How can you not like this film? The cast is incredible, but most Roger Corman films have great casting as we all know. Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Salle Sachse, Dennis Hopper, Susan Strasberg, Dick Miller (Of course), Luana Anders, Peter Bogdanovich and written by Jack Nicholson!! Can you imagine what was going on during the filming of this? Wonderful hippie special effects as Fonda goes on his "Trip". And I truly enjoyed the soundtrack. Especially the theme song. If anyone knows how I can get a copy of the soundtrack, let me know. This film is a real curio and it reminds me of the old days when a bunch of young guys with very little money just went out and made a film. I don't think this film is endorsing LSD, but all that type of stuff was pretty new back then and this was just a film that was taking a chance. All those hippie type of movies are fun to watch and this one is certainly interesting!
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rosscinema23 September 2002
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PaulyC7 January 2008To be honest, I thought I would grow quickly bored with this movie since I heard that all it was is a bunch of cool psychedelic effects and not much else. Well, I actually found it interesting. After an opening five minutes with some bad acting I rolled my eyes but the movie got better....and Peter Fonda's performance got better. Fonda plays Paul, a TV commercial director who goes on his first LSD trip. He thinks he might learn something from it and does. You start to lose track of what reality is just like Paul does. Dennis Hopper has some interesting scenes and Bruce Dern is good as well. Having never touched acid, I can't tell you how realistic the effects are but found them interesting to watch. In order to do research, director Roger Corman took LSD and had a pleasant experience. Bruce Dern however has never taken it so found his role as someone who was kind of an expert on the matter, a challenging acting job. However, Jack Nicolson wrote the script and I expect he did plenty of research...he-he. Surprisingly, a pretty cool movie, dude!
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Great cast, although Fonda wasn't cool yet (acting-wise) about LSD and "drugs & hippies & all that stuff", but Hopper is interesting and this trippy flicks rolls down the valley without too much effort (penned by Jack Nicholson). Nothing wrong with this one a budget wouldn't have cured in '67. Along the same lines as the WILD ANGELS (biker flick) "exploitation film" (Corman), but not insulting, or even pandering, but more trying to grab on without really reaching (film-wise), and a joy to see nowadays (and it's not pro-drugs or anything), even for the time.
Best performance = Dennis Hopper. Don['t sell it short if you were born before Chuck Berry and Elvis started Rock 'N Roll or you will wonder! -
Infofreak29 December 2001Roger Corman, king of b-grade Science fiction, horror, juvenile delinquent and biker movies, tunes in, turns on, and helps create a classic piece of psychedelia. Scripted by Jack Nicholson, and co-starring his future 'Easy Rider' collaborators Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, as well as the always great Bruce Dern ('The Wild Angels', 'Bloody Mama', 'Silent Running'), the late Susan Strasberg (with Dern and Nicholson in 'Psych-Out' the following year - another psych classic), Corman regular Dick Miller ('A Bucket Of Blood',etc.), Luana Anders (Coppola and Corman's 'Dementia 13'), and even blink and you'll miss them cameos from Peter Bogdanovich and cosmic cowboy Gram Parsons.
Fonda plays a disillusioned director of TV commercials who decides to drop acid for the first time in the hope of finding some meaning in his life. Dern plays his guide. Fonda's trip includes stroboscopic lights, quasi-medieval scenes including dwarves and hooded horsemen, naked go-go dancers, fast cuts, and his own funeral. Apple juice and a visit to the laundromat also play quite significant roles. This is a must see for anyone interested in 60s pop culture, and is still one of the most entertaining psych movies. Take 'The Trip' or you'll regret it forever! -
This is an interesting film that will entertain. 'The Trip' has a 'Reefer Madness' quality to it, with a strange message about acid and it's effects.
Sets for this film have an expressionist imagery to them. The art direction is an explosion of patterns and colors. You get a psychedelic fun house feel all through the film. The use of lighting/shadows and old film techniques give a dreamy quality to the scenes that you will not forget.
Although dated by today's standards, the film is easy to watch and quite creative. And 'The Trip' does have a message: "I'll deal with it tomorrow." -
ShadeGrenade31 January 2009In the early '80's, Roger Corman gave a talk at the British Film Institute, where he was interviewed by 'Guardian' critic Derek Malcolm. He then fielded questions from the audience. One of these concerned his 1967 film 'The Trip'.
