The Monkees: Mike Nesmith Claimed This Was the Most Powerful Moment in the Movie ‘Head’: ‘That’s the Real Thing’
Mike Nesmith loved making the first and only Monkees feature film, Head. The film was released in November of 1968 and was a stark departure from anything Nesmith, Peter Tork, Davy Jones, and Micky Dolenz had ever done on their television series. Nesmith, who helped create the concept of the film along with his castmates, Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson, said one moment, in particular, stood out for him as the most powerful in Head. Speaking of it to WPR, Nesmith said, “that’s the real thing.”
The Monkees filmed ‘Head’ at the same time they wrapped the final season of their television sitcom
The last episode of The Monkees Emmy-winning show aired in March 1968.
During that time, the world’s cultural climate was in upheaval. The idea of four wannabe musicians who performed slapstick and sang appeared to be out of step with the times.
The Monkees producer and director Bob Rafelson had planned to make a film starring Jones, Dolenz, Tork, and Nesmith while filming the series. However, it wasn’t plausible until the series ended.
As the second season of The Monkees wound down, the foursome met with Nicholson and, during one weekend in the California desert, came up with an avant-garde film concept.
Filming for Head began in Feb. 1968 and ended in May that same year.
Mike Nesmith Claimed This Was the Most Powerful Moment in the Movie ‘Head’
In an interview with WPR, Nesmith said he “loved” making Head.
“I loved making it. I had such a good time with Bob (Rafelson) and Jack (Nicholson), and it was the high point of my whole Monkees experience. And I think it lives on well beyond the television shows,” Nesmith explained.
One of the film’s highlights is a performance by Nesmith, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork of the song “Circle Sky.”
Nesmith said, “Bob (Rafelson) and, to a degree, Jack (Nicholson) were curious about how to stage it [the performance] and how to make it have a beat inside the movie that was consistent with the other beats that they were creating.”
“So you had had something on the screen. You couldn’t just wave the camera around like Ken Kesey had done on the bus further and expect something to come out of it,” he explained.
“So they wrote up this idea that the crowd came forward at the end of the performance and began to rip our clothes off, only to find out that beneath the clothes were dummies.
“For me, it was one of the most powerful moments in the movie because it’s like, that’s it. That’s the real thing. What you’re seeing there is what we did as a band that never intended to be a band,” Nesmith concluded.
Although it’s achieved cult status among Monkees fans, ‘Head’ flopped at the box office
Head may not have found the commercial success it sought upon its release. However, it has since attained cult status among Monkees fans.
However, the film gave the four performers a platform to express their true feelings about superstardom and the late 1960s political climate.
The film featured a who’s who of celebrities, including Terri Garr, Victor Mature, Annette Funicello, Sonny Liston, Frank Zappa, Toni Basil, and Dennis Hopper, to name a few.
The film was a vignette of different storylines featuring Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith, and Tork. It was a homage to classic movies and an antiwar cry simultaneously.
