April has been a glorious month on TCM. Every Friday, they’ve featured the films of Roger Corman who I called the King of the B Movies yesterday and a new documentary calls the Pope of Pop Cinema. You say pope; I say king. Let’s call the whole thing off.

During the 1960’s, Corman’s films captured the zeitgeist of the era. He was making movies about the counterculture before it became mainstream. Given time, everything becomes mainstream: MAGA is the most nauseating example of all.

The Trip came about because Corman thought a movie about LSD would be interesting, and more importantly, profitable. He even took an acid trip to prepare for filming. He enlisted the pre-stardom Jack Nicholson to write the screenplay because Jack knew from LSD. Anyone surprised? I thought not. The future superstar, however, isn’t in The Trip. Bummer, man.

I experimented with acid during my wayward youth. I had some good trips and some bad trips. I’ve been meaning to write about this subject but prefer to keep the focus on Roger Corman’s The Trip in this post.

Shorter Adrastos: Stay tuned, man.

On with the show, this is it.

The plot of The Trip is simple: It’s about an acid trip taken by Peter Fonda who plays a director of TV commercials. Fonda began the movie as a sweater wearing proto-yuppie before turning on, tuning in and dropping out. I never had an LSD tour guide, but Fonda did, in the person of Bruce Dern:

By his standards, Dern plays a normie in this movie. I miss the psychotic glint in his eyes that he brought to other roles. I love me some Bruce Dern.

Dennis Hopper plays a sort of trippy hippie Emcee who pops up throughout Fonda’s trip:

Hopper rarely played a normie as exemplified by his Eighties comeback in films such as Blue Velvet. He’s fairly subdued in this movie. Perhaps the psychedelic scenery was too gnarly to chew. Bummer, man.

Peter Fonda did some weird shit in this movie including talking to a seashell by the seashore:

The Trip is essentially a Fillmore light show brought to the big screen. Corman and cinematographer Archie Dalzell used flashing lights and other trickery to evoke Fonda’s trip. Shorter Adrastos: Not much happens in The Trip, but it’s groovy, man.

The music for the movie is provided by The Electric Flag under the pseudonym of The American Music Band. The next picture is not of the EF but the band includes country-rock legend Gram Parsons:

Seen today, The Trip is a period piece and flashback to the 1960’s. It’s entertaining but I’d recommend that you watch it in an altered state if you catch my drift.

Grading Time: I give The Trip 2 1/2 stars and an Adrastos grade of C+.

I originally planned to write about Corman’s 1966 biker movie The Wild Angels. It’s a better film but it’s full of bikers wearing Nazi regalia. Graham Platner may dig it but I don’t. I give The Wild Angels 3 stars and an Adrastos grade of B. I deducted points for the realistic use of Nazi symbology. The bikers did that to troll Brokaw’s Greatest Generation. I found it irksome.

Let’s get to the posters, which are heavily influenced by the concert posters done for Bill Graham Productions. The lettering is trippy, man.

The tagline acronym reflects the studio’s nervousness about appearing to be pro-drugs. Nobody dies in The Trip.

If you’re having a bad trip, follow me to the lobby to score a caffeinated beverage:

I hope that walk mellowed your buzz or some such shit.

The lobby cards for this color movie are in black and white. Holy Hollywood perversity, Batman.

Now that we’ve sobered up a bit, let’s board the trippy trailer:

The last word goes to Ben Mankiewicz: