The Story
In 1969, Howard Taylor, brother of actress Elizabeth, living on the beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai, bails out a rag-tag band of young Mainlanders jailed for vagrancy and invites them to live on his oceanfront land. Soon, waves of hippies, surfers, and Vietnam vets find their way to this clothing-optional, pot-friendly, tree house village at the end of the road on Kauai’s North Shore—the ultimate hippie fantasy until eight years later when the locals decide it’s time for them to go.
Producer John Wehrheim
Director Robert C. Stone
Re-Making of the Original Film
Released in 2009, we knew the film had a great subject, unforgettable characters and timeless ‘60s and ‘70s material; but we felt it missed some of the community’s richness and spirit, a spirit that lived on in so many of the Taylor Campers. For seven years after the completion of the original film, the campers sent us a steady stream of new material and ideas. So, we remade the movie into HD with new film clips, photos, interviews and music, adding segments dedicated to surfing, founding the food coop, the first baby born and the Resident Doctor, a Vietnam Flight Surgeon. We also added some of the darker elements of camp life, like the story of the guy who got strung out on cocaine, left Taylor Camp and took off for South America with five hundred dollars and his three-year-old daughter who was conceived on LSD. Forty years later, we interview him and his daughter side by side.
A Glorious HD Cinematic Experience!
We re-made the film into a tighter, faster-moving story, a story that captures what was, for many Campers, “The best days of our lives.” Back then, the campers had little but youth and lived off the grid in tree-houses on a beach in “paradise.” So, we changed the title to The Edge of Paradise and told the story about a place of happiness that can still be found within — a place in your mind.