Psych-Out

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[Music]

(00:03):
Like man, it's a Psych-Out!
See the pleasure lovers who live it like it is, where it's at.
Make the scene with the rebels, the hippies who think that flower-power rules,
over everything and everybody.
Psych-Out!
Dick Clark presents the hallucinatory world of the flower children
as they parade up and down the streets of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.

(00:25):
Psych out was filmed entirely on location in hippie heaven.
See the mind-blowers in action.
Watch the psychedelic dropouts as they Psych-Out.
Psych out!
Psych out!
You'll listen to the sound of green with the Seeds in the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Taste a moment of madness when you experience a psych out.

(00:47):
With Susan Strasberg and Dean Stockwell, in psychedelic color from American International.
Psych out!
We're not talking about actors.
We mean a real monster. I brought her back.
She'll live and I'll get her another body.
I know they're gonna catch me but don't let anyone see me like that? Please, Doctor, help me!
Biologically speaking, it's a primary importance that man should want to mate.

(01:11):
Hey, that's right!
You don't get all your kicks from surfing, do you?
We want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by the man.
[Music]
And we want to get loaded.
You think you're gonna make a slave of the world?
I'll see you in Hell first!
[Music]
The American International Podcast.
Are you ready?

(01:33):
Oh, Groovy, you found the American International Podcast.
I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin.
Tune in, turn on, and drop in to listen to our take on Psych-Out from 1968.
Psych-Out was directed by Richard Rush from a screenplay by E. Hunter Willet and Betty Ulius,
which itself came from a story by E-Hunter Willet.
And it was produced by Dick Clark for Dick Clark Enterprises.

(01:54):
Psych out stars Susan Strasberg as Jenny Davis, Dean Stockwell as Dave, Jack Nicholson as Stoney,
Bruce Dern as Steve Davis, Max Julien as Elwood, Adam Roarke as Ben, Henry Jaglom as Warren,
Linda G. Scott as Lynn.
Also appearing our I.J. Jefferson as Pandora, Ken Scott as preacher, Gary Marshall as Plink Loseman,

(02:15):
John Cardo as Thug, Gary Kent as Thug leader, the Seeds as themselves, and the Strawberry Larm clock as themselves.
Psych out opens with the A.I.P. logo circa 1968.
James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff present a Dick Clark production.
And we get some newsreel-style footage, just clips of it.
But it seems like pictures from today's headlines.

(02:36):
Well, they're showing the hazards of the late 1960s.
Protests, war, mushroom clouds, surgeon general has determined that cigarette smoking can be hazardous to your health.
It's about time they figure that out.
And the Flintstones will have to stop advertising cigarettes on air.
Over this we hear the sound of sirens, which suddenly fades to silence.
We fade back into a woman on a bus.

(02:58):
This is our lead character Jenny played by Susan Strassberg.
And the bus is stopped and through the window she's getting a flower from a hippie.
Well, the hippie is knocking on the window and Jenny doesn't notice it at first.
Jenny gets off of that famous intersection and tries to take in all the sights.
She walks through the hippie-filled streets of San Francisco as the strawberry alarm clock plays a slight out on the soundtrack.
It's not on the soundtrack though.

(03:20):
It's not on the soundtrack album, but it is on the soundtrack of the film.
Good enough for me.
She's looking at everything with wide eyed wonderment.
A southern hippie chick comes up behind her and asks for four sands, then three sands, and finally two sands.
But Jenny doesn't respond.
She's just staring ahead at the street musicians playing before her oblivious to everyone else around her.

(03:41):
And the hippie walks away.
Then Jenny herself moves on.
She starts down the street and another hippie catches her eye and asks Jenny if she's got a place to stay.
She asks him to repeat the question, and then nods yes and continues on.
But she walks into traffic.
But she's nearly hit by a car as she gazes at some protesters on the sidewalk who are carrying signs that don't say anything.
The driver stops before he hits her and starts blaring his horn, and she's not paying him any attention.

(04:05):
Then Jenny notices and goes to the window.
The driver calls her a stupid kid who is probably on drugs like all the others.
Jenny's snarls at him to shut up.
Then smiles and explains that she's deaf.
She says it with a smirk and then she takes off.
The man's wife tuts off poor little things.
She can't hear.
And the man rolls his eyes at us watching him.
Then we cut away to hippies prancing around in the park as the credits conclude.

(04:30):
Yeah, we're going to see a lot of footage that's kind of on par with us as the moving progresses.
Next scene brings us to a coffee house where Jack Nicholson with a fake ponytail, Adam Rourke and Max Julien are sitting together in a coffee house.
But these people are not who we think they are. They're actually Stoney, Ben and Elwood.
Would you say this is a beatnik coffee shop or a hippie coffee shop?

(04:55):
I think it may have one time been a beatnik coffee shop, but I think it's evolved.
Yeah, I think it's got that vibe though where nobody really spends money.
They just hang out there and they listen to music and rap with each other.
Their friend Warren comes up to join them with very fake mutton shops.
Yes, with mutton shops made from the bathroom rug.
He made a poster for something and the others laugh at it.

(05:17):
Warren gets mad and walks over to where Jenny is sitting. She's there too.
He wants to know if she's a Gemini. She doesn't answer.
So he tries to kiss her and she fends him off.
He tries to explain, "You don't understand. I'm a Leo. We're in phase."
Stoney comes over to join them at the table and Elwood points Warren on that direction to find a real Gemini.
Now Ben and Stoney have also found Jenny just as a couple of not very well disguised playing closed detectives coming in the cafe.

(05:41):
And they pass right by where Jenny is sitting.
Ben starts asking Jenny about her Gemini dumb.
She responds to his questions because she can see his face.
Then Elwood joins them and Stoney tries to chat her up but she's not looking at him.
Stoney realizes that Jenny is reacting to conversation but not responding.
He covers his mouth and says, "I think she's deaf."
Elwood and Ben find this hilarious.

(06:02):
And kind of rude.
Yeah, Elwood says it's in bad taste.
Still covering his mouth, Stoney suggests they kill her and eat her.
Which sets Ben and Elwood into hysterics.
But Jenny is offended. What are you laughing at?
She gets up to leave but Stoney restrains her.
He says he just wants to ask her a question.
"I'm deaf, Declare's Jenny."
Stoney looks quite proud of himself to have figured this out on his own.

(06:23):
His expression is quite triumphant. She confirms that she can relips.
I spend in Elwood, Razz Stoney, for making fun of her.
Stoney jokes with Jenny that she knows he digs her.
And she's hot for him too, right?
She laughs until she cries and asks for another cup of coffee.
Elwood offers to get it since serving as part of his racial memory.
But Stoney insists that he'll get it.

