Monterey Pop (1968) on Netflix

NR19681h 18mDocumentary History Music

The Monterey International Pop Festival takes place in California in 1967, and the film records performances from it. Not every act that appeared at the festival is included.

Netflix4.4/5
IMDb7.9/105,531 votes
Rotten Tomatoes96%

Trailer

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Plot summary

The film records the Monterey International Pop Festival, held in California in 1967, and portions of the performances given there. The Mamas & the Papas, Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, Simon & Garfunkel, Hugh Masekela, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Eric Burdon & the Animals, the Who, Country Joe and the Fish, Otis Redding backed by Booker T. & the M.G.'s, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Ravi Shankar are among the acts in it. Not every artist who appeared at the festival made the film, and the performances are ordered differently on screen than they were on the day. Scott McKenzie's 'San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)' is heard over footage of activity before the concert.

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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Monterey Pop (1968)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

ABC put up a $200,000 advance for a Monterey Pop film for its Movie of the Week series, but the network never aired it: after Lou Adler showed ABC head Thomas W. Moore Jimi Hendrix "fornicating with his amp," Moore said, "Keep the money and get out."
In 1969, Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld pitched a Woodstock, New York recording studio to businessmen John P. Roberts and Joel Rosenman; Rosenman had watched Monterey Pop the day before and, impressed, agreed to bankroll the pair, and the plan morphed into the 1969 Woodstock Festival.
Jean-Luc Godard was so taken with Jefferson Airplane's performance in Monterey Pop that in 1968 he began a never-finished film, One A.M., with D. A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock; when Godard shot the band on a New York hotel roof, police ended the shoot.
Pennebaker recorded Monterey Pop's audio on a professional 8-channel reel-to-reel recorder borrowed from the Beach Boys, and the theatrical release carried a four-channel soundtrack with two to three minutes of rudimentary surround sound.
For the 1986 Sony Video cassette release, Pennebaker made three one-inch tape masters from a 16mm negative he had "wet-gated", a process where sponges remove particles and also apply a fast-drying chemical that fills in scratches on the film.