LSD had to happen in Hollywood sooner or later--and it has turned out to be right now. Audiences are getting their first look at a film version of an ultimate acidhead experience. The Trip, currently on view across America, is a series of cinematic psychedelicacies mirroring the ecstasies and aberrations of an LSD joy ride.
Peter Fonda, who last year became an underground idol with his ambulatory antics in The Wild Angels, goes even further beneath society's surface in this film. As Paul Groves, Fonda portrays a turned-off director of TV commercials in the process of being divorced by his wife. As a means of coming to grips with his life, Groves turns on to LSD, and his fantasies comprise almost the full itinerary of The Trip.
Susan Strasberg, as Fonda's film mate, takes giant strides toward becoming a cinema siren with her most sensual screen showing to date. (Susan's curvaceous charms graced Playboy portfolios in December 1963 and December 1965.)
Also featured in the film is Salli Sachse. as a blonde hippie goddess. Salli, 22. beautified a half-dozen AI bikini-beach epics before her current role, and more than measures up (36-22-35) as the sexual local point of Fonda's film freak-out.
That this picture will arouse controversy is implicit in its subject matter--the twin taboos of sex and psychedelics. Whether or not the movie will be judged as high art or big box office seems immaterial. The real impact and import of The Trip is that, for the first time, Hollywood has tuned into the vibrations--good and bad--humming hallucinogenically throughout the nation.
