Psych-Out (1968)

Director: Richard Rush
Writers: E. Hunter Willett and Betty Ulius, based on a story by E. Hunter Willett
Stars: Susan Strasberg, Dean Stockwell, Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern

Index: The First Thirty.

Back in 1968, when Psych-Out was released, the names AIP felt would draw the public into buying tickets were Susan Strasberg and Dean Stockwell. The former is the lead, doing a good job at playing deaf. The latter, however, isn’t particularly prominent, though he does a very good job and exits the film in notable style.

Looking back from 2025, it’s different names that would draw us in. Strasberg’s male lead is really Jack Nicholson, the most famous actor in the film now. The MacGuffin of the piece is Bruce Dern, who’s also still going strong.

More hardcore cinema junkies might focus on Richard Rush or László Kovács, the director and cinematographer respectively, as well as Henry Jaglom, not yet a notable experimental director, but memorable for a scene in which his character freaks out and tries to cut off his own hand believing it to be that of a zombie.

Music fans will care about performances by the Seeds and the Strawberry Alarm Clock and maybe even the Storybook, who were the real band we hear behind the fictional one we see on screen, Mumblin’ Jim.

The name I’m surprised wasn’t shown more prominently on the poster is Dick Clark, who produced the film. He was “the world’s oldest teenager”, twelve years into his thirty-three year stint as host of American Bandstand. I feel that he would have been a draw.

That’s a lot of names for a exploitation flick aiming to cash in on the psychedelic scene in San Francisco in the late sixties, and it’s László Kovács who shines brightest. He captures the day incredibly well from the outset, shooting this like it’s a cinéma vérité documentary.

It’s entirely fictional, I should underline, but he’s generally able to make it feel acutely real with a loose, often handheld camera. The air is so full of drugs, flowers, art and psychedelic imagery that we can almost taste it. I can’t say how much of this is guerrilla filmmaking and how much was planned, but it wouldn’t shock me to learn that there’s plenty of the former.

The story isn’t an afterthought but feels like a secondary concern after immersion into the scene. We’re in San Francisco, on the corner of Haight & Ashbury where a friend of mine used to live, to watch Jenny, who’s a deaf runaway, arrive to seek out her brother Steve, who lives around somewhere. He sent her a card a week ago: “God is alive and well in a sugar cube.”

Because she’s a runaway, the cops are trying to find her and a smalltime local band steps in to help her out, both to avoid the police and to track down her brother. You won’t be shocked to learn that they play psychedelic rock, drive a VW van and live in a commune, but it’s fair to say that they know the scene, man, so they know who might know where he is.

The core members of Mumblin’ Jim will be familiar faces: Jack Nicholson as Stoney, the leader of the band; Adam Roarke, his nemesis two films earlier in Hells Angels on Wheels, as Ben; Henry Jaglom as Warren; and Max Julien as Elwood. He found a name in blaxploitation, as an actor and a writer. He played the lead in The Mack and wrote Cleopatra Jones.

Nicholson is alive here, in his element from the outset with his ponytail that looks like an extension and a waistcoat that’s far too small for him. Roarke is all about “peace and love, no violence”, almost jarring given his part in Hells Angels on Wheels. Julien is absolutely their support but the three work together well. The language they employ is so hip and happening that it sometimes seems artificial today but is pretty accurate for the time.

There are lots of good scenes here too, from the first, when the band see Jenny and Stoney figures out that she’s reading lips, all the way to the last, after she impulsively downs a big drink laced with STP and finds herself in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Some are meaningful, like conversations of weird hippie philosophy, Stockwell providing lots of that as the guru-like Dave, who squats in a room that’s accessibly only via a duct in a rooftop. There’s a telling scene at a church, its priest open to chatting with hippies like Steve. A judgemental woman outside disapproves of them and the way they dress, so Kovacs pans up to a stained glass window in which Jesus is clad in exactly the same attire.

Some are illustrative, like a funeral scene in a park that isn’t a real funeral; the man in the coffin is playing dead and is awoken by a kiss. I adored the blink and you’ll miss it aside where we see that some hippie in the commune has a pair of live baby alligators in the fridge.

And some tie to story. They find a piece of Steve’s art in a gallery, whose owner explains that he’s known as the Seeker. He points them to Dave who sends them to the priest, who has them visit the city dump, where they find that the message Steve sent his sister wasn’t one at all but an address; it’s prominently painted on the side of a car.

My favourite scene happens at this point, as the band find that a gang of thugs is searching for the Seeker too, for less agreeable reasons, and a major fight scene erupts. What’s so fun about it is that Elwood happens to be as high as a kite, so thinks he’s battling dragons with a sword when he’s really taking down bad guys with a length of pipe. Hey, it works!

The most telling scene is at the commune, because it’s where Jenny starts to realise that, while the hippie scene might seem to be great, what with everything being free, from love to the goods in a store to the mansions they live in, there’s a serious dark side. Nobody cleans. One hippie has named his lice. When she tries to do the dishes, a frisky couple blocks her.

Even Stoney, so helpful and loving—did you really need me to tell you that they become a couple?—shuns her when she tries to tell him something during a band rehearsal. He’s keen to land the gig at the Ballroom that a scout has stated Mumblin’ Jim are worthy of, and that’s enough to bring out his asshole side.

Naturally, Nicholson does that well because we expect it looking back. However, he was in his element perhaps for the first time. He’s at home in the counterculture, not always sober but always on point. He’s a great foil for Susan Strasberg and he’s a worthy male lead.

And so to the STP and the trip and a major escalation to a powerful finalé. I couldn’t even tell you whether some characters make it to the end credits. It’s that impactful an ending.

Like Hells Angels on Wheels, I’ve seen this one before. However, that one played worse than I remembered it. This one played better.