Although the then-unknown Jack Nicholson was credited as writer, Corman pointed out that he himself had had input into the script, particularly with regards to the drug scenes. He had used L.S.D., as had Dennis Hopper ( one of the cast ), and their various experiences were incorporated into the film.
Spotting the then-head of the British Board of Film Censors - the late James Ferman - in the audience, Malcolm asked him why the B.B.F.C. had twice refused 'The Trip' a certificate. Ferman said he felt the film was an incitement to drug use ( even though other movies featuring drugs were passed without any difficulty whatever ). In 2003 it was finally deemed fit for British audiences.
'The Trip' begins with a portentous disclaimer warning the audience about the risks involved in taking L.S.D. Then we see a bride and groom standing on water. No, the trip has not yet started. It is for a television commercial. Paul Groves ( Peter Fonda ), the director, is going through an unhappy time with his divorce to Sally ( Susan Strasberg ) almost complete. He approaches drug dealer John ( a bearded Bruce Dern ) and asks him for L.S.D. as he wants to find out about himself.
So Paul swallows the pill and the madness begins. Over the course of seventy-five minutes, he sees kaleidoscopic visions, is chased along a beach by masked figures on horseback, strolls naked through woods with some attractive ( equally naked ) women, is put on trial by Dennis Hopper, and generally has a pretty weird time of it.
John initially acts as a minder, stopping Paul from jumping out of the window ( the house is high up on a hill ), but then Paul escapes, and sees the world as a entirely different place. In one excellent scene, he wanders along a street at night and the neon shop signs take on a particularly menacing quality.
As he spends most of the movie in a drug-induced haze ( which is after all the point ) it is difficult to praise Fonda's acting. Susan Strasberg is woefully underused, while Salli Sachse is drop dead gorgeous as the drug dealer's girlfriend.
James H.Nicholson and Samuel Z.Arkoff apparently intended this as an anti-drug film, but a section of the audience saw it differently, and smoked certain substances during screenings, as they later did with Kubrick's '2001'. Anyone expecting another 'Reefer Madness' will be disappointed though, it is not bad enough to be that.
The film proved successful enough to spawn a sequel of sorts - 1968's 'Psych-Out', directed by Richard Rush, which also featured Susan Strasberg and Bruce Dern ( with Jack Nicholson as one of the cast ). I prefer the latter because, unlike 'The Trip', it has a plot.
I agree with the commentator who said that the hallucinatory sequences lose their impact or so after a while and the film becomes tough to sit through. Cynthia Lennon, in her book 'A Twist Of Lennon, said that taking L.S.D. was the most frightening experience of her life. I have not used the stuff ( the nearest I got was Barratt's Sherbert Fountain! ) so cannot comment, but if 'The Trip' is to be believed, I do not think I ever will either.
We are far from those times now, when people had abstract paintings on their walls, wore colourful clothes, and ended every sentence with 'man'. A modern audience might have difficulty trying to distinguish between the drug scenes and those set in the real world. Interesting then mainly as a curio. -
gavin694210 March 2014Paul Groves (Peter Fonda), a television commercial director, is in the midst of a personality crisis. His wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) has left him and he seeks the help of his friend John (Bruce Dern), a self-styled guru who's an advocate of LSD.
The film was directed by Corman, written by Jack Nicholson, starring Bruce Dern with a beard, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. How can that be bad? The biggest problem is that the plot is relatively weak and relies heavily on some wild kaleidoscopic visuals. That may not be a problem -- I mean, there are still great actors and a dwarf -- but it is a noticeable flaw. -
moonspinner5522 October 2006Unapologetic rendering of an acid trip, told without much melodrama and a great deal of nervy style. A square television director (Peter Fonda, trying his best to look like a nerd in a V-neck sweater that would do father Henry proud!) takes LSD and drops out. Screenplay (by Jack Nicholson!) certainly cuts right to the chase--no pussyfooting about here--but there's no story to tell. The film is less an essay on the drug culture than it is a chance for director Roger Corman to get "freaky". In a way, this is an early precursor to "Easy Rider", but it was made by a lot of talented people all with bigger fish to fry. ** from ****
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Peter Fonda plays uptight twenty-something TV commercial director Paul Groves. Paul is successful at his work, but it becomes clear (later, during one of his drug-induced reveries) that he has decided ambivalence about using his artistic talents for such work, contributing as it does to a superficial consumerist culture. Paul has flirted with the fringes of the mid- to late-'60s LA hippie counterculture, smoking weed and using 'hip' terminology like 'boppers' and 'groovy,' but it's clear from his diffident and brittle demeanor, his square, preppy clothes (dress shirt, khakis, red v-necked sweater: he could have been a Harvard eating club member circa 1958), and his tentative ways in interacting with friends and women that he's about as hip and cool as Ozzie and Harriett at a human be-in. Further evidence of his discomfort with his current life is his relationship with his adulterous wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) who, it is implied, has had relations with other men because she can find nothing authentic in her husband, the very model of the modern TV commercial director. The marriage is heading for divorce at the film's outset, unsurprisingly.
