The Trip

Arguably the most famous of all ‘60s "head" films, 1967's The Trip stars Peter Fonda as Paul Groves, a filmmaker who has sold out to become a successful director of TV commercials. Going through a divorce and disillusioned with his career, Groves turns to a friend (Bruce Dern) to guide him through an LSD trip. "I really think I'll find something out about myself," he explains, and the film takes us into his perspective, weaving in and out of Groves's fantasies while charting his freaked out journey through L.A. to find himself. His world comes alive in intense colors, as the familiar and the mundane become alien and exciting (Groves becomes entranced by the spinning clothes at a laundromat) and he slips into flashbacks (his memory of meeting his wife, played by Susan Strasberg, is a love scene with psychedelic lighting), experiences paranoia, and has surreal visions, even imagining his own death. Jack Nicholson wrote the screenplay and Dennis Hopper costars as a counterculture buddy who tells stories of his wildest trips at a party. For all its conventional insights and visual clichés, The Trip—directed by B-movie king Roger Corman—is one of the rare ‘60s films to acknowledge the possible therapeutic effects of mind-altering drugs. The producers added a cautionary introduction and changed the ending to suggest that the experience damaged Groves's life but this release restores Corman's original cut and the differences significantly affect the meaning of the movie. Both a counterculture classic and a nostalgic look back at the ‘60s, this is recommended. (S. Axmaker)