(06:44):
She mentioned that Elwood is the only black person in this group.
It comes up a couple times.
Stoney gets up to the counter just in time to see Detective Gary Marshall
flashing a picture of Jenny to another patron.
He says she's a runaway and they're looking for her.
But not very hard because they just passed her.
Stoney returns to their table to move her out of the cops' field of vision.
He mouths to Jenny that the cops are looking for her, so she hides her face in her hands.

(07:09):
The policeman takes a seat with a couple of older women and begins asking them if they'd seen Jenny.
But Ben has an idea to distract them.
He goes over to them and puts an arm over each one and says he noticed that they're new here.
And he just wanted to make sure they're all right.
Peace and love and all that.
They push Ben off them and Ben flies across the room into Stoney and Jenny's table.
Stoney jumps up and beg starts a fight with Ben, who's still calling for peace and love.

(07:31):
The police get into the scuffle as well and they're booed and beaded.
Beaded?
They start playing beads over their neck.
Oh, beaded.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, this Tesla could have easily exposed Jenny if these cops weren't so bad at their job.
The cops retreat without Jenny who hit herself under the table.
Ben asks Jenny if she's got a place to stay.
Yes, she says my brother lives here.
With that, everyone leaves, leaving Jenny alone at the table.

(07:54):
Ben looked pretty relieved to hear that he didn't have to take her home or find her another place.
On this way out, Stoney hands her a dandelion and says see you later.
And then we get another kind of long scene of Jenny taking in the sights of San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Stoney, Ben and Ellwood go to find their friend Warren at an art gallery.
He's made posters for their upcoming show and their band called Mumbling Jim.

(08:15):
So they're going to be putting up these posters around town.
And in a long montage such incense and peppermints, they said about doing just that.
And this whole time, Ellwood is tripping.
I challenge you to find a part of the movie where Ellwood isn't tripping.
But he's also driving and Stoney thinks it's time for him to take over the wheel.
While he's driving, the producers try to mimic the effect of LSD by shooting a kaleidoscopic effect

(08:38):
where everything we see is multiples and swirls about the screen.
And then Ellwood completely covers the stop sign with pink paint and the word love.
This is a pretty long montage.
Yeah, it's kind of fun just to sit and watch and not have to take notes.
It's not the last of those either.
Later, they're all gathered up in the Mumbling Jim Mobile.
It's a painted VW bus.

(08:59):
Stoney asked Ellwood if he's okay.
Ellwood asked if he's ever seen the universe explode in his head.
Stoney just rolls his eyes and smiles.
Looking out the window, he knows his Jenny speaking to a woman outside of house.
Hey, Jenny, Ben calls out.
It don't do any good to yell, you know, says Stoney.
What a coincidence that they spotted her, but the smontage was long enough they could have covered the entire neighborhood and then some.

(09:21):
They get out of the van and join Jenny with the woman who turns out to be the land lady of the last place her brother was known to live.
The land lady says that her brother left with no forwarding address and he didn't say anything.
He just disappeared.
She goes and Stoney asks Jenny if she's sure that her brother is even in San Francisco.
And Jenny says she received the postcard from him just a week ago.

(09:42):
It says, "Just says, SAES, God is alive and well in a sugar cube."
exclamation point.
This turns out to be an important clue, kind of.
More on that later.
A cop passes by the house so Stoney says they gots to go.
And this time they put Jenny in the van with them.
As they're off and driving again, Ben tells her that he doesn't know if they can help her find her brother, but they'll sure try.

(10:07):
Stoney says the cops will pick her up in about five minutes if she doesn't get out of those square clothes.
Jenny tells him that she doesn't have much money and Stoney says that's okay.
Now much money is needed around here.
They take her to a thrift shop where everything is free. The price is right.
Jenny starts looking through the racks as Stoney grills her on why she ran away.
She gets angry.
I thought you said these clothes were free. She snaps and she tries to storm off.

(10:30):
But once again, Stoney grabs her and apologizes.
She doesn't have to tell him anything.
He says it's cool. Everyone just does his own thing.
And then we have another long montage of Jenny trying on the office.
Yeah, Ben brings her some clothes to try on, but the stupid montage.
And I'm sorry, it's really dumb. She's trying on flapper dresses, fur coats,

(10:52):
Oh, and Native American garb.
Most of the time Stoney and Ben are just shaking their heads, but Elwood is sitting in a chair and giggling the entire time.
Like I said, find a time he's not tripping. I dare you. Then she finally settles on a cream colored baby dowel dress.
Pretty subdued after all the other costumes she had tried on. But finally we're out of this scene.
In the next scene, we're at the guys' flop house where a bee in is in progress.

(11:21):
The place is lousy with hippies dropping out, turning on, etc.
There's guitars and crystals. One person is playing a citar.
Her beads everywhere when hippie says that the message is in the beads, the message is music.
The message is searching for the truth.
Our girl named Pandora is dancing by herself. But when a guy asks her why she's dancing by herself, she says she's not.

(11:43):
She's dancing with everybody else.
You know what I mean?
And there's dreamy music droning in the background.
A random hippie tries to wrap with Jenny.
Yes, or what she thinks of the place. And she says the pad means sanctuary to her.
Ben is talking to Elwood and saying that Jenny needs a place to stay. And everybody here seems to like her.
And he thinks that she could stay there.

(12:04):
Elwood says it's cluttered enough already. Ben reminds him that Stony has his own pad there.
And Elwood laughs, "You'll scare him half to death. You know he's a one-nighter."
Hey, loves him and leaves him.
Elsewhere, our girl named Lynn tries to get Stony into bed.
Stony consults with Lynn's husband Wesley, who is distracted by his own problems.
However, Stony reminds Lynn that Wesley promised to pound him into motorcycle grease if he even looks at her.

(12:29):
As the evening continues, Stony takes Jenny back to his room, which he has to open a window to get to.
It's not a window. It's like panel in the wall.
It's got a poster over it. It just slides up and then you crawl into this second space.
Anyway, it's a very tight squeeze.
Yeah.
But it does give them some privacy, which is very hard to come by in the rest of the house.

(12:51):
He leans into Kister, but she pulls back.
He tells her she can stay there tonight if she wants, and she thanks him and he leaves.
She sits down in the bed and on his cat, and it gives her a scratch.
She pets it and then she changes into a robe she found hanging on the wall and gets in bed.
Stony now topless joins her, but he doesn't try anything with Jenny,
because Pandora has appeared at his bedside. It spears him away.

