(Rhino; 160 minutes)

www.rhino.com

BY JUD COST

Bill Graham realized the hippie ballroom scene had come to an end by the time he closed his famed San Francisco concert venue, Fillmore West, in July of 1971, a week after pulling the plug on his Fillmore East emporium in New York. Fillmore: The Last Days (Rhino), a 1972 film directed by Richard T. Heffron, documents the final five nights at Fillmore West, perched above a carpet store at the corner of Market and Van Ness. Graham opened for business here in 1968 when he left the original Fillmore Auditorium for a larger building.

"The flowers wilted and the scene changed," says Graham wistfully of his reason for shutting down operations, during one of the movie's candid interviews with the late rock impresario. The scenes with Graham-feeding the ducks with his toddler son, shooting hoops at the Tuesday-night basketball scrum for employees or baring his soul about his flight from Nazi Germany as a young boy in 1941-are the film's best moments. Surprisingly, the music, with a few notable exceptions, is nothing to write home about.

Too bad this wasn't shot in 1966-67, at the Haight/Ashbury's apogee. Unfortunately, by 1971, the Bay Area music scene was in eclipse. Janis Joplin had died of a heroin overdose the year before, and Jefferson Airplane, shown here only briefly, singing a medley of "Volunteers"/"We Can Be Together," was about to enter its death-spiral phase. To pad out the performance roster, second-rate Joplin impersonators like Lamb's Barbara Mauritz and the mind-numbing Cold Blood featuring Lydia Pense are given too much camera time.

Quicksilver Messenger Service was a shadow of its former self after S.F.'s most exciting guitarist, John Cipollina, quit the band in 1970, and it was taken over by singer Dino Valente, recently released from prison. A great close-up of Grace Slick singing the line, "Up against the wall, motherfucker!" can't fully compensate for the Airplane's cameo appearance. Contributions by It's A Beautiful Day, Elvin Bishop and Hot Tuna, a bluesy side-project of the Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, are interesting if not essential. Ever the local outsiders, the Flamin' Groovies, who played Wednesday night, didn't make the final cut (if they were even filmed, at all).

That leaves the Grateful Dead and Santana to do most of the heavy lifting. A trim Jerry Garcia sings lead on Dead staple "Casey Jones," while a boyish Bob Weir proves most adept singing Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," a song Garcia introduces as, "Here's the one it's all about."

After a tough week trying to placate various factions, it was probably enough for Graham that Santana even showed up for the Sunday-evening finale. Their solid performance was gravy on the goose. A phone conversation between Graham, at the end of his rope, and Santana's management, finds the Fillmore boss spouting: "If we had Suzy Creamcheese and Phil Spatoni's All-Girl Orchestra, we could fill the place, but they want Santana!"

The most electrifying confrontation takes place in the film's opening minutes when Mike Wilhelm, former guitarist for the Charlatans-the Edwardian-garbed combo who started S.F.'s psychedelic revolution with a fabled engagement at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nev. in the summer of '65-shows up unannounced in Graham's office. Wilhelm tries desperately to convince the promoter to put his current band, Loose Gravel, on the final Fillmore West bill.

When Graham turns him down, Wilhelm explodes, "Well, fuck you and thanks for the memories!" Graham, predictably, blows a gasket and chases Wilhelm down the stairs, out of camera range. It comes too soon in the film, but it's somehow reminiscent of the final scene of many Charlie Chaplin silent classics, with the little tramp waddling off into the sunset. It's a perfect distillation of the complex essence of the volatile yet fascinating man known as Bill Graham. 

Special Features: None