From the start, The Trip was intended as a vehicle for Peter Fonda. Screenwriter Nicholson had hoped to land the role of John, Paul's LSD "guide," even though he knew, in his own words, "that Roger always preferred Bruce." Indeed, Corman gave the role to Bruce Dern. Curiously, Dern (playing the LSD guru) was one of the few actors involved in the production who didn't experiment with LSD, being an avid long-distance runner.

According to Nicholson, "The first guy who read [the script] -- an actor friend of mine -- finished it, walked outside, and fell off my front porch."

The character of Paul Groves (Fonda), a director of TV commercials, is loosely based on Corman himself, "because I was sometimes accused of being a very commercial director," Corman explained.

The medieval hallucinations (including the obligatory dwarf) were shot in the Bronson Canyon area of L.A.'s Griffith Park. The oceanside trip scenes (and the scene of Paul shooting a commercial) were filmed in Big Sur, the location of Corman and crew's original experimentations with LSD. Corman hired Dennis Hopper to grab some surreal shots of Paul wandering across desert dunes. Hopper and Fonda shot these over the course of two days in Yuma, Arizona, and Big Dune, Nevada.

The scene in which Paul wanders into a middle-class suburban home during his trip was filmed at a house in Laurel Canyon owned by Harry Bernsen. Harry's daughter Caren plays the young girl. Her brother, who never appears on-screen, is actor Corbin Bernsen. During this scene, the images playing on the television have been awkwardly concealed by simulated static. Originally, Paul and Alexandra (Bernsen) are watching grisly news footage of the Vietnam War, which AIP insisted Corman remove from the film.

The band seen playing in the "Bead Game" nightclub is The International Submarine Band, "led by the late Graham Parsons just before he joined The Byrds," according to writer Lowell Goldman. "Corman thought they didn't sound 'acid' enough," so their performance was overdubbed by The American Music Band, led by guitarist Mike Bloomfield. Shortly after recording the score for The Trip, The American Music Band would change its name to Electric Flag.

The Trip was the first Roger Corman film to feature nudity.

The Trip features a number of Corman regulars in bit roles. Stalwart Dick Miller (A Bucket of Blood [1959]) appears briefly as a bartender at the Bead Game, where Luana Anders (The Pit and the Pendulum [1961]) works as a waitress. The woman in curlers whom Paul encounters in a laundromat is played by Barboura Morris, whose Corman appearances include The Wild Angels (1966) and The Wasp Woman (1959). Morris was the ex-wife of Monte Hellman, who had directed several films with Jack Nicholson, including Flight to Fury (1964), written by Nicholson.

The Trip was screened at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, as part of the Directors Fortnight. It opened in New York on August 23, 1967, at the Rivoli Theater (Broadway and 49th Street) and the 72nd Street Playhouse (east of Second Avenue).

The budget for The Trip was $300,000. The Trip earned $4 million in film rentals, as of January, 1968. In time, the rental earnings peaked at $5.5 million, with gross box-office sales estimated at $10 million. "I think one of the reasons that the audience came in such large numbers was out of curiosity," Corman later opined, "They didn't really want to take LSD but the reviews and comments said that this came somewhat close to an LSD experience, so they could take it without taking it."

The Trip had a successful run in France, but was banned in the UK by the British Board of Film Classification. The BBFC upheld the ban for 36 years, finally giving the film an "18" certificate in 2003, stating, "The board concluded that its portrayal of the hallucinogenic experience was unlikely to convince a modern viewer and took account also of the film's depiction of the downside as well as the pleasure of drug use."

In February, 2007, Time Out London reported that Joe Dante was directing The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes, a dramatization of the making of The Trip. The film was budgeted at $7 million, and boasted cameo appearances by Corman veterans Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, and John Sayles. Apparently, the deal has fallen through, as there have been no further reports of its production.

by Bret Wood