The evolution of Head began as an idea session between the show's producers Bert Schneider, Bob Rafelson, Jack Nicholson and the four Monkees one weekend in Ojai, California. "Everybody agreed that the movie should be anti-Monkees," according to Patrick McGilligan in Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson. "This creation of Bob and Bert's had become a Frankenstein monster running amok through their lives. Untitled (as the Monkees film was initially called, as if it were a piece of abstract art destined for museum walls) would expose the very process that had created the Monkees, the hollow, star-making machinery of Hollywood."

"The weekend trip did not go without incident," Micky Dolenz recalled in his autobiography with Mark Bego. "When the time came to discuss writing credit, we were informed that only Jack and Bob would be given credit. We were disappointed and angry. Mike was furious. He took all the tapes and locked them in the trunk of his car! After a few days of "negotiations" the tapes were returned, but we didn't get any credit!"

After that first free form idea session in Ojai, "Jack and Bob fired up some joints, dropped acid, took a walk on the beach, and came up with the novel idea of deconstructing the Monkees in a melange of music, Vietnam footage, and kitschy pop culture artifacts." (from Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind).

Toby Rafelson, the ex-wife of the director, said "I think that repudiating the very thing the Monkees stood for, using them in order to do this, which he didn't mind doing, shows you what his colors were, which was that his own image of himself was more important than the product...I think the need to feel cool, in the minds of guys like Bob and Bert, was terribly, terribly important." (Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind).

Dolenz later wrote in his autobiography, "...the making of the movie was to have its problems, at least initially. Right from the beginning of the television series, there had been a dispute over our salaries...It was Mike, naturally, who took the lead and introduced us to Jerry Perenchio - a very powerful agent in Hollywood at the time. Jerry took us on and promised he would cut us a very lucrative deal. The only problem was that we would have to stick to our guns, make a stand, even strike if it became necessary. It did. I don't remember what we were asking for, it couldn't have been much; yet Bob and Bert wouldn't give in. We didn't have many choices open to us: either hold firm or cave in. And to make matters worse, Peter had decided that he was not going to join us. Peter! The antiestablishment, anticapitalistic antianti. Here we were, the workers, lined up at the barricades, ready to take on the opulent potentates, and Peter sided with the parsimonious PTB! He was a scab!...The first day of shooting came along and there was only one Monkee on the set: Peter.....But by the next day we were all back. The deal had been done, the negotiations finalized. Unfortunately, even after all the millions that Bob and Bert had made off of the Monkees, I don't think they ever forgave us for standing up to them that one time."

After Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson clashed with the Monkees over sharing screenwriting credits, the director began to play records on the set by other rock groups such as The Electric Flag, just to antagonize the Monkees.

The underwater mermaid sequences were filmed in the Bahamas.

Other locations used in Head included Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the Valley Auditorium in Salt Lake City, the Gerald Desmond Bridge in Long Beach and the Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina.

The Monkees' beach house which was regularly seen on their TV series was also used in the film but with some new additions such as an elevator cage and an aquarium.

At the time of filming, Davy Jones was secretly married to Linda Haines but she can be glimpsed briefly in a party scene during the song "Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again."

Even though he admitted the screenplay was total nonsense, actor Victor Mature reputedly agreed to do the film saying, "All I know is it makes me laugh."

Teri Garr was cast in the film because she was a friend of Jack Nicholson's; they had taken an acting class together from Eric Morris and some of their classmates were Harry Dean Stanton, Maggie Blye and singer/dancer Toni Basil.

Helena Kallianiotes, who plays the lesbian hitchhiker Palm Apodaca in Five Easy Pieces (1970), appears as a belly dancer in the "Can You Dig It" musical number.

Compiled by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:
I'm a Believer: My Life of Monkees, Music and Madness by Micky Dolenz and Mark Bego
Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson by Patrick McGilligan
Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood by Teri Garr
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind
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Hollywood Rock by Marshall Crenshaw & Ted Mico