So one day in this, his life, Paul decides to take a deeper look into himself (pedantic aside: the word "psychedelic" is from the Greek etymons for "soul" and "revealing") by taking his first LSD trip under the guidance of his much more well-centered friend John (Bruce Dern), the drug being acquired from their friendly neighborhood weed dealer, Max (Dennis Hopper). Also cropping up at various points in the story is a beautiful, somewhat enigmatic blonde hippie girl in a white pantsuit who has expressed a curiosity in people who take acid. This is Glenn, played by bikini-beach-movie veteran Salli Sachse. Both Glenn and Sally (remember her? Paul's wife) appear episodically in Paul's acid-fueled visions.
Not much happens narratively: Paul takes acid, Paul has a few brushes with the law while tripping unsupervised through the 1967 Sunset Strip night, Paul concludes his trip with an intimate encounter, Paul is asked if he found the insight he was hoping for and gives his reply. Woven through this story are his reveries, some frightening, some comical, several absurd, all of them visually colorful. The psychedelically-tinged jazz/blues/rock score by "An American Music Band," the horn-plus-traditional-rock-instrumentation band the Electric Flag, is mostly appealing and was composed (by EF founding guitarist Mike Bloomfield, previously of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and later of 'Super Session' fame with Stephen Stills and Al Kooper) and recorded in a matter of a few weeks. Roger Corman, whose status as king of the B movies merely meant that he was very skilled at turning out compelling and entertaining movies working with small budgets and tight shooting schedules, is in fine directorial control, working from a script he commissioned from Jack Nicholson (yes, THAT Jack Nicholson, who does not appear on screen in the movie). And Corman and company accomplish the entire movie excursion in under 80 minutes of screen time.
An interesting note is that Fonda, whose public image was one of cool and self-contained serenity in contrast to Hopper's more histrionic screen persona in the subsequent "Easy Rider" and other movies, in this film plays a man who is not in control at all and is prone to paranoid episodes and moments of panic, while the other principals (Dern, Hopper, Strasberg, Sachse) are calm and collected.
Favorite scenes: Paul's imagined 'trial' for unhipness and inauthenticity with Max (Hopper) as judge/inquisitor, complete with a merry-go-round, waltz-time carnival music, and a merry-go-round horse-riding dwarf shouting 'Bay of Pigs' for no discernible reason; his encounter with a girl in curlers doing her laundry at a laundromat on the Strip; and his interaction with a sarcastic, seen-it-all cocktail waitress in a music club. -
Quinoa198418 December 2006I'm not sure to recommend The Trip as a great look at the psychedelia times of the late 60s, and if it serves any purpose for today. It's now forty years (strange to think it's been that long), and it holds resonance only in that it could provide some with a look at how to do a really trashy art-film with no real moral code to identify, and for the nostalgia of the cast and writer of the project. Corman even admits on the DVD that he tried to take a neutral position to LSD for the audience, despite the opening warning, which was probably a given for the exploitation-nature of AIP at the time, and that Corman really didn't have too many bad things to say about his own trip when he tried LSD.
So the film only slightly gives an endorsement for the drug, but not really at the same time- on the one hand one might look at the initial reasoning for Peter Fonda's character Paul to take the drug, that it might open him up and that he might learn something about himself. On the other hand, one might also question as to whether or not complete distortion of reality, insane montages, figures in black cloaks riding on horses, and moments of death coupled with paranoia and occasional sexual joys all colored in psychedelia is worth it.
