This movie is a trip!! Let's just start with the poster! "The Trip" is a movie filled with all kinds of colorful psychedelic imagery, so why not make the poster black and white, that makes so much sense!
So welcome to Trips Wednesday, and don't forget to fasten your straightjacket, the next stop is the looney bin! "The Trip" is a film made by Roger Corman that is quite confusing! It touts the dangers of drugs, but yet you need to be stoned to be able to get through it! Less than a movie, "The Trip" is more like one long music video, and would be better suited to playing on a big screen TV in the background at your next party than actually sitting down to watch! The music is great, and I have always loved the soundtrack, so my recommendation is to go buy a cd, and forget about watching the movie itself!
It's not talent that stops "The Trip" from succeeding! How's this for a power trio, Peter Fonda, Dick Miller, and Bruce Dern! All wasted in more ways than one!
This is the way hippies used to play "Word" on the street! Of course, they had kind of a limited vocabulary!
Wowzers, birds of paradise
and a god's eye all in the same shot, now that's psychedelic!!
Dennis Hopper smoking a joint, now that's really a stretch of the imagination!
The music for this trip was created by the San Francisco band, The Electric Flag lead by blues guitarist Michael Bloomfield, and keyboard player Barry Goldberg! They were joined by an amazing array of talent ranging from Buddy Miles on drums, Harvey Brooks on bass and Nick Gravenites on vocals and guitar, to Peter Strazza, Marcus Doubleday, Herb Rich, and Stemzie Hunter on horns! Here's just a
small sample of the wonders they were capable of creating! It sounds like everything from Miles Davis playing with a circus band, to the grunginess of Hapshash And The Coloured Coat featuring The Human Host and The Heavy Metal Kids!
When you start hallucinating President Lyndon B. Johnson, you know you're on a bad trip!!
If I was high on acid and I saw Bruce Dern grinning at me like this, it would freak me out, no doubt!
Another hallucination I've never been fortunate enough to have is a naked chick in the dryer at the laundromat!
One of the best lines in the film comes out of the mouth of Barboura Morris when she asks an obviously over the top stoned Peter Fonda if he'd like to help her fold clothes!
Some shots are very trippy!
Some shots should have been left on the cutting room floor!
It's said that they were originally was going to use the music of Gram Parsons' International Submarine Band in the movie but Roger Corman decided it wasn't the right kind of music for an L.S.D. experience, so whose idea was it to use Dixieland music in one of the last scenes? Talk about inappropriate, I didn't get that part at all! In my world Dixieland is about as far away from psychedelic as you can get! Even Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass or Mantovani is more psychedelic than Dixieland music!
Too bad The Rolling Stones' "Shattered" didn't come out until 1979, cause that would have worked!!
6 comments:
Ouch! I think you're being a tad harsh on this poor flick (because I really like it, despite--or because of--its many flaws), but to each his own. That said, if you find the DVD with Corman's commentary, give it a listen: he goes on at length about his own LSD experience and it's a good time.
All that said, check out Babs' sweatshirt: "Winthorp Aviation"--that's a piece of costume left over from 1964's The Carpetbaggers (it's the aviation company George Peppard takes over). I know this because one weekend I watched first trash masterpiece The Carpetbaggers and then The Trip, and the effect that crossover had on me was quite...trippy. Like, man, could those two movies exist in the same dimension? Would Fonda's burnout stumble upon Peppard's Howard Hughes stand-in? Whoa......
Thanks for letting me babble (and for the soundclips!),
Ivan
You're probably right Ivan, I've been extra cranky lately! I do love the soundtrack though! As always, thanx for the extra bits of trivia!
WoW!
You CAN be really cranky!
This is one of my favorite, well IT IS my favorite Psych film of all time!
And I had the soundtrack LP before even seeing the film! Dennis Hopper!
Peter Fonda! Bruce Dern! The Electirc Flag! It can't get any better than this!
i loved this movie when i saw it too - but that was over 20 years ago. plus i'm a total sucker for anything Peter Fonda so i think that helped a lot.
i'll have to check it out again to see if it holds up for me now.
I have to agree with Ivan and the others.
That DVD commentary by Corman is a very good one.
Uh Oh,
Grant:
DVD commentary by Corman??
What DVD you got? Mine has no commentary, unless I am mistaken. It's on a "Midnite Double Feature" with another film.. Can't find it just now....
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