‘The Edge of Paradise’ by Director Robert Stone [Film Review]
Review by Peter Belsito at Sedona Illuminate Film Festival

For those of us who were young in the late 1960s — 1968 to be exact — the world was flipping out and over. We all heard of the hippies fading away to mountain communes where they could shed clothes and social restrictions and live in a big loving community. And of course lots of drugs sex and naked people. I never went to any of those places and after a while they — or word of them — seemed to fade away.

Well this is the story of one of those places, its rise and fall.

Hawaii, 1969 — Thirteen young mainlanders — refugees from campus riots, Vietnam War protests and police brutality — flee to Kauai.

Before long, this little tribe of men, women and children is arrested for vagrancy and sentenced to 90 days hard labor.

Howard Taylor, brother of actress Elizabeth Taylor, bails them out and invites the group to set up camp on his ocean front land — without giving them any restrictions, regulations or supervision.

Within a year, the camp becomes a clothing-optional, pot-friendly tree house village known as Taylor Camp, drawing waves of hippies, surfers and Vietnam vets. Relish in the story of a community that created order without rules, rejecting materialism for the healing power of nature.

The film interviews a number of survivors who, along with the many still photographs of the place, describe, talk about life there.

I liked this film. Everyone interviewed has a different story, survived life in the commune and the 60s and went on.

The famous still photos are also very revealing. The hippies never really documented themselves so this film is valuable and very revealing and entertaining. This is one instance of what happened to the social outcasts, rebels and wild youth of that troubled period.

Director:
Robert C. Stone

Screenwriter:
John Wehrheim

Executive Producers:
Peter Broderick

Producer:
John Wehrheim

Cinematographer:
Robert C. Stone

Editor:
Robert C. Stone

Principal Cast:
The Taylor Campers and locals