In a way, Corman still has a little of the horror aspects of his 60s Edgar Allan Poe pictures running through here, only through a Tim Leary sensibility. But it's also Corman trying something new, and through a screenwriter, Jack Nicholson, who had taken the drug quite a number of times by then (having read bits of Nicholson's biography, and just looking at his work at this time period, culminating to Easy Rider, shows how much Nicholson was into this culture and time in America). But there's something else too that's intriguing, which is the personal connection of Nicholson's marriage, divorce, and sexual appetite working it's way into the film.
They're really some of the best scenes in the film, where ambiguity is worked in with Fonda's severed relationship with his soon to be divorced ex, and how this comes into a big part of his trip (we see some overtly f****-ed up sex scenes, with manic lighting effects and special post-production work included by the great Allan Daviau). Another very fine scene with a darkly comic touch comes when Fonda, wandering a California city after his guide (Bruce Dern, with an awesome beard) loses him, wanders into a laundromat and nearly gets freaky with either/or the woman waiting for her laundry, or the laundry itself.
Actually, most of the Trip is freaky, and usually in that quick, cheap Roger Corman style that ends up working more to its advantage than I figured at first. Surrealism, to be sure, isn't really Corman's forte, but he does what he can with making this a whacked-out look at LSD. It's a drug I've never taken, so I can't say whether the film comes close to what an actual 'trip' is really like or not. And this causes sort of a problem for most to watch the film- it captures a 'side' to what a trip must be like, and all in the space of the picture's 80 minute running time. It also ends on a pretty inconclusive note following too much random montage and clips back to earlier in the film (as Paul is supposed to be coming down off the drug). But it was a lot of fun, as mentioned, in a trashy way to see how Corman and Nicholson decided to approach a lot of the hallucinations and visions. Obvious maybe, sure, but the tongue-in-cheek is also shown in a light of this being not too far from being how a trip might actually take hold.
And there are two sides to the interest of this trip in Corman's style, how he goes from his standard set-ups in a scene with dialog, like when Paul goes into a random house and gets milk for a little girl, or when Paul first gets into the city and (under fantastic 2nd unit shooting by Dennis Hopper, who also is great as a guru type stoner) we see everything becoming wild and choppy and with music that goes oddly jazzy.
The Trip is a capsule that only somewhat delivers a good enough look into the drug community, and more so into the psychology of its writer (who probably took on escapism and promiscuity at the time), and of the chances the filmmaker wanted to take with the subject matter. Far from being really sensational, and it gets nowhere near 2001: A Space Odyssey for visual virtuosity or Easy Rider for a more potent look at the culture and at subjective surrealism. But it's some good fun, and the whole AIP gang made such ambitious collages of items to see and with a delirious Fonda performance that it doesn't out-run its welcome. Cool music by the American Band too. -
Calaboss30 December 2012This is a rather odd movie, which is understandable to anyone who has taken hallucinogens. There is no way to explain an LSD, Magic Mushroom, or Peyote trip to anyone who has not had one. Words do not suffice. Pictures do not suffice. How do you explain seeing sound, or smelling colors? You can't.
This movie gives it a try and does the best it can, but to all those that see it and have never been tripping, I'm sure it looks like a painting done by a monkey. You just can't put these thoughts on film. Example: One time, in the mid-70's, I took acid with a group of friends. All of a sudden a purple tornado came out of the ceiling and ravaged the room, sucking the emotional content out of everyone there. Now just how do you display that on film? Nicholson, Corman, Fonda, Hopper, and company give it a shot, but it really can't be done. Not then, not now, with all the digital effects available. Valiant effort though, but probably only entertaining to people who know what frying means. -
Written by the 30 year old Jack Nicholson !! I saw this years ago... never knew he wrote it. One of a handful of films from the 60s and 70s that honestly dealt with drug use (Skidoo. The President's Analyst. The Acid Eaters would come a year later. ) Some AWESOME street and neighborhood scenes of 1960's Los Angeles. Too much fun. Peter Fonda. Dennis Hopper. Susan Strasberg. Bruce Dern. Everything is groovy, man, filmed during the upswing of the flower power years. Is there a plot? Yeah, sort of. Doesn't really matter. Quite the serious disclaimer at the beginning. I guess this film was pretty shocking for the movie patrons at the time, when everyone would have gone to the theater to see it. Pot smoking. Acid. Planning for it, talking about it, and doing it. Tight pants and short skirts. Midgets, Middle Ages. Too weird. The focus and the sound are a little shaky, but who cares. Finally being shown on Turner Classic Movies. Definitely worth watching, for the psychedelic hippies, clothes, and wallpaper. Some interesting extras in the cast list... Brandon DeWilde, Peter Bogdano, Gram Parsons. Fonda, Hopper, Nicholson, and Luana Anders would work together in Easy Rider, of course. Didn't end well for DeWilde or Parsons. Anders died pretty young too. Catch both The Trip and Easy Rider when they come on. Excellent stories.