(13:14):
The hippie party continues as the soundtrack almost plays purple haze.
And a lot more montage. There's body paint and everything we see seems to be Wesley's hallucination.
Yeah, his wife Lin wants to know it, Wesley's seeing.
And while he's seeing what we see, a bunch of kaleidoscopic visions of women wearing only body paint.

(13:35):
And at the end of this, I wrote, this is a pointless scene.
The next morning, Jenny awakens to find that Stony has returned to the bed, and though asleep,
he has an arm draped over her and she's stuck. She tries to move him, but instead he throws a leg over her as well.
Suddenly Ben bursts in and tells him that Warren's freaking out in the gallery.

(13:56):
And indeed, Warren is having a bad trip down there. Stony and Ben and Ellwood try to talk him down, but he's not listening.
Warren says he's fine, though he's armed himself with a power saw.
When he has a bad trip like this, all he has to do is snap his fingers to come out of it.
Warren's snap your fingers, says Stony. He does so only this time it's not working.
Warren tells them to back away in his mind. They're all monsters.

(14:19):
He sees them as undead things. He turns onto power saw and threatens the guys.
Then he sees his hand as immutilated mess and decides to sew it off.
But this isn't the evil dead. So the guys overpower him, disarming him before he can disarm himself.
Jenny comes in and asks why does Warren take that stuff. Stony tells her she shouldn't judge people.
Then the gallery owner, whose name we don't know, but will appear periodically throughout the rest of the film,

(14:44):
starts to explain that there is an inherent risk in every action even crossing the street.
A man has to search out to find any rewards in life. Then Jenny notices a sculpture.
Yeah, it's a big, god-y sculpture that she recognizes. Steve made this, she exclaims. That's her brother.
The gallery guy knows the artist as the seeker. Stony asks where he can find the seeker.

(15:06):
The gallery owner says Dave knows where to find him.
Now we see Stony, Ben and Elwood accompanying Jenny over the rooftops of San Francisco.
Stony and Jenny go into something. It's like maybe a storage area on a rooftop.
It looks like a basement, but that doesn't make sense because it's on the roof.
Anyway, inside they find Dave. Dave is wearing a headband and smoking a cigarette.

(15:29):
It's a beaded headband made in China that you would see in Native American paraphernalia shops.
Dave is played by Dean Stockwell, by the way.
Stony tells Dave they've been looking for him and Dave asks why?
Because you're my friend and we need you to play with us, says Stony.
Still playing games, Tony. Says Dave. So now we know Stony's name is really Tony.
Seems like a really lazy nickname to me, but not inappropriate.

(15:54):
No, definitely not. Dave seems like he's being difficult for no reason.
He's constantly trying to bait Stony.
Then Dave notices Jenny. Stony explains that she's deaf.
She's lovely, says Dave. She or girl.
Not really, says Stony.
Then you wouldn't mind if she stays here with me, says Dave.
Well, that would be up to her, wouldn't it, says Stony?

(16:15):
Jenny is watching this entire conversation take place and looks visibly hurt every time Stony opens his mouth.
But when Stony says, "I like her," that makes her smile.
And also, that's very correct of him to say that it's up to her.
Because it sounds like they're bartering for her. That's not cool.
Dave wants an end to the games. Everything is a plastic hassle.
And they bicker some more.

(16:36):
Dave points to a beam of light coming through a hole in the wall.
Then he covers the hole. That's all there is, he says.
Except we're in a box on a roof in San Francisco, says Stony.
So it seems, says Dave. Stony finally says that they're looking for Steve.
You seek the Seeker, says Dave. Then he tells them that the Seeker seeks God.
So we end up in church where priest tells Stony and Jenny that he has spoken with the Seeker many times.

(17:02):
They ask what his address is. The priest says he doesn't have an address, but you can find him at the city dump.
Then there's this weird little bit where they beat up with Ben and Elwood.
And there's a photographer taking pictures and there's people doing Christ's cosplay, matching a stained glass window.
And there's another couple there judging everybody, kind of a horse-faced woman complaining about kids these days.

(17:24):
At the dump, the Scooby-Gang finds a clue.
A sign reading exactly what Jenny's postcard says.
J-E-S-U.
And there's a U that's faded. S.
S-A. Faded V. E-S.
And there's a car painted with the Sugar Cube quote. Ace Detective work kits.
So they found what they've been looking for only this car seems to have been abandoned for some time.

(17:49):
It looks like a fire was set inside too.
Before they could decide their next move, a bunch of junkyard thugs come out from hiding.
"Well, look at the flower children," says the leader.
The thugs ask what they're doing so far from home.
"We're looking for somebody," says Stoney.
"Who, they ask?" The Seeker.
At this, the thugs laugh. They're looking for him too.
The thugs ask the gang why they want to find him.

(18:12):
Jenny says that he's her brother.
And they finally look at her with some sinister interest.
She demands to know why they want to hurt him. And apparently it's for his obnoxious speeches in the park.
It won't shut up.
Anyhow, they're itching to beat up some dirty hippies and now they do. Or at least they try.
A couple of them grabbed Jenny and dragged her off while the others start to fight.
Except for Elwood, who takes a seat and watches the brawl.

(18:33):
Eventually, Elwood does join the fray though as he hallucinates some nights that he can jost.
And then the fights over. Hippy's one. Thugs is zero.
Having won the battle, Elwood describes his trip to his friends.
"You should have seen it. I was a frog. Then a princess kissed me. Then I'll hell broke loose."
But he didn't save the day.
Now we're at a Mumbling Jim gig.

(19:00):
They play that Jimmy Hendrix rip off song as Jenny watches rapidly.
I don't know if Stony can actually play his guitar, but he knows how to dance with it. He's swaying to the music.
The gallery owner asked Jenny if she'd like to dance, but she says she can't dance.
And that's because she can't hear the music.
Well, it's kind of lucky she can't. I'm lucky for us though.
I think this is the most unbelievable scene in the entire movie.

(19:23):
Well, after the song is over, the band leaves the stage and a farmer comes up and asks,
"Don't you have to have representation?"
You say a farmer, but he says he's a concert promoter.
He's wearing overalls in a cowboy hat.
Well, maybe you went to the thrift store and that was the only thing that fit him.
So apparently this guy is going to be their agent.
And get him a gig at the ballroom, which is apparently the place to play.

(19:44):
Like I said, it's kind of unbelievable the way this happens.
Like a fairy tale.
Especially playing that song.
I know.
Does Jimmy Hendrix have an agent?
Because he should get on that.
Later, Stony and Jenny are in bed, and Stony tells her that he likes having her there tonight.
It's too bad she couldn't hear the music.
She asked him what the agent wanted to make a famous like the airplane, he says.

(20:07):
And they'll sell out in the 80s.
They kiss and the scene goes blurry as Psych out by the strawberry alarm clock plays once again.
And we have another montage of them in bed in a wheat field.
They have swirly, kaleidoscopic sex to Psych out.
Apparently she enjoyed it, but when she wakes the next morning, he's gone.
She gets dressed and bounces downstairs happy to see Stony,

(20:30):
but he's arguing with Dave again and ignoring her.
Stony is trying to convince Dave to rejoin the band.
He tells them that an agent has promised to get them into the ballroom.
$2.50 will get you into the ballroom, says Dave.
Anyway, Stony says it's nice to see his old friends in the daylight.
Dave's afraid that Stony is going to sell out for a lot of money.
I don't think he has anything to worry about though.

(20:51):
Dave sees Jenny enter the room and asks Stony what he's going to do about the girl staring at him with all the love in her eyes.
Dave warns that soon Jenny will want to settle down, and Stony is going to have to join the nine to fiver.
Stony looks a little alarmed at this.
Dave tells Jenny to tell him how it is.
"I'm just catching a bus," she says.
She kneels down next to Stony.
"Hi," she says.

(21:12):
"Hi, how are you?" he replies.
Good, says Jenny.
Then Stony gets up and leaves.
Jenny looks confused and distraught.
Stony leaves with Pandora, Wesley, and Lynn.
And then we see where they're headed.
Yeah, they had to hurry or they'd be late for the funeral.
Oh snap, Ben's dead.
Everyone is gathered around the grave and Ben is in the coffin.
A preacher with a fake beard is going on about how he has been denied and revoked the right to assassinate his fellow man.

(21:38):
All the girls weep and then the open casket is carried through the park.
And as some dancing breaks out.
Well, the seeds are performing two fingers pointing at you so they can't help but dance.
True. Oh, and Ben's not really dead.
But I have no idea what this goofy fake funeral signifies.
Pandora leans down to give Ben's corpse a kiss.
Ben opens his eyes, grabs her and pulls her into the coffin with him.

(22:00):
Then everyone gather, throws their flowers at them and they all run away.
The party continues back at the pad as Mumble and Jim plays their other song.
No one in the band is a singer though, apparently.
Although they're going to challenge that assertion later.
I still believe it though.
The crowd looks pretty partied out except for Jenny who just looks grossed out.
She floats over to where Stony is playing but he's still ignoring her.

(22:23):
She finally takes the hint and leaves.
Looking for something more productive to do, she goes to the kitchen to start to wash the dishes.
But she's sooner up than by a flirtatious couple.
Also the faucet's broken and it's just spraying water everywhere.
Do you know who the couple is?
No.
It's a gallery guy in Pandora.
See? Like we said, he keeps popping up.
They start making out in another room and then run into the kitchen to flop on the sink as Jenny tries to do the dishes.

(22:47):
And then they run away.
Jenny looks really disgusted now.
So she tries to go to bed but some other guys passed out on Stony's bed.
And now she's really pissed.
So Jenny goes back to Stony.
Stony is still speaking with the band and trying to decide on their set list.
What should come next?
Collideo scope or Red River Dream?
Oh, did they have three songs?

(23:08):
Or is that just a two we've already heard?
Jenny keeps trying to get Stony's attention.
Jenny, what do you want?
Can't you see they were working?
She says she's just wanted to tell him that she's going for a walk.
Okay, take a walk then.
I don't have a leash on you.
Fine, Yells, Jenny.
As she storms off.
She's just been in the same room.
She's been in the same room.
And she's been in the same room.

(23:30):

(23:52):

(24:14):
And she's going to go for a walk.

(24:36):
Because it's about time he got in the movie.
Stony switches on the light.
And Steve explains that this sculpture is his.
He made it. It belongs to him.

(24:58):
He says God touched his hands when he made it.
And that he's going to take it with him.
This is when Stony realizes that this is the guy that Jenny's been looking for.
Stony says everything is cool.
He's not going to touch him.
And he's not going to stop him from taking whatever he wants.
He tells Steve that his sister is there.
And she's been looking for him.
And Steve was a little high, so he asked for a day to get his head together first.

(25:20):
And he asked that Stony not tell her that he's seen him.
And then we get kind of a weird scene where Steve is remembering Jenny is a little girl.
And when their horrible mother stole her collection of precious objects
and cast them into the boiler to burn them up.
It goes on for a really long time.
And I'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from this.
After that, Steve says that he saw something gross and slimy, ooze out of her mouth.
And that scared everyone.

(25:42):
And that was the last day she heard a sound.
Now we're at the ballroom.
Mumbling Jim has the gig, but they're not on yet because first we have strawberry alarm clock playing rainy day mushroom pillow and opening for them apparently.
How far they've fallen.
If he's are dancing to their own beats in front of the stage,
and some are getting decorated with fluorescent body paint.
The song ends and Mumbling Jim takes the stage and they play the world's on fire by the strawberry alarm clock.

(26:06):
Man, they should sue.
Steal somebody's song right in front of them.
Oh, what a gracious.
Jenny sits and watches them with stars in her eyes.
Steve, the seeker stumbles into the ballroom and he gets close enough to Jenny to touch her.
But before he can, the junkyard thugs bottom and chase him off.
Jenny never realized he was there.

(26:28):
The thugs and Steve take their fight outside.
Then after Mumbling Jim has finished mining their single song,
the band leaves the stage to join the party.
We see a girl whispering a private offer into Stoney's ear and he seems to accept it.
Dave asked Stoney why he's so happy.
Is it the fame or the fortune?
Never mind, let's talk about something important.
What color continental are you going to buy?
Can a little man, says Stoney, but Dave knows what's up.

(26:52):
He knows Stoney would like to go upstairs with the girl who was just hanging on his arm.
Only here comes Jenny.
What's he going to tell her?
Is he going to be honest and tell her the truth?
Or maybe say that he hasn't meeting with his agent.
Or he can tell her he loves her.
She'll never know.
Stoney looks torn, especially when Jenny asks him to come sit by her.
She got him a plate of food.
Finally, Stoney begs off.

(27:13):
Looking at Dave, he says after all, we've all got to do our own thing.
Right?
Man, what a free spirit David yells after him as Stoney goes.
Jenny is gutted.
Dave turns to Jenny.
I guess it's just you and me.
Oh no.
Steve returns to the ballroom.
The coast seems to be clear.
But as he goes back out into the open, he finds that he was very incorrect on that matter.
The thugs are lurking in the dark.

