''Psych-Out'' is a 1968 American psychedelic film about

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

psychedelic music Psychedelic music (sometimes called psychedelia) is a wide range of popular music styles and genres influenced by 1960s psychedelia, a subculture of people who used psychedelic drugs such as Dmt, DMT, Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, mescaline, ...

and

recreational drugs Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or plea ...

starring

Susan Strasberg Susan Elizabeth Strasberg (May 22, 1938 – January 21, 1999) was an American stage, film, and television actress. Thought to be the next Audrey Hepburn, Hepburn-type Ingénue, ingenue, she was nominated for a Tony Award at age 18, playing the ti ...

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, often playing rebels fighting against the social structure. Over his five-de ...

(the film's leading man despite being billed under supporting player Dean Stockwell) and

Bruce Dern Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver Bear for Best Actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Suppo ...

. It was produced and released by

American International Pictures American International Pictures, LLC (AIP or American International Productions) is an American film production company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution c ...

. The film was directed by

Richard Rush Richard Rush (August 29, 1780 – July 30, 1859) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat who served as the 8th United States Attorney General from 1814 to 1817 and the 8th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1825 to 1829. He serv ...

, and the

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...

was László Kovács.

Plot

Jenny is a

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

runaway who arrives in San Francisco's

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called the Haight and the Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the countercultu ...

district searching for her brother Steve. She encounters Stoney and his hippie band Mumblin' Jim in a coffee shop. The boys hide her from the police and help her look for her brother. The band is approached by a promoter who arranges for them to perform at a venue called the Ballroom. Artist Warren, who designs the psychedelic posters advertising the band, freaks out badly in his gallery. While helping him, Jenny notices a large sculpture resembling abstract flames in a corner and recognizes it as her brother's work. The gallery owner says the artist is known as "The Seeker", an itinerant

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who Open-air preaching, preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach com ...

. Ex-band member Dave may know The Seeker's current whereabouts. Dave's information leads the gang to a junkyard, where Jenny recognizes her brother's car. A group of thugs who frequent the junkyard accost the group and threaten to

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person ...

Jenny. Violence ensues, and the group barely escape with their lives. In Stoney's crowded home, everyday hippie life is less than ideal. The residents are all involved in contemplation, sex, sleeping, dancing or decorating, but with little cleaning or maintenance. Jenny tries to wash the mountain of dishes in the kitchen and finds that the plumbing is broken. Frustrated, she goes for a walk. Stoney goes to find her and ends up at the art gallery, where he hears breaking glass and slips inside. Steve, AKA The Seeker, has returned to the art gallery to pick up his sculpture. He is glad that Jenny is looking for him, but says he is on drugs and wants to be sober when they meet. He tells Stoney that Jenny's deafness is the result of trauma caused by their abusive mother. The performance at the Ballroom is a success. The Seeker shows up, hoping to see Jenny, but the junkyard thugs chase him back to his home. At an after-show party, Dave offers Jenny a glass of orange juice spiked with

STP STP may refer to: Places * São Tomé and Príncipe (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, IOC country code, and FIFA country code STP) * St Pancras railway station (National Rail code STP) * St. Paul Downtown Airport (IATA airport code STP) in Saint Paul, Mi ...

. Stoney charges in and angrily shouts at Jenny. Heartbroken, Jenny accepts Dave's glass of fruit juice and drinks nearly all of it. Jenny again explains her search for Steve, and Dave pulls a note from his pocket containing an address and the words "God is in the flame." Jenny runs out and takes a

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

to the address, with Stoney and Dave, now tripping, close behind. Pursued by the junkyard thugs back to his home, Steve lights a fire inside his shrine. Jenny arrives just in time to see him standing in the middle of the flames, absorbed in prayer; he sees her, but merely smiles and waves. In her grief and confusion, she runs up to the roof, hallucinating wildly, ending up at the middle of the

Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean in California, United States. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peni ...

with cars coming at her from both directions. She holds her hands over her ears, and Dave and Stoney find her. Dave shoves her out of the way of an oncoming car and is struck and killed. As he dies, he murmurs that he hopes this, too, will be a good trip. Sickened and angry, Jenny tries to leave, but Stoney embraces her. The film ends with the two holding each other and crying.

Cast

as Jenny Davis * Dean Stockwell as Dave *

as Stoney *

as Steve Davis * Max Julien as Elwood * Adam Roarke as Ben *

Henry Jaglom Henry David Jaglom (born January 26, 1938) is an English-born American actor, film director and playwright. Life and career Jaglom was born to a Jewish family in London, England, the son of Marie (née Stadthagen) and Simon M. Jaglom, who wor ...

as Warren * Linda Gaye Scott as Lynn * I.J. Jefferson as Pandora * Ken Scott as Preacher *

Garry Marshall Garry Kent Marshall (November 13, 1934 – July 19, 2016) was an American screenwriter, director, producer and actor. Marshall began his career in the 1960s as a writer for ''The Lucy Show'' and ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' until he developed the T ...

as Plainclothesman * John Cardos as Thug * Gary Kent as Thug Leader * The Seeds as Themselves * Strawberry Alarm Clock as Themselves

Production

Dick Clark Richard Wagstaff Clark (November 30, 1929April 18, 2012) was an American television and radio personality and television producer who hosted ''American Bandstand'' from 1956 to 1989. He also hosted five incarnations of the Pyramid (game show), ...

, who produced the film, wrote in his memoirs that he insisted that the film have an anti-drug message:

"... because I'd seen the kids in the hippie commune living in awful squalor. In the film you see scenes where it’s all wonderful, they’re all stoned-out having a great time. Then there’s the morning-after scene — the garbage lying around, a roach crawling through the food, a half-eaten orange crawling with maggots... If you saw it he filmtoday you’d say it was a reasonably accurate view of what was going on then."

The film was originally titled ''The Love Children'', but was changed at the request of distributors who worried that audiences might think it was "a film about bastards." Producer Samuel Z. Arkoff came up with the new title of ''Psych-Out'' based on a recent successful

reissue In the music industry, a reissue (also re-release, repackage or re-edition) is the release of an album or single which has been released at least once before, sometimes with alterations or additions. Reasons for reissue New audio formats Reco ...

of '' Psycho''. Filming took place between October and November 1967 on a 22 day schedule. The film's special effects were created by stunt coordinator Gary Kent. The majority of the songs in the film and on the original soundtrack album were performed by the Storybook, a

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

garage band. The version of "The Pretty Song from Psych-Out" that appears on the film's soundtrack album was recorded by the Storybook, but the version heard in the film was by Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Release

Director Richard Rush's cut came in at 101 minutes and was edited to 82 minutes by the producers, a version that would be released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

by Fox Video in 2003.

HBO Video Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO) is an American multinational corporation, multinational mass media, media and entertainment company operating as a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. Founded by Charles Dolan and based out of WarnerMedia, WarnerMedia's ...

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

release used a 98-minute version. On February 17, 2015, a 101-minute director's cut was released on DVD and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

References

External links