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Tgrain19 June 1999This is a classic exploitation film that inspired a ton of imitation "acid films", most of them having no plot and lots of the same imagery you see here (complete with naked females and zooms). "The Trip" definitely has more direction and structure than it's spinoffs, yet one would still hope for more story development in the early half of the film. Clearly, Corman's savvy was able to get away with putting lots of cheap effects on the screen, thus stretching a 30 minute plot into an 85 minute feature.
Much of the film is full of various imagery of Peter Fonda running around in different costumes, in different strange places, and very little is told about his real character. He is a rather passive character in this film, and doesn't elicit much sympathy from the audience, even though his performances were satisfactory. The cinematography is quite uninspired, even if adequate from a techical POV, though it has some fine point gaffes (like double shadows). One of the most frustrating aspects of this film is that the potential it had for visual treatment was not used to nearly it's full potential, even on the budget it was made for.
With the exception of the flash cuts editing, stylistically this film bears a more conservative filmmaking approach that might have not been as appropriate as a more "new wave" approach. Indeed, two years later, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper were to take elements of "The Trip", and the earlier "Wild Angels", combining them with the 'new wave' style of filmmaking to produce the masterpiece "Easy Rider".
For all it's shortcomings, "The Trip" did very well at the box office, something that would not have happened today without much more expensive effects, and more known cast members (even though Fonda, Strassberg and Dern were known faces at the time). -
Once again, like many films of the same time, The Trip is often misunderstood for a campy, cheap exploitation of a once vibrant time 'too often reduced to nostalgic simplicities.' The Plot goes as follows: Peter Fonda plays a film director that is bummed out by his wife (Susan Strasberg) and pending divorce. So to cool out, he takes LSD from a psychologist-type who is making records of 'controlled' LSD experiments (played by Bruce Dern). The film seems to hold it together during the first 30 minutes or so, but loses it's place when the weird acid trips happen (note the creepy scene where Fonda dies and goes to some kind of hell inhabited by horsemen, knights, and dwarfs). Overall, this is an entertaining little time capsule filled with twists and old film techniques. But I still cannot stress enough the arrogance of a man who tries to capture an LSD trip on camera for the silver screen. Even though the film did do moderately well at the box-office (for 1967, that is), mind expansion enthusiasts, like myself, might find the LSD depictions to be a bit funny at times, and the dialogue to be typical for a film of its kind. But for all personal shortcomings, I recommend this film because it is a true original.
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hrkepler3 June 2018There are many Roger Corman movies that one can think that they were possible to make under influence of drugs, but in this case Roger Corman actually took LSD as a research for 'The Trip'. Cheesy and occasionally (unintentionally) funny, 'The Trip' remains as one of the trippiest movies ever. The film is shallow by story wise - television commercial director (Peter Fonda) decides to drop acid first time and discovers some things about himself. That's it. A guys first acid trip. And then we seem him taking psychedelic road through colorful hallucinations accompanied with experimental rock and jazz music.
'The Trip' is bizarre little film about drug usage. Although there is a warning at the beginning of the film that condemn drugs, but the film itself actually don't give any judgment on the matter. It doesn't have much plot and Peter Fonda still hasn't got his acting game together but the film is still entertaining mostly thanks to its visuals and humor. The high point of the film is when Peter Fonda's character is facing the judge who is played non other than magnificent Dennis Hopper. And all this was written by Jack Nicholson.
Recommended to anyone who like plotless but visually striking movies. -
Peter Fonda plays Paul Groves, a TV commercial director going through a personal crisis. His wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) is asking for a divorce. So he calls upon a psychologist friend, John (Bruce Dern), who's recording the LSD trips of his subjects. In the effort to mellow out, Paul takes some LSD himself. Little does he know just how WEIRD the experience is going to be.
Don't look for a whole lot of story here, in this counterculture favourite produced & directed by B movie king Roger Corman, and boasting a screenplay by none other than Jack Nicholson. It's not so hot as a movie, but it IS a modestly amusing experiment to simulate an LSD trip on film for approximately 80 minutes. Of course, it doesn't even need to go on THAT long; the point is made early on, and the initial entertainment value of gazing at these surreal images and psychedelic effects does wear off. Still, this does have an appropriately "trippy" atmosphere, created during an era when experimenting with mind bending substances was one of the hip things to do.
The performances are generally agreeable, with Dennis Hopper the perfect choice for playing Max. The landscape is dotted with appearances by people like Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Nader, Michael Blodgett, Tom Signorelli, and Corman regulars such as Barboura Morris, Luana Anders, Beach Dickerson, and Dick Miller.
Cinematographer Allen Daviau ("E.T.") was one of those producing the psychedelic effects. The D.P. on this flick was Archie R. Dalzell, who does a decent job. And there's a groovy rock score by Electric Flag.
The distributors didn't want the film to be seen as pro-LSD, resulting in a particular image of Fonda near the end that was added against Cormans' wishes.
Six out of 10. -
Marques_benji5 January 2005I've bought this movie without seeing it. My friend told me I should thrust him and get it. I did.
Story: There isn't much of a story in this movie,a TV-commercial director decides to take LSD because he wants to make a psychedelic/surrealistic commercial. (two people standing on water) Under the guidance of his experienced friend he takes the drug and goes on a trip...
Acting: I really like Peter Fonda (specialy in easy rider) and he does a good job in this movie. Pay attention to the scene where he enters a house and a little girl comes down to get some milk.
Extra's (DVD): Only some trailers. I expected more.
I should say get this movie if you are into "60's stuff",but skip this one you are not. -
winner5524 February 2009This is a film where the conflicting intents of the creative agents behind it really jar the viewer's sensibilities.
Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson wanted to make an arty film favorably depicting an acid trip (they would explore this more fully - and more maturely - in "Easy Rider"). Roger Corman wanted to make a flat out exploitation film, pure and simple (the sex scenes are the best he ever did). Montage editor Dennis Jakob was given free reign and borrows heavily from the work of underground film maker Kenneth Anger (esp. the ruggedly nihilistic/narcissistic "Scorpio Rising"). You can't get three more opposed aesthetics at work. And this film is the result.
Had any of these three intents been allowed to dominate a film of half the length, any one of them could have produced a work of genius. However, meld them all together for nearly 90 minutes and you have a "WTF IS THAT?!" Ridiculous, pretentious symbolism (it's all Christ or hell or television), ridiculous dialog ("Don't make demands on my head, man!"), ridiculous sense of self-importance (our hero in an electric chair - what is he guilty of? "the Bay of Pigs!" shouts the Victorian dwarf on the carousel). Information overload when young people still thought a lot of information mattered. And of course, as so many have noted - no discernible plot whatsoever.
And all that "psychedelic" "art!" Save me, save me!
Originally intended as opener for a double bill with an AIP Hell's Angels biker flick. Probably should have stayed there, but prudes took offense at the flashes of female nudity, so it gained some notoriety, and then a cult audience that allowed Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson to go on to other projects. Corman did more biker flicks. Jacob would disappear for a while, then resurface as editorial consultant for "Apocalypse Now," "the Doors," and "Koyaanisqatsi." What a long, strange trip it's been.