(27:34):
So Steve takes off again and they chase him again.
They chase him throughout the neighborhood.
He ducks down an alley and grabs a flaming piece of wood from a guy who's burning stuff in a barrel there.
They chase him up an exterior staircase to the upper floor of a building.
Once inside, Steve waits until the thugs come in.
Then lights a curtain on fire.
He throws the flaming curtain on them and escapes down the staircase.
As he continues down another alley, he drops the torch as he continues to run.

(27:57):
He goes to wherever he's staying.
We know this because his fire sculpture is there.
And he lights a match and sets it aflame.
Yeah, he puts a fire inside his fire.
Now we're with Dave and Jenny and they're getting cozy in Stoney's room.
Dave took advantage of Jenny's plate of food offer.
Dave dumps some powder into his drink and has a sip.
He tells Jenny to close her eyes.
But she says she can't re-as-lips if she closes her eyes.

(28:20):
He convinces her to do it anyway and he kisses her.
She opens her eyes and he tells her that now she's mad at Stoney and she wants to get back in the room.
And he's happy to help her with that.
It kiss again and Stoney walks in and he's getting mad at Jenny for engaging in the same free love that he does all the time.
He might be a hypocrite.
Then he turns his eye around Dave.
He and Dave argue about Stoney's newfound morality.

(28:43):
And then Stoney snarls at Jenny, calling her a bitch and telling her to enjoy herself with Dave.
But don't dirty the sheets until he can get another girl to clean them.
Wow, what a jerk.
Jenny dissolves into tears.
He and Dave bicker some more, though Dave remains mattingly calm.
And then Stoney goes.
Dave offers Jenny a shot of his drink, telling her that there's enough in there for two trips.

(29:06):
Jenny downs the whole thing.
She doesn't know what she's drinking though.
She was never in on those conversations.
Then she tells Dave the only reason she came here was to find her brother.
Dave pulls a piece of paper from his pocket.
It says God is in the flame.
Dave says it's a little esoteric for him, but there's an address on the back.
Jenny scampers down the stairs out of the house and jumps on to a passing cable car.

(29:27):
Stoney sees her go and runs up to his room to ask Dave where she's headed.
Though hazy with drugs, Dave finally reveals that she's tripping on STP.
She's going to seek the seeker.
He laughs.
She hides and you seek her.
Stoney can't believe that Dave let her have that trip out on the streets.
She doesn't know this drug and she could be hurt.
He commands Dave to go with him as they try to find her.

(29:50):
As they leave, Ellwood and Ben see them and follow.
As for Jenny, she's going to the address that was on that paper.
When she reaches it, she finds that a crowd is gathered outside the building.
They're talking how someone has set it on fire and won't come out.
She doesn't hear this, but we do.
Those people are just watching it burn.
They're not doing anything.
However, they do try and stop Jenny as she tears past them.
Jenny throws open the door and sees Steve standing amongst the flames.

(30:13):
He smiles and points when he sees her.
Then the ceiling starts to fall and the crowd pulls Jenny away from the house.
She breaks free from the crowd and escapes down an alley.
And then the STP kicks in hard.
She sees flames everywhere she goes.
The whole world is on fire.
The fire is chasing her everywhere.
Down alley, ways up fire escapes.
She jumps into a water reserve tank and it too is a flame.

(30:34):
She twists and turns.
She seems to be falling forever.
Fireballs fly past her head.
And as the sound fades in for our benefit,
we see that she's actually in traffic.
An exterior shot tells us that she's in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Traffic is screaming past her on all sides.
Portially, it's not long before the mumbling gym mobile goes by and screeches to a halt.
Stoney Dave Ben and Ellwood jump out.

(30:57):
Stoney yells at her not to move and to stay where she is, but she can't hear him.
True.
And she's not looking at anything but fireballs.
She looks terrified and Dave dashes into traffic, grabbing Jenny.
But he sacrifices himself when he pushes her to safety.
It gets creamed by a passing car.
He winds up on the shoulder of the Golden Gate Expressway and he's badly injured.

(31:20):
Then he gives his last words, "Reality is a deadly place.
I hope this trip is a good one."
Jenny throws herself into Stoney's arms as memories of frallicking hippies fill the rest of the frame.
And that's the end.
Welcome back to the American International Podcast.
We're talking about Psych out from 1968.
Working titles for Psych out included Love is a four letter word, The Love Children, and Love and Hate.

(31:44):
According to articles published in Daily Variety and The LA Times, during the period the movie was being made.
In January of 1968, Michael Moats wrote in his column that The Love Children,
would now be titled Psych out.
Apparently, Love Children made the studio think of Busters, not hippies.

(32:07):
Psych out marked the first feature film produced by a radio and TV personality Dick Clark.
In an interview published in the November 10, 1967, Daily Variety, Clark claimed he wanted to make a film about hippies
because they were, quote, "the most influential, most important, and most talked about group of kids in America."
He noted that the picture would not deliver preachments, but would accurately depict hippie culture,

(32:28):
which he described as great in theory but ultimately ruined by drug abuse.
In May of 1967, Daily Variety reported that Jack Nicholson had been hired to write the script for Psych out.
However, in late June, Daily Variety announced that Betty Ulius had been brought on to write the screenplay.
Nicholson was credited only as an actor in the final film, and these papers had conflicting credits in their reviews.

(32:49):
The LA Times credited the screenplay as Betty Ulius and E-Hunter Willet, was story-quadet going to Willet,
while the New York Times stated that the screenplay was written by Betty Tusher and Betty Ulius based on a story by Tusher.
The Love Children's Psych out began filming in late October, according to a national news item published October 22, 1967.
The November 1, 1967 Daily Variety announced that American international pictures would distribute the Love Children, which had not been yet retitled Psych out.

(33:16):
In Dorothy Manners' column published November 16, 1967, She wrote Dick Clark, completing filming The Love Children, reports two extra hairdressers had to be hired to cope with the long-tressed as worn by the male teenagers in the hippie movie.
Teenagers?
Which is interesting because nobody's hair is real in this movie.
Yeah, we found out from one of the extra features on the DVD that there were wigs used in almost every case here.

(33:40):
As if we couldn't have been able to tell that on our own.
Yeah, the facial hair was a dead giveaway.
And Jack Nichols never had a ponytail.
It's like a rat tail. It's not really a ponytail.
Florewell Muir wrote in her Hollywood column, published December 1, 1967, that quote,
"While Dick Clark was producing the Love Children, Los Angeles Police arrived in a patty wagon to cart the flower children away for obstructing street traffic.

(34:02):
Clark had to produce sign clearances from police officials to prevent his extras and actors from being taken into custody."
Clark said in an interview, published in the Salt Lake Tribune in March of 1968 that in two years for Psych out, we're shot in Los Angeles, but exteriors were filmed in San Francisco.
In an interview with Deseret News young Americans writer Merlin Walker, the then 38-year-old Clark said,
"I am a hippie and you probably are too in some way."

