The odd thing about conspiracy theories is that no matter how hard government officials, business executives and editorial writers work to discredit them, a surprisingly large number of them eventually turn out to be true.

The CIA actually did ask the Mafia to help assassinate Fidel Castro; the FBI really had infiltrated the Black Panther Party, perpetrating more mayhem than they prevented; cigarette companies knew their products killed people, yet ignored the evidence; and Bush administration officials did lie about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. Someday, perhaps, everything we’ve been told about the Kennedy assassinations and UFOs will be debunked, as well.

One thing for sure, paranoia isn’t what it used to be.

One low-grade conspiracy theory that began in the Flower Power era and has been put on hold for nearly four decades recently was re-ignited by a new documentary. It involved Up With People, the obsessively upbeat and wholesome musical aggregation founded at approximately the same time as young men and women stopped shaving their various body parts and started protesting the Vietnam War. Because the only other Americans who resembled these neat freaks in the ’60s tended to work for ad agencies or at Disneyland, the group was assumed to be a front organization for powerful forces attempting to neutralize the impact of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll on unsuspecting youths.

Indeed, these ever-smiling singers and dancers were so clean-cut, fresh-faced and inexhaustibly peppy, they made the Beach Boys look like the Weather Underground.This perpetual-motion sound machine was to the entertainment industry what theStepford Wives were to the women’s liberation movement.

Although no commercial threat to the satanic Rolling Stones or psychedelic soul brother Jimi Hendrix, UWP was marketed to audiences around to world as the true American representative of youth culture. As such, it became the official musical voice of the Nixon White House and a background chorus for Anita Bryant’s relentless gay bashing. Naturally, UWP became a target for derision by anyone to the left of, say, Gerald Ford.

In the mid-’70s, too, elaborate UWP half-time productions would eliminate the need for marching bands at such mega-events as the Orange Bowl and Super Bowl. Where high-stepping drum majors and precision drum teams once prevailed, the 150-strong ensemble was hired to stage pep rallies for America. (After UWP lost its bounce, bowl organizers would turn to Disney and Cirque du Soleil for gala half-time shows, which ironically led, in turn, to MTV, Justine Timberlake and Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Prince and his electric-guitar hard-on.)

The documentary Smile ‘Til It Hurts is for those aging hipsters who suspected Up With People’s strings were being manipulated by interests far more sinister than Pat Booneand Jackie Gleason. It’s also for those true-believers who couldn’t possibly imagine anyone in the Establishment exploiting kids with G-rated dreams and aspirations. Lee Storey’s 40-years-in-the-making expose shows they did.

There’s little tub-thumping on her part, though. The beyond-kitschy songs are delightfully retro and the testimony delivered at UWP events defies logic. (Archival footage of a teen-age Glenn Close standing and delivering for America borders on the spooky.) The people interviewed specifically for the film run the gamut from devoutly loyal to hilariously cynical about the phenomenon.

First-time writer-director-producer Storey, who also practices law in Phoenix, said she embarked on the project after her husband of 15 years revealed a deep dark secret from his past. Long before they met, it seems, William Storey was UWP’s African-American “ambassador,” providing a very visible counterpoint to the radical ravings of Huey P. Newton and Stokely Carmichael.

“He talked about traveling around the world and meeting with heads of state, but I found it difficult to believe that a black man in the 1960s could have done all the things he said he did,” Storey explains. “Ever since I embarked on this mission, I’ve been shocked and amazed, to learn about the propaganda, funding, political agenda, stringent standards, arranged marriages, sexual politics, and broken families of these singing ‘true believers’ who set out to change the world. I wanted this documentary to be a critical and objective analysis of the organization in a historical and political context, including the heartfelt and sensitive portrayals of the experiences of key members.

“We approached every interviewee with sympathy and understanding, in order to create a three-dimensional portrait that tells the truth first and foremost.”

Archival footage “generously” provided by the organization demonstrates how, in 1965, a group called Sing Out – sponsored by Frank Buchman’s passionately conservative Moral Re-Armament – evolved into a much larger confederation of like-minded singers and dancers. In 1968, it took the name Up With People from a song performed by Sing Out’s traveling troupes. The first gig was at Los Angeles’ Jordan High School — located near the epicenter of the 1993 Watts Riots – where the predominately black audience is shown responding with enthusiasm.

