One of the great concert films. Up there with The Band's The Last Waltz, Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same (ignoring the surreal non-concert nonsense) and Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense. And yes, I do rate it higher than Woodstock.The list of artists is amazing: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Simon and Garfunkel, Mamas and the Papas, Jefferson Airplane, The Animals, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar and Booker T and the MGs, plus Hugh Masekela, Canned Heat and Country Joe and the Fish.Great performances, with, I believe, Janis Joplin giving the stand- out one. Of course, this was the concert where Jimi Hendrix and The Who tossed a coin to see who of the two of them would go on first. Neither wanted to be last, as the other one would be a tough act to follow. The Who won the toss, went on first and, after their set, smashed up their guitars and drums. Hendrix managed to upstage them by setting his guitar on fire...An incredibly historic concert, for many reasons.

I've seen various run times listed for this film. IMDb lists it at 78 minutes which is probably it's runtime for it theatrical release in January of 1969. When it premiered at New York's Lincoln Center in late December of 1968 it's runtime was a mere 72 minutes. 18 of which is Ravi Shankar from his 3 hour set that was only attended by 7,000 concert goers on the afternoon of the final day. That's a lot of time devoted to a film that covered a concert that featured 33 acts. Originally in late 1968 when the film was complete it's run time was 138 minutes which at 2 hours and 18 minutes the film makers decided was too long and it was cut to 98 minutes. For some reason this still was reduced further. Making the films final cut are Simon & Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, The Mama's and the Papa's, Eric Burdon, Hugh Masekela, Otis Redding, Canned Heat, Scott Mckenzie, The Who, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Ravi Shankar. Director D.A. Pennebaker in collaboration with filmmakers Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles were originally hired by ABC to film the Montery Pop Festival in June of 1967 for a televised special which the network decided not to go ahead with so the footage was released as a documentary film. Dunhill record founder Lou Adler and Mama's and Papa's founder John Phillips and Beatles publicist Derek Taylor were the organizers of the festival and Adler and Phillips are the film's producers. Along with Pennebaker, Leacock and Maysles additional photography was filmed by James Desmond, Barry Feinstein, Roger Murphy and Nick Proferes who used 16mm cameras to film the event. Nina Schulman is the principal editor which must have been a monumental job. Pennebaker spent most of his film career producing music/concert themed documentaries. He gained attention for his 1967 documentary Don't Look Back about Bob Dylan's 1965 British tour. More of the Monterey film shot by Pennebaker, he would release as two other documentaries Jimi Plays Monterey and Otis at Monterey. These three documentaries on Monterey along with additional footage of acts cut from the original film called Monterey Pop The Outake Performances have been released as a four hour 3 disc DVD set called the Criterion Collection. I have not seen that yet and can only limit my comments here to the original Monterey film that I did not see in it's theatrical release but have seen many times on television. It is not the cinematic achievement of Woodstock but it is of historical significance. I would have rather it remained that original directors cut of 138 minutes. 18 minutes of Shankar would have played in better context. I would give this an 8.0 out of 10.

Without rubbing our face in visual gimmicks like split-screens, Monterey Pop captures the sweaty, bodacious force of a live rock concert-the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Director D.A. Pennebaker does not try too hard to increase the performances' liveliness; why would you try to increase the liveliness of Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Mammas and the Poppas, and Simon and Garfunkel? Instead, he films them with a wonderfully gritty photographic style, zooms in to so we can see their perspiring faces, and then lets them do the rest. As for 'defining a generation', the film doesn't do so in the kind of exhaustiveness of Michaek Wadleigh's Woodstock but it does give us a feeling of the life of a sixties radical. If there is one problem with the film, it is Pennebaker's idiotic choice of showing us the confusion as to how the massive audience will be able to be fed. This behind-the-scenes moment shows Pennebaker trying to do what Woodstock did. He shouldn't. He shouldn't let the music stop at all; what is so marvelous about this film is not its ability to capture the feel of a generation through interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, but, rather, through the looks in peoples eyes when the music starts.

Now this is what a rock festival is all about. Just imagine seeing the top performers of the 60s all in one concert. This was it. Complete with camping on the scene and drugs. This is what the 60s was all about-hippies and great music. If you like 60s rock, then this flick runs fast and is really great. I think this is the kind of movie you ought watch every once in a while if you are a rock fan-because this is a classic-like Woodstock. Hendrix is awesome and don't forgot Ravi Shankar on sitar. Joplin is really good-so is Grace Slick. The mix of performers is great. The only thing better than watching this movie might be to attend such a festival-it must've been great.