In 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.

The summary is a line taken from this film and it pretty much sums up the film to me. This is a bizarre low-budget film from Roger Corman--bizarre because it seems designed as a film to encourage the audience to try LSD. To get it right, Corman and several of his stars (Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda) took acid to see what it would be like and to help with realism. Ironically, Bruce Dern's character was a mystical guru (like Timothy Leary) who advocated the drug the strongest, yet he was the only star in the film who didn't use the drug.

Peter Fonda, along with Dern's assistance, takes LSD for the first time. We are treated to a very, very long series of images--as if we are seeing through Fonda's eyes. Some are "good trips"--full of sex and placid images. Some are "bad trips"--full of horrors. Unfortunately, it all goes a bit wrong when Fonda accidentally wanders off and Dern has to find him.

Looking back at this film now, people who think drugs are stupid can't help but be bored as well as horrified by the film. Boring because the acid trip just seems silly and the whole film seems like a waste of time. It's a rather boring film despite the drugs, occasional nudity and loudness of the imagery. It's a bad film, but not in a funny way. You are also horrified because you can't believe that the film makers were so irresponsible to encourage drug use. I guess you just had to be there to understand the context for this film.

I don't know if anyone else has mentioned it, but with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in the cast for this flick, it looks and feels like a preview of 1969's "Easy Rider". In fact, the scene where everyone passes around a joint before coming back to the first person who began it was reenacted in the well received picture of hippie biker buddies headed to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. That movie also included Jack Nicholson, who wrote the script for this one, so there's another connection. Seems like Bruce Dern didn't get the call for the later film.

But there's really not much of a story here. After Peter Groves (Peter Fonda) gets the old heave-ho from wife Sally (Susan Strasberg),he seeks solace from a mystical drug guru named John (Bruce Dern),who provides him with a 250 mg tab of LSD, and the picture takes off into a series of strange hallucinatory experiences and visions, punctuated by wild kaleidoscopic effects and a garish color palette that assaults the viewer's eyes. Paul finds himself careening off on his own through a laundromat and a disco and momentarily experiences what hadn't even happened yet when he flashes a scene of what looked like the crowd at 1969's Woodstock gathering. The ambiance of the picture reminded me of all those black and white exploitation flicks of the Thirties and Forties which purported to advise the viewer of the dangers of rampant drug and alcohol use, but here it felt more like an invitation to try out LSD for one's own gratification.

What boggles my mind is how the movie landed such an incredible cast, all of whom went on to outstanding careers in the movies. You wouldn't know it really by the performances in this picture, but apparently all the principals escaped from the experience unscathed to make names for themselves with other projects. As for Roger Corman, he just kept churning out more schlock for the rest of his career, which amazingly, is still going strong as I write this. At the age of ninety four, he's got a project under way as executive producer titled "The Jungle Demon". Sounds about par for the course.