(34:24):
Clark said that being a hippie meant showing individualism.
To quote him, "It is showing free thoughts and being a bit of a maverick, hippies have affected appearance, clothing, hair, jewelry, etc., morals, attitudes and actions.
He credited the Beatles for making it fashionable to be a cook."
The Kansas City Times reported that Clark spoke to a group of local high school journalists and said that by fall most of the hippies will be gone, but the ideas they've promoted and the discussions will continue.

(34:48):
The thinking will go on. They've changed our morals, dressed music, politics, religion. They're a terribly influential group of people.
The majority of the songs in the film and on the original soundtrack were performed by the storybook, a San Fernando Valley garage band.
The version of the pretty song from Psych out on the film soundtrack was recorded by the storybook, but the version heard in the film was by Strawberry Alarm Club.

(35:11):
Psych out was released on March 6, 1968.
A.P.s press book recommended theater owners hold a sidewalk psychedelic painting contest in front of their buildings, with a local band higher to entertain,
or to have a parade of psychedelic cars with hippies handing out flowers along the route.
They also suggested a drawing contest asking entrance to sketch their conception of Strawberry Alarm Club and the Seeds, and hiring a hippie to cover the downtown area in Psych out banners.

(35:36):
In December of 2015, the anthology film archives in New York City presented a series of A.I.P. counterculture films, Psych out, the trip and wild in the streets.
Taglines for Psych out include, these are the pleasure lovers they'll ask for a dime with hungry eyes, but they'll give you love or nothing.
Here, incense and peppermint's by the Strawberry Alarm Club.

(35:57):
Taste a moment of madness, listen to the sound of red, and hold the heartbeat of terror in your hand, live it like it is.
Suspense and action in the psychedelic world of the 60s.
Have you ever tasted fear or smelled madness? This is the strange world of the pleasure lovers.
The ultimate head trip.
In Sam archives autobiography, he wrote that after the release of Psych out, at that point, the major studios finally jumped on the bandwagon, trying to cash in by producing their own psychedelic movies.

(36:24):
Although they made a few films about the drug culture, none was ever particularly successful.
I think the studios made a big mistake when they put those pictures together.
Yes, they got some big names such as Al Pacino de Star, but in film after film, the protagonist drug user came to a bad end.
That was a fatal mistake for the majors. The last thing young audiences want is a heavy-handed morality lecture, and they certainly won't pay for one.

(36:48):
From Sam Rackoff, that sounds a little like denying reality.
WG Tutor of the Wilmington News Journal said in his review,
"Even the teenagers probably have more sense than to be dragged into believing Psych out.
A psychedelic morality play that teaches the wages of methodrine is probably death.
He also complains about how, after an hour of bad noisy rock groups making noise and dozens of shots of colored lights flashing around, the plot starts up again.

(37:11):
However, he also wrote that the movie was about a girl named Jeannie looking for her brother David, so perhaps he's not the best authority on Psych out."
Marjorie Adams in the Boston Globe wrote that when she saw Psych out, the audience was mostly men, who evidently expected this hippie picture to fulfill their entertainment needs.
Actually, it is American International Pictures idea of how to grab off as much money as their previous film on LSD. The trip brought to the small company's coffers.

(37:36):
What seemed the truest part of the story is the greasy-haired hippies, clothes you can almost smell from the screen, and kitchen and toilet facilities that would turn the stomach of a Vietnam refugee.
Kevin Thomas of the LA Times wrote,
"Hippies are an inevitable subject for exploitation pictures. What is not so inevitable is that they will be portrayed with any degree of fairness, accuracy or perception that they are in Psych out, is because its makers are aware that young people who constitute the bulk of today's movie audiences are pretty hip themselves.

(38:04):
The picture would be worth seeing solely on the basis of its gorgeous kaleidoscopic imagery, worked out by Russian, his gifted cameraman, Las Locovax, and his equally stunning score by Ronald Stein, which incorporates songs by Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Seeds, and Boenzy Creek. Yet, it also has a well-constructed plot and evolved things character development.
Thomas also thought the 103-minute cut was not a second too long."

(38:27):
Anna Adler of the New York Times mentioned that the story involving the seeker ends abruptly. "He is standing inside, the drug really begins to take effect, the house is burning, and then almost casually the movie decides to forget the whole thing, very frustrating. Her brother may be burning still.
But she wrote,
"The film, directed by Richard Rush, has considerable elan. There are beads and spangles and prisms and fabric and pads, the on-turnage and the out-freaking leave room for a lot of surreal and science fiction effects. Though a Mist Strasper's STP delusions are not very imaginative."

(38:58):
But the reviewers in local Bay Area papers commented on Psych out's depiction of the hate ashery scene.
Jean Miller in the San Francisco Examiner wrote, "Very little of the hippie rationale is meaningfully explored in Psych out, a Hollywood fantasy about the life of the denizens of the hate ashery. Indeed, it resembles nothing so much as a lavish costume party, with hippies clad in glorious psychedelic garments,
prologuing in the park to the music of loud rock bands, whether or not making love or taking drugs that is."

(39:24):
With trite symbolism that frequently becomes absurd, director Richard Rush underlines over and over his superficial view of the hippie phenomenon. No effort to probe their motivations is made.
But Robert Taylor in the Oakland Tribune blamed the script for a lack of authenticity.
He wrote,
"Sych out American International's idea of what life is like in the hate ashery is not as bad a picture as you would expect it to be. The main problem is the script, the dialogue like a Saturday evening post-writer's idea of hippie language.

(39:51):
They're all living in a house which is like nothing ever seen in the hate ashery, and decorated it seems by amber, crumbly and fitch. And all the hippies are in their mid-20s, clean, smiling, charmingly dressed and smoking nothing stronger than asthma cigarettes.
He went on to say of the neighborhood as depicted in the movie. It all looks pretty clean and pure, with St Ignatius Church in the background and the sun filtering through the trees in the park. There aren't any orgies in case that was what you're hoping to see."

(40:16):
The Ultimate Movie Rankings website reports that "Sych out" took in 13.9 million in adjusted dollars at the box office, and variety referred to the movie as a sleeper critical success.
"Yeah, I'm not sure it was a really big success, and I don't know what the budget was, so it probably made some money, but it wasn't huge. It's what I'm gathering."

