Psych-Out [1968]

Customer Reviews:

pure.......2007-05-15

i bought this film with expectations of legends and hippy action, and wasnt dissapointed. its fun, funny, cute and trippy. a good combination. the deaf girl really was irritating though, her niave innocence was just too grating, though you did feel real sorry for her character eventually. the character with the thick brows was a legend! that headband...yeah it was great, just looking at that amazing house with all the pure paint and the beads was the stuff of dreams. just too good.
i think it was all a bit too cliched though, but i suppose it had to be for non-stoner-johns.
weakpoints....the brother character, what was the point of him exactly? yeh he was the reason the girl came to the city but he didnt have to be that complex for a minor plot device. he was pretty hilarious though- sprinting upon those streets be-decked in jesus gettup.
yeah, its a good, fun film but the ending is unclear and there wasnt much of a plot, it was more the romancing (or lack of) between pony-tailed johns, jack nicolson and jenny.
good hippy movie. its pure.

A peek at San Francisco's Haight Ashbury scene in the 1960'.......2001-07-12

This film may not have done much for Jack Nicolson's career but its unparalelled for real street footage of the Haight. This film,although undeniably cheesy, really captures an era when Tim Leary's Millbrook posse(east coast) and Ken Keseys Merry Pranksters(west coast) had more effect on the youth culture of America than the government. With music by the Strawberry Alarmclock (incense & peppermint) and the Seeds the story follows a young runaway deaf girl who falls for the romantic myth of the hippie lifestyle. All is fun and laughter until she finds out there is a darker side to the free love and drugs of the era.

This film captures the essence of the 60's in San Francisco.What started of as harmless exploration and free expression spawned a monster in the form of drug hysteria which the media whipped into a sensation..

Low Budget Hippie Flick With Surprising Depth.......2000-12-01

A runway teen named Jenny (Strasberg) is searching for her hippie brother (Dern) amid all the madness of the acid soaked reality that was the Haight in the 1960s. Jenny falls in with a rock band and begins a relationship with Stoney (cynically played by a phony-tail wearing Jack Nicholson). As Jenny continues to search for her brother she gets more and more wrapped up on the vices of the day. Soon things get heavy. Will Jenny split the scene or ride it out? The story is punctuated by bursts of trippy sequences that do not serve the plot but are high on camp value. And of course, the music, like a fine wine, is perfectly dated. Bands like the Seeds and the Strawberry Alarm Clock sing their psychedelic ear candy like "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow", "Incense and Peppermints" and "Two Fingers Pointing At You". Also of note is Jack Nicholson and his band (called Mumblin' Jim) faking their way through a bastard version of "Purple Haze". If you missed the Sixties or (like me) you don't remember very much, then check out this gem. Hear phrases like "It's all one big plastic hassle", "Warren's freaking out at the Gallery" and "You sound better on acid". With the right kind of eyes you can see a certain bleakness that the film takes. There are lots of subtle digs at the hippies and the straights. Dig it.

Amazon.co.uk Review

In Press for Time Norman Wisdom offered his version of the crusading reporter movie, though by 1966 time was running out for Norman's style of big-screen comedy. Wisdom had played duel roles in The Square Peg (1958) and On the Beat (1962), but perhaps a sign of his growing frustration with the formulaic nature of his pictures was that he stretched himself to play not just his usual underdog hero, but also his own mother and his grandfather, the Prime Minister. Wisdom also co-wrote the movie, and as a reporter in a small seaside town causes chaos for the council, organises a beauty parade and manages to reprise his drag act (he dressed as a female nurse in A Stitch in Time) as a suffragette. This was really the penultimate Norman Wisdom comedy, since apart from What's Good for the Goose (1969), he has only made two more features, William Friedkin's The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and the belated thriller Double X (1992). Though now nearing the end of his years as a movie star, Wisdom shows himself to still be as polished as ever at his own brand of good-natured slapstick. Fans can be sure that with Norman around there's Trouble in Store (1953). --Gary S. Dalkin

Customer Reviews:

Laughing all the way.......2003-03-25

In this film, one of his last, Norman plays 3 different parts – Norman Shields the newspaper seller, his mother (flashes back to when she was a suffragette) and his grandfather the Prime Minister.
Notoriously late Norman has an interview with his grandfather, who sends Norman off to a small seaside town to become a reporter.
Norman causes chaos from day one, losing his bike (ending up chasing the thief on a double decker bus, annoying the editor, becoming drunk, causing the towns councillors to fight and bicker, running a beauty contest (women parading around in bikinis) and having a helping hand in making a brand new house collapse.
One thing missing – no singing, not that the film needed any.
This will have you laughing all the way through.

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