Doc on AllMovie

Harold L. Humes, known to his friends as "Doc," was a modern-day Renaissance man -- he was a published novelist, invented water-resistant paper houses for use in the Third World, helped launch the literary journal The Paris Review, co-founded the New American Cinema Group, studied at MIT, and served as campaign manager for Norman Mailer's ill-fated run for mayor of New York City. Humes' friends and colleagues included George Plimpton, William Styron, and Timothy Leary, but his association with the latter proved to have unexpected consequences -- Leary turned Humes on to LSD in the mid-'60s, and Humes' outgoing, mildly eccentric personality took a left turn after he began indulging in psychedelics. Humes' career as a writer bottomed out, his marriage fell apart, and he spent much of the '70s and '80s as a vagabond, drifting from one college campus to another, where he would become a campus character until he wore out his welcome. Humes' daughter Immy Humes is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker, and Doc is Immy's filmed portrait of her father, in which he offers his own perspective on his strange life and times while a number of his famous friends share their memories him.