Cast:
Peter Fonda (Paul Groves), Susan Strasberg (Sally Groves), Bruce Dern (John), Dennis Hopper (Max), Salli Sachse (Glenn), Barboura Morris (Flo), Judy Lang (Nadine), Luana Anders (Waitress), and Dick Miller (Cash) Produced and Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, #1186 - A Bucket of Blood, #1423 - The Wild Angels, #1425 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, #1674 - Machine-Gun Kelly, #1684 - Creature from the Haunted Sea, and #1918 - House of Usher)
Review:
"I wanted the picture not to be a pro-LSD picture and not to be an anti-LSD picture because my trip was very good, I had no bad effects in my trip at all. It was wonderful. Yet I felt I really shouldn’t be accused of proselytizing for LSD, and at the same time I knew people had had bad trips, so I was trying to be neutral, and I had to ask people what had happened on their bad trips, and incorporate some of what they had experienced into it to make it neutral."
Admittedly, when I think of Roger Corman, the words "counterculture trilogy" don't exactly come to mind. Research by others involving films involving so-called "hippies" has labeled The Trip as the second of his films involving the counterculture, with Gas-s-s-s (1970) being thought of as the last of the three and The Wild Angels (1966) being the first. Whatever Corman intended, one thing is clear when it comes to The Trip: it was meant to be quite an interesting experience in line with what Corman usually tried to do with American International Pictures. Hell, he certainly tried to do his own research to get things moving, which first involved reading the work of Timothy Leary, a noted psychologist, author, and advocate for psychedelic drugs which in this case involved lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), although others would also know Leary for phrases that he came up with, such as "turn on, tune in, drop out". This drug, if you didn't know, was first synthetized in 1938 by Albert Hofmann. I would like to mention that Hofmann (after accidentally finding out the effect of LSD with ingestion years later) argued for LSD as a possible tool for psychiatry within the right place of awareness and safety rather than used for entertainment. So yes, he had plenty to think about the counterculture and their use of something he called "medicine for the soul". As for Corman, he eventually came to the conclusion that reading and asking folks about it was not enough, he had to try LSD for himself. After all of that, Corman, having a good trip, decided to make a film relying on experiments with cinematography and visual elements to carry a film that isn't really about much besides a drug trip. Of course, I can't forget that the film was also written by Jack Nicholson, which came about after Corman had Charles B. Griffith (his writer on previous material) write a couple of drafts, one of which was done as a musical; Nicholson apparently wanted to play a role in the film, but Corman wanted to reuse Dern from the aforementioned Angels film (which he and Fonda both starred in). The film was released less than a month after Corman's one big-budget venture with The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, but The Trip (made on a budget 1/4th the size of the other one) was a major hit for AIP. If you didn't connect the dots already, Fonda and Hopper would star together in a future film involving the road and the counterculture (with Nicholson and Anders in tow) in Easy Rider (1969).
Evidently, the way to go with this film is to turn off one's mind, relax, and float downstream. Regardless of how one feels about the attempt of neutrality, there is something quite, uh, offbeat about how the film goes about in wandering for 82 minutes. Strangely though, I find it far more interesting of the counterculture films that Corman did as compared to Wild Angels or with Gas-s-s-s, probably because the raucous biker experience of "freedom" of the former and the latter's attempt at "post-apocalyptic dark comedy" seem quite hollow compared to the simple goals presented here. It certainly won't be as ridiculous to watch as say, Reefer Madness. Those who find it tedious will have as much justification to say so as the folks who label it as pure cinematic exercise. It all depends on how much patience on has with lingering sequences of a man going through a really weird time that includes fantasy sequences, folks accidentally breaking into people's houses, and musical backdrops involving jazz or organ and horns for a score. With that in mind, Fonda actually does a pretty good job here, a dazed performance that is totally inviting and right for the scenario presented that doesn't seem ripe for exploitation. You get bits and pieces of who he is around and during the trip, and it namely involves vulnerability that one would think about when it comes to one's awareness being tuned into weird putty. Hopper and Dern play the guides on the would-be road of awakening, which is mostly amusing in bits and pieces. The women in the film in Strasberg and Sachse come and go in a rate that suggests discussion over just what they actually mean to Fonda beyond what they look on the surface, but remember that LSD was indeed meant more than just tripping out, so take that in mind. A handful of psychedelic/counterculture films would come and go in the coming months, whether that involved Something Weird (1967), or say, Head (1968), or Skidoo (1968), you get the idea, but The Trip should prove just fine for the curious at heart that like entertaining looks at the experience of doing a trip with useful imagery that is both what you think and don't think would happen if you were the one put in the lead scenario here. And for that, Corman clearly was in his element here in a decent experience.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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