Welcome to my new short series called Hippie Hotties where I plan to talk about a hippie-era movie that stretched the limits of free love and sex by showing off some sexy nudes on the big screen. This era of experimentation led to some pretty far-out films, so let's take a look!
I would be absolutely remiss if I did a whole series on hippie movies and did not mention The Trip. The Trip is like one of those weirdo flicks that always gets mentioned when it comes to counter culture flicks. And why is that exactly? Well, with Peter Fonda in the lead and the one and only Roger Corman directing this script written by Jack Nicholson, this acid trip movie really is THAT far out. Let's check it out, ya dig?
We have to take a minute to talk about absolute legend Roger Corman, the wildly prolific director and producer who made a wide array of schlock with a few real hits mixed in. Corman was a Stanford graduate and Navy vet who started directing films in the early 50s. His movies were notable for making a profit because of his big secret: he always worked cheap and fast. He would literally build one set and make a couple of movies on it to utilize every resource he had. He also put his trust in young people and gave them their start, regardless of experience, because they could learn on the job. He's responsible for so many careers and he was constantly searching for input from young people by sending assistants to high schools to survey teens on different ideas he had. While he was really well-known in his early career for giving us super cheap B-movies like Attack of the Crab Monsters and The Wasp Woman, he also made cheap versions of films that went on to either be remade or become cult classics in their own right. He gave us the original The Fast & the Furious, Little Shop of Horrors, Piranha, Deathsport, and - my personal favorite of his early films - A Bucket of Blood. So it really isn't a stretch that Corman dipped into the counterculture and made an acid movie for the kids before the rest of Hollywood did.
Corman not only asked teens what they dug about the counterculture, but he also researched for The Trip himself by, well, tripping. After experimenting with acid, he felt he "got it" and then dove into a story idea for the movie. He then encouraged Jack Nicholson to write the script because Jack was dabbling in some experimental writing. How about that for trivia? Jack then went on to write the hippie movie Head.
The movie follows Peter Fonda as a cool LA commercial director who decides to try acid for the first time with the hope that it will give him insight. The movie starts with his ex-wife asking him to show up to a divorce proceeding, so the idea is that he is partially going on this trip to figure out what he really wants there. Peter visits some hippies and takes acid. It takes no time at all before he starts seeing vivid colors and images that are "beautiful, man".
He leaves his trip-sitter Bruce Dern and winds up wandering around on the Sunset Strip and literally breaks into people's houses (???). While he does this, the commercial director starts to wonder about his own role in promoting commercialism and he wonders if he hasn't treated some of the women in his life pretty badly. By the end of his trip, which includes a psychedelic and erotic lovemaking scene, he feels fully transformed as a person. The movie ends with him basking on a balcony the morning after his trip and we are to believe that this guy is going to be super groovy from now on. The end!
It's worth noting that Susan Strasberg plays his ex-wife and gets busy in the bedroom with him in one trippy scene. If that name sounds familiar to you, it's because Susan Strasberg was the daughter of famous acting teacher Lee Strasberg. This wasn't her only counterculture film! The established actress in her 30s would follow this movie up with a future topic of conversation for us here, Psych Out. She seems to have made papa proud with her hippie hotness.
The movie was released in the middle of the Summer of Love and it was a major box office success. The Trip grossed $6 million - a massive sum for a movie that cost $100,000. In classic Corman fashion, the movie made a lot more money than it cost to make. While the movie is not considered good by any critical sense of the imagination (it has a 39% on Rotten Tomatoes), it has endured as perhaps the only successful drug movie made at that time. Still, the visuals are perfect for conveying a groovy trip. Take a trip with Susan and Peter in this psychedelic sex scene:
