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The Trip (1967) is a counterculture-era psychedelic film released by American International Pictures, directed by Roger Corman, written by Jack Nicholson, and shot on location in and around Los Angeles, including on top of Kirkwood in Laurel Canyon, Hollywood Hills, and near Big Sur, California in 1967. Peter Fonda stars as a young television commercial director, Paul Groves.
| The Trip | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster to The Trip (1967) | |
| Directed by | Roger Corman |
| Produced by | Roger Corman |
| Written by | Jack Nicholson |
| Starring |
|
| Music by | Mike Bloomfield, The Electric Flag |
| Cinematography | Arch Dalzell |
| Edited by | Ronald Sinclair |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures (1967, original) MGM (2003, DVD) |
Release date | 1967 |
Running time | 85 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $100,000 |
| Box office | $10 million |
Screenplay
Paul Groves (Peter Fonda), a television commercial director, takes his first dose of LSD while experiencing the heartbreak and ambivalence of divorce from his beautiful but adulterous wife (Susan Strasberg). He starts his trip with a "guide," John (Bruce Dern), but runs away and abandons him out of fear.
Experiencing repetitive visions of pursuit by dark hooded figures mounted on black horses, Paul sees himself running across a beach.
As Paul experiences his trip, he wanders around the Sunset Strip, into nightclubs, and the homes of strangers and acquaintances. Paul considers the roles played by commercialism, sex, the role of women in his life. He meets a young woman, Glenn (Salli Sachse), who is interested in people who take LSD. Having learned from Paul recently that he would be taking LSD, she has been looking out for him. Max (Dennis Hopper) plays a role as another friendly guide to his trip.
Glenn drives Paul to her Malibu beach house, where they make erotic love, interspersed in his mind with a kaleidoscopic riot of abstract images intercut with visions of pursuit on a beach, a scene that is a sly homage to Ingmar Bergman's film, The Seventh Seal (1957). Driven into the surf by his pursuers, Paul turns and faces both of them, and they reveal themselves to be his wife and Glenn.
As the sun rises, Paul returns to his normal state of consciousness now transformed by the trip and steps out to the balcony to get some fresh air. Glenn asks him whether his first LSD experience was constructive. Paul defers his answer to "tomorrow." His face is frozen in close-up, and his image cracks like glass through an animation special effect.
Corman wildly edited some scenes for The Trip, particularly the exterior night scenes on the Sunset Strip, to simulate the LSD user's racing mind. The Trip features photographic effects, body paint on seminude actresses to lend atmosphere, and colorful patterned lighting, during sex scenes and in a club, which imitates LSD-induced hallucinations. Finally, Corman included inscrutable fantasy sequences including one where Fonda is faced with revolving pictures of Che Guevara, Sophia Loren and Khalil Gibran in a wildly lit room. For no apparent reason, a little person riding a merry-go-round in the background blurts "Bay of Pigs!!" The story plays over a musical backdrop of improvisational jazz, blues rock of the band The Electric Flag, plus an exotic musical score with an organ and horn-drenched theme.
Roger Corman did research by taking LSD himself. Charles B. Griffith wrote the first two drafts of the script—the first one was about the social issues of the sixties, the second one was an opera. Corman then hired Jack Nicholson to write the eventual screenplay. Corman encouraged Nicholson's experimental writing style and gives between 80 and 90% credit to Nicholson for the shooting script in the director's commentary appearing on the DVD of this film. Corman slightly modified the story to stay within budget.
Whilst most of the music actually used in the film was by Mike Bloomfield's Electric Flag, the early visuals (e.g. the band in the club at the start of the film) are of Gram Parsons and the International Submarine Band, one of the earliest country-rock bands. It had been Fonda's original intention to use the ISB's music on the soundtrack but, in the event, their contribution was deemed insufficiently "psychedelic" or trippy to warrant inclusion and the Bloomfield/Buddy Miles/Nick Gravenites Electric Flag is what is actually heard in the film.
Released on 31 August 1967 at the pinnacle of the "Summer of Love," the film had a huge cultural impact and grossed $6 million - a massive sum for a movie that cost $100 thousand.
The film encountered huge censorship problems in the UK and was refused a certificate 4 times by the BBFC. A cinema classification was rejected in 1967, 1971 and 1980, and again for video in 1988. It was eventually released on DVD fully uncut in 2004.
The movie currently holds a 31% "Rotten" score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 critics.
The movie was very popular. Corman says it took $6 million in rentals. According to Variety, $5.1 million was in North America.
The Trip was released in a Region 1 DVD by MGM on April 15, 2003 as part of their Midnite Movies series, doubled with a similar film, Psych-Out, on a double-sided disc.
- List of American films of 1967
- List of films featuring hallucinogens
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