David Chirko 2008-05-17

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This DVD is an expurgated version of the Dick Clark produced/Richard Rush directed movie, "Psych-Out," from 1968. It begins with a bus travelling from Napa, California, carrying runaway, girl next door type, "Jenny" (Davis)--played by Susan Strasberg ("The Trip"), to Frisco's Haight-Ashbury. She appears open-eyed, ruminating on the meanness of war, both in a home life left behind, and the world, until awakened by a flower child girl passenger who titillates her with the redolent gift of a carnation. Jenny erupts with a smile as she gazes ecstatically out a window and envisions a much kinder kingdom of "flowers in your hair" folk in ubiquitous merriment. All along we hear the film's dulcet theme tune, "Pretty Song From 'Psych-Out'" by legendary Angeleno, psychedelic sextet, the Strawberry Alarm Clock (now back together!)--"I can see you, you can see me as we stand....And your face I've never seen it/Quite like this before."

Jenny, who is sought by the police, is searching for her artistic, wayward brother, "Steve," aka "The Seeker"--played by Bruce Dern ("The Trip"--Peter Fonda's LSD guide), who was once quoted as saying, "I've played more psychotics and freaks and dopers than anyone." The rednecks of the local junkyard (where he earlier lived in a car that had a painted slogan on it saying: "God is alive and well in a sugar cube") are pursuing him, because of his make love not war spirituality, he had expounded on in the park.

The movie's main man, "Stoney," is a wannabe rock star guitarist in the band "Mumblin' Jim"--played by Jack Nicholson ("Easy Rider," "The Trip" scriptwriter). He charges around in a flower power painted bus with his bandmates, as we hear the Alarm Clock's anthem, "Incense and Peppermints." Stoney hides square Jenny, indoctrinating his smitten protege in the craft of hippiedom, i.e., getting her to don period threads, from a store that sells everything gratis. He must adjust to the fact she is deaf, as the theme song earlier says: "You are on the run and all your problem/I'm aware/In the silent world/You see the words I say to you." He takes her to an abandoned and dilapidated, now overpopulated, Victorian mansion that he resides in. Here Jenny finds the disorganized and squalid goings-on of its "Pleasure Lovers" not her cup of bumblebee fudge.

Then there's local guru, "Dave"--played by Dean Stockwell ("Quantum Leap"). Dave is instantly enamoured with Jenny, when they're introduced by Stoney, at his home which is a box on a roof of some building. Stoney asks him if he'll rejoin Mumblin' Jim and the whereabouts of The Seeker is also brought up. Throughout the picture Dave undercuts Stoney's materialistic weltanschauung and game-playing lifestyle with a philosophical bravado that would make Timothy Leary proud.

What I found so radiantly picturesque in this movie was the celebration of unmitigated freedom, like the kaleidoscopic pageantry of hip minstrels prancing through the sun-drenched park, as the theme song (above) described: "I am lost in a poet's dream/where skies are burgundy....Waiting the artists surround it/with flowers and holiness."

The mystery of the film unfolds when Steve appears to Stoney at a closed art gallery he broke into, to retrieve his sculpture of a holy flame, he claims is "a present from God." He then explains how his sister became deaf because of trauma, suffered from abuse by a beguiling mother.

Next, the Alarm Clock, in paisley kurtas, are captured at a florid dance, where they perform "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow," followed by "The World's On Fire" (presaging events to come); the latter song lip-synced by Mumblin' Jim, as Steve reappears and notices Jenny, from behind. Meanwhile the junkyard rednecks return, spotting him. He flees and starts a conflagration with a torch in a building, he comfortably remains in.

Back at the mansion Stoney has a tiff with Jenny and walks off, after he catches her, compromisingly, with Dave, who is already high on some mind-blowing "Serenity, Tranquility, and Peace." Jenny takes a swig of same and Dave hands her a scrap of paper from Steve that reads: "God is in the flame." On the reverse of it is an address where her brother is at. Jenny departs into the bleak night to search for Steve, finds him and endeavours, unsuccessfully, to rescue him from his own Gotterdammerung. Dave, Stoney and coterie, go seeking disoriented Jenny, discovering her later amidst perilous traffic on the Golden Gate bridge. Dave rushes out and redeems her, but he and a passing car converge for the quietus. His final testament: "Reality is a deadly place; I hope this trip is a good one." The moral of this movie, then? Intolerance and cruelty are real, sometimes quelled by the sanctum of psychodysleptic drugs mixed with love--but have devastating drawbacks.

Some have questioned the authenticity of the locale, as well as the garb, argot and persona of the protagonists, in this film. However, what's important is that this movie fires an aura which fuels a time capsule--like Strawberry Alarm Clock melodies--that pour enveloping visions. If you are an ageless devotee of the 60s, go out and buy "Psych-Out" on DVD, to enter the mushroom and become a rainy day.