Review: THE SUNSHINE MAKERS, True Believers and the Psychedelic Revolution

They amble more than they walk nowadays. But for a brief period in the late 1960s, they were giants who ruled the world.

They took their first acid trips on opposite ends of the United States, Tim Scully in San Francisco and Nicholas (Nick) Sand in New York. They came to a similar conclusion, however: if everyone took acid, it might just save the world.

They were both true believers, more interested in what they saw as the beneficial effects of psychedelic drugs than in the profit potential. When they met up and decided to start manufacturing their own LSD tablets in 1966, Tim was ready to give the tablets away. Nick insisted on making a healthy profit, though that remained a secondary concern for him.

Getting the drugs into the hands -- and mouths and brains and nervous systems -- of as many open-minded young people as possible was of paramount importance. Manufacturing tablets in Northern California, near San Francisco, Tim and Nick soon hooked up with Mike Randall, the leader of the Brotherhood of Love, a group that became their distributor.

A true believer in the benefits of acid, Randall and his group were more than happy to make the newly-dubbed Blue Sunshine tablets a spark plug for the psychedelic revolution in San Francisco. Everything was great!

Until Tim was arrested in 1969, that is.

Law enforcement officials had been investigating Tim and Nick's business since Blue Sunshine became a sensation, though they weren't able to start making arrests until after the laboratory had been moved to Denver, Colorado. The case was dismissed in 1971, but it was a harbinger of things to come. Tim decided it was time for him to move on. Not Nick, however, and that led to trouble for everyone.

Directed by Cosmo Feilding-Mellen, The Sunshine Makers freely mixes new interviews with extensive doses of dramatized footage. (The recreated scenes, presented in black and white and artificially aged, are never identified as such.)

Though interviews with two of the law enforcement officials who investigated Tom and Nick are included, the film's primary objective is to paint an affectionate portrait of the drug dealers as heroes of the psychedelic revolution. Is LSD entirely beneficial to everyone who partakes of it?

Yes, according to The Sunshine Makers. which proves to be a lively, documentary-style film, advocating for the charitable treatment of psychedelic drug dealers who all have only the best intentions for mankind in mind.

The film opens in New York City at the Village East Cinema and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica Film Center on Friday, January 20. It will open in additional U.S. cities and On Demand on Friday, January 27.