Wichita's Don Johnson in "The Harrad Experiment" (1973)

Starring Wichita's, Don Johnson

"The Harrad Experiment" (1973) is a coming-of-age film about a fictional school, named Harrad College, where the students learn about sexuality and experiment with each other. Based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Robert Rimmer, this film deals with the concept of free love during the height of the sexual revolution, which took place in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The movie stars James Whitmore and Tippi Hedren as the married couple who run the school, and includes a young Don Johnson as one of the students who tries to go beyond the rules. It was directed by Ted Post. The screenplay, based upon Rimmer's novel, was co-written by Ted Cassidy (who's known for his role as "Lurch" in the Addams Family) and Michael Werner.

"I'm not trying to do anything heavy and exploitable. But, rather, I want this to be a gentle film about sex and marriage. There is some nudity in it, but no pornography," said film director, Ted Post.

Actress Tippi Hedren said, "It isn't a dirty movie at all. It deals with vital themes - themes like the decline in importance of ideas like possession, jealousy and, by inference, marriage. I have four teenage children and I think this picture says some valuable things to them."

The New York Times said it, "isn't even soft-core pornography; it is something more like soap opera with a little frontal nudity."

Plot:
The story follows a group of students as they navigate the unconventional curriculum and confront their own beliefs, desires and insecurities. Set in Harrad College, a (fictional) Ivy League experimental institution, students are encouraged to explore their relationships in an open and honest environment. The kindly pipe-sucking, Nietszche-quoting Professor Phillip Tenhausen (Whitmore) and his wife, Margaret (Hedren), incorporate a course on sexual relations into its curriculum.

Controversial coed living situations are established, the students are forced to confront their sexuality in ways that society previously shunned. Part of the experiment is to pair incompatible members of the opposite sex as roommates in order to make them shun the traditional concept of monogamy.

Cast:
James Whitmore as Philip Tenhausen
Tippi Hedren as Margaret Tenhausen
Don Johnson as Stanley Cole
Bruno Kirby as Harry Schacht (as B. Kirby Jr.)
Laurie Walters as Sheila Grove
Victoria Thompson as Beth Hillyer
Elliott Street as Wilson
Robert Middleton as Sidney Bower
Billy Sands as Jack
Sharon Ullrick (née Taggart) as Barbara
Maggie Wellman as Cynthia
Michael Greene as Yoga Instructor
Ron Kolman as Evan
Eric Server as Workman
Robert C. Ross as Workman

Notes:
Appearing in uncredited roles are Ted Cassidy as a diner patron (the film's co-writer and who's known for his role as "Lurch" in the Addams Family), Melanie Griffith (Tippi Hedren's daughter) and Gregory Harrison as students, Melody Patterson as Jeannie, Dennis F. Stevens as a heckler at the Ice House, and George Memmoli, Bill Saluga, and Fred Willard as Ace Trucking Company employees.

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