(40:42):
Alright, Jeff, let's talk about how we liked "Sych out." You think it was groovy or not very groovy?
I thought it was pretty groovy. One of the difficulties we had when we started was there were two different cuts to this film, and we weren't sure which one we needed to watch.
And I couldn't really tell from the reading material that we had based on this movie. It looks like it was cut after it was released, but also some people saw the cut version somewhere.

(41:08):
So we opted for the longer hour 43 minute version.
It seems really long though, and when I think of what must have been cut, I think of all those extended montages where it doesn't move the plot forward in any meaningful way.
It's just trying to say, "Wow, these are hippies, and this is what they do."
Yeah, but that was also the most interesting part of the movie because the plot wasn't much of anything.

(41:31):
And yet, I got impatient waiting for them to end. I guess you have to look at it two ways. If you just want something to visually feast on, it's great.
But if you're looking for getting the plot over and done with, it's not that great.
Yeah, "Sych out barely qualifies as a narrative film."
True. It's more a series of vignettes. This happens over here and over there is something else is happening.

(41:55):
There's a fake funeral. There's a concert, maybe.
Yeah, the actual plot points that they do have kind of interferes with the flow of the film.
Yeah, we keep getting interrupted with our psychedelic visions to have to find out what Jenny's doing.
It's a deaf girl who's trying to find her brother.
And then the fact that they never really satisfy that, like the one reviewer said, the movie just decides to end without any resolution.

(42:21):
I mean, yeah, he probably died in there, but they never were reunited in a meaningful way, aside from getting to see each other.
And that whole setup about what her mother did to her, there's fire in that.
And it seems like the fire that he created is related to that.
And then they all died in a fire and Jenny hallucinates fire.
But what it all means is really open to you to interpret.

(42:45):
It is really open. The whole film is kind of a celebration of ritual, but they don't give you any guidance.
It's just they present it and you can interpret it however you would like.
Right, I didn't notice that there was some foreshadowing when I watched it the second time.
The ending where Jenny stuck in the middle of the street.
In the beginning of the movie, she almost gets hit by a car because she's standing in the street.

(43:07):
And then when she's talking to the gallery owner after Warren has his bad trip, he says that there's danger and even crossing the street.
And then that's how the movie ends with her almost getting creamed on the Golden Gate Bridge.
So it seemed like they were trying to establish a little bit of a flow through there.
But the script doesn't really give you a lot more than that to work with.
No, because most of the film is a series of montages.

(43:31):
Well, we know it cut out like 20 minutes, right?
15 to 20 minutes, yeah.
And they must have just cut out all those montages.
And for one movie, that's a lot of montage.
Yeah, it really is. But they also have the music mostly by Strawberry Alarm Clock playing during these moments.
And though they're different songs most of the time, they all sound very, very similar to each other.

(43:53):
The Strawberry Alarm Clock don't have a wide range.
No, but I did appreciate the music. It was really nice to listen to.
I like those songs.
It was. And as Monotonous as it was, it's better than using the same song over and over again like Bobby Joe and the Outlaw did.
Now they did repeat songs a few times. We heard the fake purple haze at least three times.
And then I think they played the Psych out theme twice.

(44:15):
Right.
And there was both by the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
They could have like switched it up and had the other band play it for one of those times.
But no.
Yeah, the one song The Seeds plays in the concert in the park.
The funeral in the park, you mean?
Yeah.
Well, I don't think they were invited to the funeral.
I think you just happened to be there playing or it was just a hallucination.
They weren't there at all. They just.

(44:37):
Oh, they were there.
Okay.
It's hard to know what's real because a lot of those montages are just people tripping.
And we don't know what's real.
At the end, when Jenny has her bad trip and she thinks she's swimming and then she's falling
and then fireballs are screaming past her and then she's in traffic.
That's about the only time it ever resolves into something real.

(44:59):
A trip, I mean.
Well, I guess we're to assume that any trips that we see prior to that last one are just LSD.
Right.
And the psych out of the title is Jenny's trip on the STP.
Yeah, that's a real thing, by the way.
I thought maybe they made it up.
They just looked at a can of motor oil and said, oh, that's a good name for a drug.

(45:22):
But no, it's real.
And it was a real problem for a while.
I don't know if this portrayed an accurate view of hippie life in 1968 in the Hadesbury area.
Well, we have the view of two newspaper columnists that said it didn't.
But their newspaper columnists, their white collar people, they don't live on the streets.
So their opinion may or may not be valid.

(45:44):
But they can say it doesn't look like Hadesbury that they see every day.
So that's possibly correct.
But yeah, and the fact that Sam R. Cough said this wasn't a morality play.
And then they don't do that.
I don't think that's true.
No, he always does that.
I know.
So the audacity to say that they're better than the other studios because they don't do that.

(46:05):
When they do, well, it was his autobiography.
So you can say whatever he wants, but you had to take it with a grain of salt.
I don't know.
This seems to feel more like it was a caricature of what the hippie movement was at the time.
Yeah.
It's Dick Clark's idea.
And he may have been down with modern music, but I don't know if he was down with modern lifestyle.

(46:30):
I think he was always a little square.
Right.
And he was a little bit like a guy.
And these are people who have nothing.
They live for nothing.
They just exist.
They're just being their protest signs don't even have words on them.
They can't read.
They can't write.
I don't know.
It did seem very superficial and not very authentic.

(46:51):
But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
It's not a documentary.
And as a film, I think it's actually beautiful.
Visually, yes.
It's a story that keeps me from loving this movie though.
Like you said, if it had just been this swirly montage of hippie life and all the kaleidoscopic visions, the colors, the lights, the sounds, that would have been pretty cool.

(47:12):
That's about three quarters of the film.
It is.
They keep jamming it up with the stupid plot.
So with the better script, I think this could have been a really good movie.
But it just went for such a simple thing.
I didn't quote this, but we're not an addler from the New York Times.
But the script writer has really imposed Western movie values on all the action as opposed to, I guess, maybe Eastern philosophy or hippie philosophy where, you know, there have to be a fight and there has to be a rescue at the end.

(47:43):
And to her, it didn't really feel like it was coming from a hippie's perspective.
What do you think about the acting here?
Of course, I've Jack Nicholson as the weary and disillusioned stoner.
You never tire of coding that line from the terror.
Nope.
I think he's fine.
He seems way too old for the part.
I think everyone was at least mid-twenties.

(48:04):
I think Susan Strasberg was good.
I think she's awesome in this.
Yeah, she's very good.
She's a very small person compared to everyone else.
And I don't know how old she is here, but she does look like a young helpless girl.
But nonetheless, has a fiery temper.
And she says so much with her face.
Just in the expressions every time Stony opens his mouth and disappoints her.
I kind of wonder from the stuff that we learned from the seeker character who said that she went through this trauma and then never heard a sound again.

