For my money, the Monkees will always be way more interesting than the Beatles. Rock historians know the Monkees’ origin story well: the band was assembled by Bob Rafelson through auditions rather than coming together organically. Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork were assembled to record albums together and to star in a TV series in which they played slapstick versions of themselves. “The Monkees” TV show was clearly a knockoff of the recent hit film “A Hard Day’s Night,” only the Monkees were often depicted as up-and-comers, rather than worldwide stars.

The Monkees often faced fan criticism for being pre-fabricated, and were referred to as “The Pre-Fab Four” by the Daily Mirror, employing a riff on the Beatles’ “Fab Four” nickname. The Mirror said they were a “disgrace to the pop world.” Ouch. The Monkees could indeed play their own instruments, but didn’t always on their records, leading to misconceptions about their talent. Nesmith has gone on record about how the band’s music was recorded without them, and how he and his bandmates had to fight to play their own instruments and write their own songs. The Monkees do not play their instruments on many of their own earlier songs, but did for recordings after 1967. 

Their bad reputations eventually began to irk the Monkees, and they would try to break out in many ways. By 1968, they had had enough and agreed to make a movie, “Head,” that would deliberately fly in the face of their kid-friendly TV series. “Head” was directed by Bob Rafelson (“Five Easy Pieces”) and co-written by Rafelson and, of all people, Jack Nicholson. 

The story of the writing of “Head” is pretty hilarious. As mentioned, the Monkees wanted to break down their pop image as pre-fab musicians and emerge as artists in their own right. They wanted to use “Head” to signal that they were well aware of their image as manufactured pop figures and to counter their own artificiality. It was all very, well, heady. 

A retrospective in the Guardian laid out the process clearly. In 1967, Jack Nicholson was still a rising star, having appeared in multiple B-movies. It seems that Nicholson, a friend of Bob Rafelson, would hang out on the set of the “Monkees” TV show and eventually became buddies with the band. The story goes that Jack, Bob, and the Monkees all hung out one evening to smoke a lot of weed and brainstorm a potential movie idea. Nicholson recorded the doped-up conversation and left to turn their ramblings into a screenplay. Rafelson recalled that Nicholson was high on LSD when he came up with the structure. That same article noted that the movie was called “Head” as something of a ribald joke; Nicholson felt that, for his then-upcoming movie “Easy Rider,” he would be able to use the tagline “From the guys who gave you ‘Head.'” Yuk yuk. 

As one can imagine, the result of all this drugged-out noodling was a very, very bizarre film indeed. “The Monkees” TV series was usually a slapstick farce with wacky fourth-wall-breaking jokes, interspersed with some of the band’s hot new singles. “Head,” on the other hand, was a psychedelic trip from the first frame. The first thing that happens in the movie is the Monkees, panicked, running toward a bridge and jumping into the water, symbolically drowning themselves. 

“Head” is a mix of disconnected vignettes that all relate to media studies, artificiality, music, or whatever else was on Jack Nicholson’s mind when he was blitzed out on acid. The Monkees have passed through various film genres. In one segment, it’s a Western. In another, they all live in a harem. In another, it’s a war picture. Toni Basil shows up and dances with Davy Jones. Frank Zappa is there with a cow. In one notable scene in a diner, as Peter Tork (from “Boy Meets World”) watches his own ice cream melt, the filmmakers break into the frame, and Jack Nicholson appears for about a second. 

There are many scenes that take place on a movie studio backlot, and the Monkees burst through set walls, constantly reminding the audience that this is a movie and that everything is fake. Clearly, this was meant as a commentary on how artificial the Monkees felt. No wonder they wanted to “kill” themselves at the beginning of the movie. The old Monkees were dead. 

“Head” tanked horribly, making a measly $16,000 on a $750,000 budget. It’s easy to see why it failed. For one, the film is wholly inaccessible. The soundtrack is wonderful, but the movie itself is too psychedelic for mainstream audiences. Additionally, though, the marketing was terrible. The poster made no mention of the Monkees and only sported a portrait of media theorist John Brockman. The tagline was, “What is ‘Head’ all about? Only John Brockman’s shrink knows for sure!” What? 

Of course, “Head” eventually attracted a cult audience, fascinated by its pop media deconstruction and amazing music. These days, it has a Criterion Collection edition. It’s impenetrable, but it’s worth the effort to try to penetrate it.