J. Blanton Belk, who spearheaded UWP for Moral Re-Armament, described the organization as an “expeditionary force from all faiths and races engaged in a race with time to modernize the character and purpose of man. It is love of home, homeland, and humanity. It is absolute moral standards as a compass in personal and national life. It is the firm conviction that enough God-loving men and women can be found who by example and dedication will provide leadership whose aim is to right what is wrong in the world.”

Belk would market his concept of an “educational youth group” as an alternative to the burgeoning counterculture, which, at the time, was still in its Carnaby Street phase. UWP got its first international exposure in 1967, at the World Expo in Montreal. By 1968, the newly incorporated non-profit would cut its ties with Sing Out and Moral Re-Armament, although individual members remained active in executive positions. It would count among its fans Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, German ChancellorHelmut Kohl and Pope Paul VI. It was not asked to perform at Woodstock, however.

As Storey makes exceedingly clear throughout her film – through performance footage and new interviews with former members – Up With People was populated by talented kids who believed they could make a difference through an infectious blend of music, good vibes and toothy smiles. This, of course, would immediately have made them suspect on 90 percent of college campuses in the late 1960s.

After all, who, besides Jiminy Cricket, would sing and sway to such songs as “I Get a Kick Out of Life,” “Which Way America” and “You Can’t Live Crooked and Think Straight”? As it turned out, however, plenty of folks wanted to accentuate the positive aspects of American life and eliminate any contradictory discourse on the Vietnam War, poverty and civil rights. UWP members may have been babes in the woods, politically, but they were as in tune with their feelings – and those of Nixon’s Silent Majority — as anyone holding a picket sign or smoking a joint.

There’s no question, though, that their appeal was exploited by Moral Re-Armament leaders whose agenda represented the far right end of the political spectrum. Organizers aggressively solicited contributions from corporate interests – among them, GM, Exxon, Halliburton and Searle – that considered the touring companies to be cultural ambassadors. At its peak, UWP reportedly was making $30 million dollars annually, with five different 150-member casts of performers simultaneously on tour around the world. It also recorded several albums, including “Encore!,” “The Sing-Out Musical” and “In Hollywood.”.

The less-known fact is that Up With People members – 20,000 at last count — not only weren’t paid for their hard work and toothy grins, but they also we required to pay “tuition” for the privilege. Their rewards came in the form of opportunities to travel, meet world leaders and ordinary residents of far-flung lands, lodge with host families, and maybe reap a few college credits. They also were able to score points in heaven by logging thousands of hours of community service. Not the most lucrative deal in the world, but, for kids with moxie to burn, it beat hustling magazine subscriptions and singing in subway tunnels.

On the downside, members were told how to dress, who they could and couldn’t marry, and what to say when interviewed. Homosexuality had to be kept on the down-low and dress-code violations, including wearing glasses during televised performances, were treated harshly.

Eventually, the organization would undergo the same upheavals faced by any musical enterprise. Christian rock groups stole some of UWP’s thunder, as did the pop idols churned out by the Disney’s Mouseketeer music mill.

Up With People might have become simply another footnote in history, if it hadn’t ceased operations in 2000 and reorganized in 2004 as an adjunct to WorldSmart Leadership Program. Participants, who weren’t required to meet artistic standards, signed on for semester-long stints and re-emerged on the world stage.

This isn’t to say, however, that UWP isn’t sensitive about its early history. In some circles,Smile ‘Til It Hurts has been anticipated with the same suspicion and contempt usually reserved for white-collar criminals when they see a camera-crew from 60 Minutes hovering around their offices.

After making a splash at Sundance, the documentary has started to make the rounds of festivals and Oscar-qualification engagements, in New York and Los Angeles. The L.A. screenings are being held, July 31 through August 6, at the Arclight Hollywood, while the New York screenings take place August 8 – 13, at the IFC. Saturday, Smile ‘Til It Hurts is being screened in Tucson, site of the concurrent UWP alumni reunion, with a Q&A session to follow.

In a move sure to whet the appetite of conspiracy theorists, it was reported that UWP has hurriedly created a 40-minute film of its own and scheduled it against Smile ‘Til It Hurts.Apparently, too, alums are being told they will not be allowed to attend any reunion activities on Saturday night if they’re seen entering the screening.

“The group’s history has been hidden from members for 40 years,” Storey replied, when asked why new ownership would care if alumni saw the movie. “It was only when they figured that Up With People was finished that most of this information became known. These people are adults now, so it shouldn’t matter if they wanted to see my film or Harry Potter.”

Somewhere, Richard Nixon is smiling.

- Gary Dretzka
July 31, 2009