Psych-Out 1968

Psych-Out 1968 Story by Betty Tusher, screenplay by E Hunter Willett and Betty Ulius, directed by Richard Rush. Dave Clark produced the film and László Kovács is the cinematographer. The 2003 MGM Midnite Movies DVD has the 82 min theatrical release of the film, there's a more recent release that has the director's original cut that clocks in at 101 mins.

Susan Strasberg is a deaf woman visiting San Francisco, she's come to find her brother. He's an artist who's dropped out, her last connection was a postcard from him saying God is in a sugar cube. Hippies, aren't they funny?

Susan meets up with Jack Nicholson and some of his friends. They befriend her and tell her they'll help her look for her brother. They take her around to their place. Susan sees a piece of her brother's art in the studio of the band's poster artist. That gives her a name, The Seeker, a name her brother is now using. Turns out someone knows he's living in a junk yard. Trouble is there's hippy hatin' scum on the streets and don't like The Seeker. There's trouble ahead with those pricks. Not that much has changed in that department since those days in the 60s. Hippies attract angry red neck scum no matter where they seem to settle.

 

They eventually find the brother but it goes pretty bad at the end. Drugs and the hippy life style are not so desirable in this film. The whole communal living thing isn't for me, especially when no one helps clean up.

I don't know if I'd need to see the longer version. You can see the short version here, though it is a good bit fuzzy, you can see the longer director's cut here, it looks very nice. Not a film I would want to return to very much. Still it was well enough made and the music by the Strawberry Alarm Clock was fun. Jack and Susan are joined by some other cast members I knew, Dean Stockwell, Bruce Dern, Ken Scott, Garry Marshall, John "Bud" Cardos, Harry Jaglom and Adam Rourke.

Comments

[Gary]

I'm pretty sure I saw this on TV a number of years ago. I have the 101 minute dvd on the to-be-watched shelves so I'll probably get around to watching it again eventually. I really can't remember whether I liked it or not but must have liked it enough to get the dvd, either that or I only was able to watch part of it and wanted to see the whole thing.