Well, good for a few laughs, but drags too often. Best scene - the laundromat. The woman doing her sheets makes more sense than the rest of the cast combined. -
Roger Corman did very well with this "drug film". "The Trip" makes very good sense. Jack Nicholson did an excellent job as a writer for this film as well. Peter Fonda plays Paul, an TV commercial director who has some issues to come with. His wife(Susan Strausberg) is divorcing him because she is downright unfaithful. He would later meet with John(Bruce Dern) who would help him cope, with LSD. Once he has taken it, Paul's world would never be the same. He wouldn't touch anything else when he was at Max's(Dennis Hopper) pad. The tripping out was so intense, he would see things he could never imagine. The strange characters consists of a dwarf, hooded characters, a cackling witch, and women in all sorts. Along with the different strobes of lights, the acts of sex comes to play as well. The wife and other women is so intentionally bold, who would want to think of anything else. Tripping out was big in the 1960's, was also the scariest , Paul would imagine he has found John dead in which he wasn't. He would also think the police was after him following the entry of the little girl's house or the incident at the laundromat. At the end of the trip, he would find himself happy with another woman. What more could you ask for? Going out can exhilarating, but most can get a little overboard, this is indeed far out! 4 out of 5 stars
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wellthatswhatithinkanyway26 September 2006STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Paul (Peter Fornda) is a TV commercial director going through a bitter divorce with his wife. Dejected and disillusioned, he decides to experiment with LSD and has his close friend John (Bruce Dern) take the 'trip' with him. He spends the next few hours seeing beautiful colours and patterns, becoming more enlightened and self-aware, in between getting freaked out and confused in a terrifying nightmare world he has no control over.
Buying this film for £15.99 left me in a bit of a predicament. With the money I spent buying it, I could just as easily have brought some acid tabs and seen what LSD was like firsthand. But I found it uncertain and unpredictable to approach and decided to give this film a go just to see what it might be like. In fact, this is the reason it's been banned for so many years (never even saw the reels of a video cassette, I'd imagine) despite not containing anything overly unsuitable in the material. It just seemed like one big long endorsement of LSD to some and I can see how they might have thought this.
The film plays just like this, one long example of what an acid trip might be like. It does this very well, unfortunately it comes at the expense of the film having much in the way of an established storyline, character development or any of the usual ingredients that generally make a very good film. But it has a nice soundtrack, some quite funny moments and you gotta love those groovy visuals and hallucinogenic effects. Must ring my dealer next weekend. *** -
romanorum124 July 2013In a nutshell, television commercial director Paul Groves (Peter Fonda), whose wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) is divorcing him, decides to take an acid trip to improve his "insight." More than an hour of the film is devoted to the "journey."
At the beginning Paul is filming an April in Paris perfume commercial as the male and female actors stand in beach water fully dressed. After shooting Paul and his drug-researcher friend John (Bruce Dern) visit the "Psychedelic Temple," the abode of drug dealer Max (Dennis Hopper). A joint is smoked among friends, after which Paul and John go upstairs to John's apartment where he will supervise Paul as he takes his LSD capsule with apple juice. Paul's trip is a kaleidoscope of psychedelic imagery: bright colors, swirls, lights, flowers, the seashore. He can feel the "life" of an orange crawl along his hand and arm. Things gradually go awry. Paul thinks he is being pursued at the shoreline by two horsemen dressed in black. He sees images of a dwarf. Then he witnesses his own death scene, complete with cremation brought about by men from the Middle Ages. While John is fetching more apple juice for Paul, the latter imagines that John was shot dead with a bullet through his temple. So Paul "escapes" his apartment and wanders the streets of LA aimlessly. He gets into mischief, like strolling into a family's house at night and talking with a young girl. When the girl's father awakens and sees them, Paul vacates quickly. At a laundromat he takes a lady's wash from a dryer and throws it on the floor. She calls the police and he leaves. At a go-go club with many dancers, we observe a wildly dancing, attractive, dark-haired lady practically naked except for a bikini bottom and full body paint. The police soon show up and notice Paul, but he quickly leaves and makes it back to Max's place. Paul soon departs and meets up with brown-eyed blonde Glenn (Salli Sachse). With her he experiences drug-fueled sexual intercourse, after which he says he will solve his problems tomorrow. Arf!
