realized the film was a bummer, man.

[@pinkydogbear]

Those were the days!

[@stevenl8054]

An epic for American-International, a teen-exploitation movie that turned out to be a smart satire; and what a cast. Great songs too.

[@williambailey9917]

i saw this movie when it came out. those are wwii buildings that have been used as unfenced prisons and unfenced housing camps since they were built i remember them in my town since i was a kid

[@billg6166]

I saw this at a theater when I was 15. wow

[@Blyledge]

What did you think? What do you think now?

[@billg6166]

@@Blyledge I've heard that microdosing acid daily is a good thing.

[@delavalmilker]

Christopher Jones (who played Max Frost) was a real up-and coming actor in the late 60's. Starring in such A-list films as "The Looking Glass War" and "Ryan's Daughter". Unfortunately, he got into drugs and his career declined rapidly. In a documentary about Jones, one person recalled that he would show up at Shelly Winter's home. Looking in the windows. Giving Shelly a major freak-out.

[@Unknown-bq9id]

It also didn't help that Sharon Tate, one of his closest friends, was murdered by the Manson family...

[@unssh2580]

What a quaint idea of a dystopian future. Nobody had any idea how dystopian 2022 would actually be.

[@Blyledge]

I especially liked President Max's policy of blanket debt forgiveness.

[@scottmoore2231]

New governor of Ky is wanting to do this to people 50 and over!!! I hope they pass out mushrooms!!!!!

[@lordmaynard5237]

The old dude at 3:35 looks like John McCain!

[@hippydippy]

Pure Brilliance! lol

[@TheTGRproductions]

Free LSD and Spiritual experience. Sign me the fuck up!

[@normandyangel]

3:29 lmao

[@kenbranaugh8251]

is this a movie or a documentary?

[@normandyangel]

This is sick

[@JackHutton]

I’ve watched this movie before. This scene is infamous. But, I just noticed-as Shelley Winters is being dragged from her home, she is alternating protests from “I’m young, I’m young.” interspersed with “I’m Aryan, I’m Aryan.” - rather shocking…

[@Blyledge]

Things you're supposed to despise being depicted as NAHTZEE STUFF is something you've seen every day of your life. You should be used to it by now.

[@zampieritto]

It was a great idea

[@bluesmandible]

I think their intent was to make money

[@edwardswessonjr1689]

all the above.

[@surferpam1]

Excuse me... But it was Mario Savio of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement who said: "don't trust anyone over 30." Get it right."

[@if6was929]

@surferpam1 wrong! Jack Weinberg coined the phrase, not Mario Savio!

[@MrMike2008a]

Not so absurd now

[@MurryRothbeard]

@ 3:36 I spy Rush Limbaugh!

[@dondobbs9302]

Cue DK's California Uber-alls

[@richardmoore8853]

Kinder alternative than Death for people who turn 30 in Logan's Run!

[@pinkydogbear]

neither, it was up to us!

[@esmeraldaorcutt1622]

I Think Thats How JIM JONES Got His Ideas 🤪🤤😬

[@pinkydogbear]

neither!

[@diekritischestimme]

The world in 2020... Covid-1984.

[@Blyledge]

Oh it was comedy alright, but not in the way they intended.

[@pinkydogbear]

Neither!

[@scottmoore2231]

Gordan what do u mean??? John Lennon would have loved it and some others would have to!!!!!

[@nyabingisister2292]

JAH GUIDE

[@devorah66]

ha ha ha ha

[@SousSherpa]

Capitalism.

[@ADAMSIXTIES]

3:27 The Donald and his former Alt Right operatives!