rescue his investment. Later record producer John Jansen recalled, "Jeffery had to talk Hendrix into performing. Up to that point, he had refused to write a note of music for the film." Plot The loosely documentary-style film is centered on the experiences of a New York model, who travels from San Diego, California, to an occult center on the island of Maui, Hawaii. The occult center scenes were filmed at Seabury Hall. While there, "she encounters various devotees of surfing, clairvoyance, zen, yoga, meditation, Tai-Chi and the odd ufoloist". As it unfolds, a free concert by Jimi Hendrix is staged in a former pasture in the upcountry region (2,000 feet above sea level) near Olinda, southeast of the center of the town of Makawao, on the northwest, upcountry slope of Haleakalā. A few hundred island hippies, surfers, and local residents show up to witness the event. Hendrix performed with the post–Jimi Hendrix Experience "Cry of Love" tour group, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox. A group of Hare Krishnas chanted "Om" for a few minutes and Wein introduced the group. Although Hendrix played two full sets (approximately 50 minutes each), due to technical problems, only about 17 minutes of film footage was deemed usable. Releases Rainbow Bridge premiered at the Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood in the fall of 1971. The original length of the theatrical release was 123 minutes. However, it was soon edited to cut down on the acting scenes, with one version lasting 70 minutes. The 2000 re-release by Rhino Video restored the original full-length version. Although Wein claimed that all of the usable footage of Hendrix was included in the film, full-length performances of "Dolly Dagger" and "Villanova Junction" (both from the second set) have appeared on bootleg videos. Critical reception The response to Rainbow Bridge is uniformly negative. Shadwick calls it "a snafu of impressive dimensions even for the hippie generation." He adds that it was "so drug-addled, pseudo-mystical and stuffed with narcissistic, self-important onscreen hippies that the only hope of saving it indeed was to put Hendrix on celluloid". Shapiro describes it as "a ludicrous farrago of pseudo-mystical acid babble devoid of sincerity ... Overall, the best thing that can be said about Rainbow Bridge is that, after seventy-one minutes, it finishes". Writing for AllMusic, critic Bruce Eder comments, "Hendrix plays some superb music in the concert sequence that concludes this documentary—the rest is