(48:31):
If her hearing loss was psychosomatic, it doesn't matter in the long run, but it just made me think that maybe that was the point.
I think that's what they intended it to be.
Right.
But she can't hear.
Because obviously she would have heard Stony say that he was going to kill her and eat her.
And she didn't.
And the movie does a really good job of making sure that she's seeing the faces of the people talking to her because they could have slipped and had someone say something in her here.

(48:58):
Or act like she heard it when there was no way it could have happened.
So they paid attention to that.
Right.
Even so simple at one point she tells Stony that she can't hear him in the dark.
Yeah, he turns the light out or she steps out of the light and she can't read his lips anymore.
So that was handled pretty well.
And her voice is perfectly natural. And I think that is because it's a psychosomatic injury that made her deaf and she wasn't deaf from birth.

(49:21):
So what do you think of Adam work in this?
This is the first time we've seen him play a halfway decent guy.
We saw him previously in Hell's Bells and he was the villain of the story Tampa.
Yeah, he and Dave both operate as Stony's conscience in this movie where he's looking out for everybody.
And when Stony does something jerky to Jenny, he's going to call him on it.
In the beginning where he and Elwood are laughing as Stony suggests that Jenny might be deaf because they think it's offensive.

(49:47):
They think he's making fun of her.
And I think that he's a really good guy, but he doesn't really have much to do in the plot aside from that.
He doesn't evolve as a character and it's the same with Elwood.
He's there to be the black guy and crack tasteless racial jokes about himself if you ask me.
Yeah, that was an odd choice.

(50:08):
I think he could have been a really great character because he was incredibly funny.
And he did get to save the day during the junkyard fight inadvertently.
And that was next Julian who will see again in Savage 7.
And we'll see a lot of him in the Mac as well.
He also wrote Cleopatra Jones.
Oh, wow, really?
Yeah.
That's not AIP unfortunately.
I really liked him in this movie and I would love to have seen more of him, less of Stony and Jenny and their romance.

(50:35):
All right. Now it's time to do what we do.
We're going to rate the psych out on our AIP scale where a is awesome.
I as intermediate and ps pathetic.
What do you think Jeff?
Well, I do like this movie.
The plot is a little tight, but visually it's stunning.
It's very abstract, but there's a lot to look at in this film.
The characters may all look a little clean to be real hippies, but I think we prefer to watch that than dirty hippies, wouldn't we?

(51:00):
Get smelled them from the screen.
I think the acting is all very good. I think the characters are as well developed as they can be for such a trait script.
We didn't really talk about Bruce Dern.
Because he's not really in the movie.
He just pops up at the end.
He's not, but his character is just a plot device where he could be a really interesting guy.

(51:22):
We don't see him when he's straight.
The only time we see him is when he's on something.
So we don't get to really know him.
Know the real Steve.
And the fact that we don't get to see Jenny and Steve interact at all.
I think it's one of the worst choices that the script writers made.
Anyway, I adore this movie.
I'm going to give it an A for awesome.
Why are you looking at me like that?

(51:44):
Because I'm not going to give it an A.
I knew you wouldn't.
I appreciate your point of view.
And I agree with the visuals of it.
But for me, if a movie doesn't have a story, and maybe that's just my hang up.
I like the story to make sense to go somewhere, to be about something that I care about.
And the fact that it was this girl looking for her brother, it has never resolved.

(52:08):
That's the whole point of the movie.
And they really dropped the ball on that one.
And the rest of it just seemed to be day to day stuff.
There's nothing really going through.
We don't know why Dave and Stoney are so antithetical.
We don't know why they're so angry at each other all the time.
Because we don't really know any backstory.

(52:30):
We just kind of eavesdrop on a few moments in their lives.
And if you want a narrative movie where there's a set up a climax or resolution, this is not your movie.
I mean, the whole point of watching a movie for this podcast is us telling the story of the movie to me.
And the story is just so unsatisfying.
I would bump it up a half grade for the reasons that you like it.

(52:53):
There is good acting, there is good visuals.
However, I do think that they kind of go on a bit too long for me, not for you.
So I don't adore this movie.
I think it's good, but not great.
So I give it an eye.
Sorry.
Well, you're right that the movie lacks a proper ending.
But it has a definite beginning.

(53:14):
It's Jenny's story.
We're with her from the beginning and she arrives in town.
That's true.
But there's just not much more to it.
She doesn't find her brother.
Well, all fairness, she's not looking that hard.
No, nobody is.
That everything happens by accident.
When it falls into her lap, she'll follow it.
But she's not out there searching.
What she hooks up with Mumbling Jim in company because she is.

(53:37):
They said they'll do it because she is going to the last known address.
And that's pretty much it that end.
Right.
And she kind of just goes with the flow until some information comes her way.
I know.
And she's deaf.
So she's not like she can go around interviewing a bunch of people.
And she's a young girl alone.
That's not very safe.

(53:58):
The police were looking for her.
I wonder who reported her missing.
Must have been her mother.
Right.
But her mother hated her.
So like I said, there's just not much backstory here.
What we get seems like it could not even be true.
We have an unreliable narrator.
So I don't know if any of that stuff really happened.
And the fact that they introduced this but they don't have any follow through with it.

(54:19):
I was very annoyed by that.
I wanted to know what the fire meant.
Well, the story is just Jenny being dropped into this new life.
And she has a mission while she's there.
And she follows when it's convenient.
Right.
It just seemed unsatisfying to me.
That's the only word I can use.
I'm sorry.
I can't describe it any better.

(54:40):
I wanted to have some meaning.
Just me trying to figure out the symbolism.
The symbolism didn't really seem to have any ultimate meaning.
And that's just really frustrating for me.
So if you have any interpretation of the symbolism in Psych Up.
You can contact us using our website, app.com.
While there you can view trailers,
see posters and lobby cards,

(55:01):
and other advertising paraphernalia for the films that we watch.
You can also visit our store.
And any purchase there will help us to bring you future content for this podcast.
Again, it's app.com.
Well, I think it's time to come down from our trip
and say goodbye to Psych-Out for the American International Podcast.
I'm Cheryl Lightfoot.
And I'm Jeff Markin.
And we'll meet you at the drive-in.

(55:22):
Follow the American International podcast on Instagram and Letterboxd
@AIP_Pod and on Facebook at Facebook.com/AmericanInternationalPodcast.
The American International podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Markin.
A man whose mind is distorted by hatred.
And Cheryl Lightfoot.

(55:43):
A girl hungry for too many things.
[Music]
The American International Podcast is part of the Pop Culture Entertainment Network.
[Music]

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