DAYTIME REVOLUTION (Erik Nelson 2024)

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MIKE DOUGLAS, YOKO ONO, AND JOHN LENNON ON "THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW" IN DAYTIME REVOLUTION

ERIK NELSON: DAYTIME REVOLUTION (2024)

TRAILER

(October 6 release)

From the producer of 'Grizzly Man', the remarkable week in 1972 when Mike Douglas made John and Yoko co-hosts of his widely seen daytime TV show

For one week in early 1972 John Lennon and Yoko Ono went to Philadelphia to co-host "The Mike Douglas Show," which regularly had an estimated forty million viewers. The disarmingly laid-back and open-minded Douglas allowed John and Oko to bring on a remarkable galaxy of people they liked, including Chicago Seven "Yippie" radical Jerry Rubin, Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale, and provocative comic George Carlin, as well as consumer advocate and political activist Ralph Nader; Hillary Ridley, an expert on Macrobiotic diet; rock n' roll precursor Chuck Berry (who performed with John and Yoko); a specialist in biofeedback who staged a musical jam session, David Rosenbloom; and, brought on by Mike himself it appears, operatic soul singer Vivian Reed, still around today to show off an even richer and more flowery and soulful voice. This film chronicles and celebrates a time of greater mainstream cultural openness, the more impressive because it was shared by so many ordinary daytime TV viewers.

The burden, and joy, of this documentary film is simply showing us the riches of this one John-and-Yoko week of "The Mike Douglas Show" of mid-February 1972 when all these personalities and talents were gathered for the afternoon American TV audience. The filmmakers also bring back some of these people who're still around and available, Nader and Reed, Rosenbloom and Ridley, as well as biofeedback researcher and now Harvard professor Gary Schwartz, who comment interestingly on the experience of this show and how they now see their younger selves.

These survivors' comments provide perspective and help us to realize how extraordinary this week of American television really was. But nothing could be more extraordinary than the clips we get to see of the original show itself. This was a remarkable time, with Nixon in the White House but on the way to China, remnants of the Vietnam War still smoldering, repression in the air but also a widespread spirit of social experimentalism.

Some unusual people were on the American cultural scene at this time. And those who appeared on this show then were quite young, most of them only in their twenties or thirties. John Lennon himself was 31, though already such a great celebrity he reports people to be so dazzled by his presence they can't hear what he's saying when he orders a meal or gives directions to a taxi driver. Lennon is fascinating to hear because of how straightforward and down to earth his every utterance is.

This week beginning February 14th, 1972, as glimpsed here, was a hell of a week. But while the "revolution was being televised" as it were, the film provides those necessary periodic onscreen titles to remind us some of what was happening in the rest of the world. Notably, Nixon was going to China. Soon thereafter the government would start its campaign, unsuccessful however, to get Lennon and Ono deported from the US.

But for this special week, the Revolution was televised, or at least the 'counterculture' was. And it was thanks to Mike Douglas. He and his show looked conventional, but viewers realized that in fact Douglas was a man of large spirit and curiosity, open to a lot of what was happening. It's entirely thanks to Mike that this week happened

Apparently the Q&As with the audience were equally remarkable, but unfortunately we don't see more than a couple of the questions and answers. Daytime Revolution captures the power that mainstream television can have when it reaches out to communicate, the prescience of that dialogue, and the bravery of two artists who never took the easy way out as they stood up for their personal sense of whom we should be watching and listening to. This film is a worthwhile little contribution to American cultural history: a time capsule.

Directed by Nelson, producer of Werner Herzog's seminal 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, with creative consultation from Ono and son Sean Ono Lennon, this film uses archival footage from each of the five 70-minute shows as well as interviews with six surviving guests, including Ralph Nader, to tell the behind-the-scenes story of these shows and wonder at the shows themselves. The world is so much changed now. Never again can we share such cultural adventures: the unifying effect of mainstream television no longer exists.

Daytime Revolution, 108 mins., debuted at the Hamptons. US theatrical release by Kino Lorber Oct. 9 2024, streaming Nov. 26.