Who would have thought that a pony-tailed hippie named Stoney would become one of the most lauded actors of his generation?
Stoney, the free-loving guitarist for the psychedelic rock band Mumblin' Jim in the 1968 film "Psych-Out," was portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who would go on to receive a historic 12 Oscar nominations and win three awards.
Nicholson's latest film, "Anger Management," in which he co-stars with Adam Sandler, opened Friday.
"Psych-Out," a cult classic that explored San Francisco's burgeoning hippie scene, arrives Tuesday on DVD as part of a double-feature disc that also includes the 1967 film "The Trip," for which Nicholson wrote the screenplay.
The DVD is one of five new two-flick titles in MGM Home Entertainment's Midnite Movies Double Feature series, which presents classic horror, biker, science-fiction and beach movies on two-sided discs. Also arriving Tuesday are "Angel Unchained" and "Cycle Savages," "Invisible Invaders" and "Journey to the Seventh Planet," "Muscle Beach Party" and "Ski Party," and "Cry of the Banshee" and "Murders in the Rue Morgue."
MGM's Midnite Movies Double Feature DVDs are a great deal for genre-film fans. Most of the releases are widescreen, with excellent digital transfers. All of the double features include the original theatrical trailers, along with featurettes and commentary tracks for selected films. The suggested retail price for each set is $14.95.
The series debuted last year with five collections, highlighted by the best of producer-director Roger Corman's 1960s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, "The Masque of the Red Death," starring Vincent Price. Four more sets are scheduled for release Aug. 26, including one that combines "Comedy of Terrors" with Corman's "The Raven," a 1963 horror satire that co-starred Nicholson.
Theatrical double features began appearing on American screens in 1932, in response to declining cinema audiences during the early Depression years. Double bills were the rule rather than the exception by 1935. Loew's Inc., a top theater chain that standardized the double feature format, was the parent company of MGM.
MGM's Double Feature DVDs present independent films from the 1950s and '60s, many of which were released by now-defunct studios as the bottom half of twin bills. The collections are campy, nostalgic fun — depending on your age and sensibility — and some offer legitimately fine films, such as "The Masque of the Red Death."
"Psych-Out" and "The Trip" are youth exploitation pictures that were produced quickly and cheaply to cash in on the hippie culture. The former was produced by Dick Clark; the latter was produced and directed by Corman.
The films starred a number of then-unknown young actors such as Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern and Dean Stockwell — many of whom were part of the hippie scene. Nicholson himself "knew a great deal" about LSD experimentation, said Corman in his commentary track for "The Trip." However, Nicholson, Dern and Stockwell all had to don wigs to look the part of hippies for Richard Rush's "Psych-Out."
"Psych-Out" is a sharply directed drama about a deaf runaway, played by Susan Strasberg, who comes to Haight-Ashbury in search of her missing brother and falls in with a rock band led by Nicholson. "The Trip" is a surreal relic of its era, following a television commercial director, played by Fonda, on his first LSD experience.
Nicholson, Fonda and Hopper would take off together in 1969 in the influential low-budget classic "Easy Rider," which became the highest-grossing independent film and earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination.
Corman said that the success of these youth films "propelled the major studios to put big budgets into these subjects and to bring a number of the people into their world who had started in the independent world."