“A very vital time”: why Jack Nicholson was arrested at a 1968 movie premiere
Given the notorious reputation Jack Nicholson had for partying like there was no tomorrow in his heyday, the headline will probably surprise very few fans. It was due to his wild activities, residing near Marlon Brando and Warren Beatty, that Mulholland Drive was called “Bad Boy Drive”. However, that’s not the reason why he found himself on the wrong side of the law at a movie premiere in the late 1960s.
While The Shining star trained and started out as an actor in the 1950s, it wasn’t until the next decade that he began to gather some significant momentum. Interestingly, after failing to turn heads with his on-screen performances, Nicholson turned to screenwriting, and things suddenly began to click. All of it can actually be traced back to Roger Corman’s 1967 psychedelic flick The Trip.
His lesser-known collaboration with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, The Trip demonstrated Nicholson’s writing talents. It impressed Fonda very much, to the extent that the actor was left disappointed by the movie’s inability to get on the same level as the script. However, that experience was pivotal in instilling artistic confidence in Nicholson.
He worked with Bob Rafelson, with whom he would partner up on multiple occasions, on Head. The 1968 satire was a fascinating dissection of the mass media apparatus, treating the Monkees as the focus of their experiments. Completely antithetical to the television show that had popularised them to a great extent, Head tapped into the philosophical frameworks of the burgeoning New Hollywood movement and created something special.
It was during that time that Nicholson also realised the potential of Easy Rider, a project that would completely revitalise his career. He told Film Comment: “I thought the moment for the biker film had come, especially if the genre was moved one step away from exploitation toward some kind of literary quality.”
Nicholson’s philosophical investigations while writing Head were very important for his development as an artist. The actor explained: “After all, I was writing a script [Head] based on the theories of Marshall McLuhan, so I understood what the release of hybrid communications energy might mean. This was one of a dozen theoretical discussions I’d have every day because this was a very vital time for me and my contemporaries.”
Although Head was an undeniable commercial failure and misunderstood by many at the time of its release, its legacy has only grown in stature in the years that have followed. In addition to its significance in Nicholson’s career, the movie’s parody of contemporary popular culture and its incorporation of political discourse has been particularly interesting for younger generations of audiences.
Along with the unconventional cinematic expression in Head, the marketing campaign was equally bizarre because it featured the PR head of the project on some posters instead of the Monkees themselves. Another marketing tactic that both Rafelson and Nicholson engaged in was pasting Head stickers anywhere they could.
This was the reason that both the screenwriter and the director were arrested at the 1968 premiere of their creation in New York City. When they saw a police officer trying to get on his horse, the two decided to try and slap a sticker on his helmet, but it didn’t pan out exactly as they had hoped it would. Nonetheless, it only adds to the complex legacy of Head.
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