The Trip (1967 film)
The Trip is a 1967 American psychedelic film released by American International Pictures, directed by Roger Corman and written by Jack Nicholson. It was shot on location in and around Los Angeles, including on top of Kirkwood in Laurel Canyon, the Hollywood Hills, and near Big Sur, California, over three weeks in March and April 1967. Peter Fonda stars as a young man who experiences his first LSD trip.
The Trip
Roger Corman
- Peter Fonda
- Susan Strasberg
- Dennis Hopper
- Bruce Dern
- Salli Sachse
Archie R. Dalzell
- Ronald Sinclair
- Montage Sequences:
Dennis Jakob
American International Pictures
- August 23, 1967
82 minutes
United States
English
$100,000[1]
$10 million[2]
Released during the Summer of Love, The Trip was very popular, particularly with members of the era’s counterculture. It became one of AIP’s most successful releases and was important in the later development of an even larger cultural touchstone in Easy Rider, which involved many of the same personnel and appealed to the same young demographic.[3]
Plot[edit]
Paul Groves, a television commercial director, takes his first dose of LSD while experiencing the heartbreak and ambivalence of divorce from his beautiful but adulterous wife. He starts his trip with a "guide", John, 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, and women in his life. He meets a young woman, Glenn, 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 is another friendly guide to his trip.
Glenn drives Paul to her Malibu beach house, where they make love, interspersed in his mind with a kaleidoscopic riot of abstract images intercut with visions of pursuit on a beach. Driven into the surf by his pursuers, Paul turns and faces 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."
Home media[edit]
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.
In 2015, the MGMHD channel broadcast a newly-constructed "Director's Cut" of the film, which removed the opening disclaimer and the "shattered glass" ending imposed by AIP, as well as restoring additional footage to the opening party scene and exit music previously clipped on home video releases. This alternate version was later released on Blu-ray in Region B by Signal One films that year, and on Region A Blu-ray by Olive Films in 2016. The Signal One Blu-ray retained special features created for the previous MGM DVD, including a Roger Corman commentary track, and offered the AIP-mandated scenes (with Corman commentary) as bonus material. The Olive Blu-ray did not port any of the special features, but did include the original trailer.