Film

Chappaqua (1966)

Director: Conrad Rooks

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Recut for video release in 1994, this rich kid's vanity project remains one of the more embarrassing artyfacts from the '60s. Rooks (born in Chappaqua, a sacred burial site for Native Americans) was a teenage alcoholic who turned to stimulants, downers, narcotics and hallucinogens; he spent a month at a Swiss detox clinic in 1962, and uses memories of that attempted cure as the framework for a gibbering mix of 'drama', documentary and fantasy. Counter-culture icons lend misguided support (Barrault as the doctor, Burroughs as the addictive tendency personified) and Rooks gets to cavort with assorted dolly-bird friends in crass 'psychedelic' sequences. Most alarming, it looks as if it could have been a seminal influence on Oliver Stone.

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