Peace and Love [original screenplay]

[Unpublished], [1968]. 4to (28x22cm). Illustrated yellow cardboard wrappers in split- pin binding. 125pp of typewritten manuscript. Text in English. “Peace and Love” written in black ink on spine. Several text corrections to the typescript with ink. Wrappers with moderate wear and soiling. Vertical reading crease to front cover. Split-pins with a touch of oxidation. Small tears to split-pin holes, but still holding together. Small handwritten “1” with ink, to lower corner of front cover. Overall very good.

After the international success of Jacques Demy’s film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Demy was offered to direct a Hollywood film with Columbia Pictures in 1967. Agnès Varda joined her husband to California, where she became fascinated by the counterculture that was taking place in Los Angeles – from the Vietnam War protests to the formation of the Black Panthers, the Women’s Liberation, and the Hippie movement.

A year later in 1968, Varda completed her screenplay about the hippie culture in California, titled Peace and Love, which was commissioned by Gerry Ayres, the same producer who brought Jacques Demy to Columbia Pictures. The studio liked the script but would not grant Varda the final cut, leading to an abrupt end to negotiations with Varda walking away from the project.

In Varda’s film Les plages d’Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès] from 2008, Gerry Ayres adds to this incident:

“Agnès had the chance to make a film for Columbia Pictures at the time, but she slapped the hand of the man who pinched her cheek and lost her financing”.

In an interview with the Guardian, Varda recalls, “it was disgusting to do this to me. I slapped him. But he deserved it.”

In the end, the film was never made, unfortunately also for a young unknown actor who, according to a New York Times article was supposed to star in Peace and Love – Harrison Ford.

This is an absolutely scarce original screenplay of Peace and Love by Agnès Varda that was never made. Playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie is also credited with Varda for writing the dialogue. The script‘s appendix contains the lyrics to Molly’s song or, In My Greenhouse Grow.

No copies located in any institutional collections.