This independent production (American International) was produced by Roger Corman (You know his films: "Premature Burial," "Dementia 13," "The Wild Angels," "The Student Nurses," etc.). "The Trip" is a fossil, representative of a bygone era. The psychedelic music is par for the period, and the lead actors were already well-known. Fonda and Dern had appeared in "The Wild Angels" (1966). Strasberg had the lead role in the Italian production about a WW II concentration camp, "Kapo" (1960). Her role in "Psych-Out" in 1968 with Jack Nicholson was much larger than her appearance in "The Trip." Bruce Dern also appeared in "Psych-Out." Max's blonde girlfriend LuLu is played by Katherine Walsh. In 1970 she was found dead in her Kensington, England flat. She was just 23 years old. The editing of "The Trip" is incredibly rapid-fire all the way, and there is no plot (thin, thin, thin) except for the supposed effects of acid. Considered imaginative by some, the film nevertheless runs too long. It is not really entertaining, but just a trip and a bum one at that. You can check it out as a relic, but don't blink! -
wvisser-leusden29 December 2012During the second half of the 19-Sixties, chemical hard-drug LSD was very popular. Fitting in perfectly with the then current hippie-culture for which Haight-Ashbury, a quarter of San Francisco, was famous.
It didn't take long for LSD to blow over to London. Over there, it was hugely promoted for its use by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones - its influence is clearly apparent in their songs from that period.
When it comes to this film from 1967, I suppose it was meant to provide a substitute LSD-trip for those who never experienced such a trip themselves. Whatever, its rich & tumultuous use of colors surely makes an unusual watching. All supported by a good cast, including a proper lead by Peter Fonda.
There isn't much of a story in 'The trip'. If so, it only serves as a frame for Peter Fonda's trip.
More serious however, is the absence of any warning against health dangers involved with using LSD. This hard-drug was pretty aggressive & damaging, and back in 1967 it didn't take the medics long to point this out. -
sol-kay2 December 2005The movie "The Trip" starts off with a warning to the audience about the dangers of using hallucinogenic drugs like those in the film and ends it's message with this chilling statement: "This picture represents a shocking commentary on a prevalent trend of our time and one that must be of great concern to us all". The film "The Trip" does then honestly and accurately stick to it's warning and shows what mind-bending drugs like LSD could do to a persons mind as well as body when he or she are exposed to it.
TV Commercial director Paul Grove, Peter Fonda, is going through a depressing time with him and his wife Sally, Susan Strasberg, on the out's and about to get a divorce. Needing something to settle him down and get him out of his depression that's effecting both his work and social life Paul gets in touch with a hippie friend of his Max, Dennis Hooper. Max has him put under the care of John ,Bruce Dern an LSD expert to get Paul ready and into a state of euphoria and thus rid his mind of all the awful thoughts that are swirling around in it.
Paul after relaxing by smoking a joint is given a powerful LSD tablet and he slowly goes under and on a trip that last the entire movie with his mind exploding into a kaleidoscope of colors as well as bringing out to the surface his personal insecurities, that he kept well hidden in his brain. The LSD trip turns his most pleasurable fantasies into a bevy of paranoid hallucinations that leads him to almost go insane.
You, as well as Paul, never know for sure if Paul is dreaming or is actually going through the events in the movie. Later when John, who's supposed to be with him at all times unexpectedly fades from the scene and the poor man is left on his own running through the streets from one mind-twisting scene to the next. With all this going on you then begin to wonder if he's dreaming or actually living and suffering through them. These scenes in the movie may well have all been the result of Paul's flipped out mind conjuring up all these weird things. We also see John with a bullet hole in his head after he left Paul out of his sight for not more then a minute.
Running from the police through a number night clubs and Go-Go bars Paul runs into Glenn, Salli Sachse, a young Hippie, whom he earlier met at Max's place. Genn then takes him home where after a night of heavy action he seemed to have recovered from his "trip" into Never Never Land and is ready to face the world a new man with all his problems that he had before he "tripped out" on acid behind him. Not really that much of a story but the scenes of Paul going out of his mind and the colors and strobe-like effects of his brain being taken over by the LSD tablet is more then enough reason to watch the film. -
MarioB8 October 2000This is just another exploitation movie of youth culture made at that time (1964-1970) by this great little company American International Pictures. But not the best. Very thin story that is a pretext to put on psychedelic special effects. Today, they seem very old and boring, and the music isn't great at all, not representative of the real psychedelic rock music. It could have been a lot better with the same idea. But this film had got very fine editing, years ahead of what would become music clips in the 1980's. But I got three big thrills with this movie. One : to know that Jack Nicholson wrote that! Two : to see Peter Fonda on acid in a laundromat. And three : when Fonda comes into his master-LSD house, I'm sure that we can see Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead! Or is it hallucination?