Jack Nicholson describes his first acid trip in a 1972 Playboy Interview:

“NICHOLSON: I was one of the first people in the country to take acid; it was in laboratory experiments on the West Coast about nine or 10 years ago. At that time, I was a totally adventurous actor looking for experience to put in his mental filing cabinet for later contributions to art. I was very curious about LSD. Some of the people I knew were in therapy with it. I went to downtown LA and took it one afternoon. I spent five hours with a therapist and about five more at home in the later stages of it. I hallucinated a lot, primarily because of the way the therapist structured it. He put a blindfold on me, which makes you much more introspective, gives you more dreamlike imagery. Imagine what acid is like when you know nothing about it. You think it’s going to be like getting stoned on grass, which I had done. But all of your conceptual reality gets jerked away and there are things in your mind that have in no way been suggested to you: such as you’re going to see God; or watch sap streaming through the leaves of trees; or you’re going to feel the dissolving of certain bodily parts; you’re going to re-experience your own birth, which I did on my first acid trip; you’re going to be frightened that your prick might be cut off, because you have castration fears; you’re going to come mush-ass to face with your own homosexual fears. I just wasn’t ready for half this stuff.”

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Nicholson invests in hydrogen cars, 1978:

Maria Schneider died one week ago at age 58. No cause of death was announced.

An existential thriller set in languid deserts and brisk airports, Michelangelo Antonioni’s drama quietly and gradually stalks the truth, right down to its pitch-perfect, remarkably understated conclusion, which is one of the most analyzed scenes in film history. An afterthought when it was released, The Passenger is now rightly recognized as one of the masterworks of the ’70s.

Journalist David Locke (Jack Nicholson) finds himself deep in the Sahara desert wrapping up a documentary about a revolution whose horrors he can barely begin to fathom. Complicating matters are his own personal demons, which seem equally inscrutable. All Locke knows is that he wants out of his life, that he desires to throw away the baggage of all that he’s become. The reporter gets the opportunity when an acquaintance named Robertson, who is staying at the same dusty, no-star hotel, dies suddenly, presumably from a heart attack. Their ages and faces are similar, so Locke switches places; he’s the one who is announced as deceased and he’s reborn as Robertson.

But a second act can be tricky and not just because it soon becomes clear that Robertson was dealing arms to a band of rebels. While Locke knows he has no way of fulfilling his end of the munitions contract, which could imperil his life, he has another problem: Freedom from his old self makes Locke realize that angst and anxiety weren’t particular to just him. He dutifully follows Robertson’s agenda book and is diverted, if briefly, in Munich where the erstwhile journalist meets an architecture history student (Maria Schneider) who’s willing to impetuously go along with him on his road to nowhere.

Pursued from city to city by an ever-growing cabal of people who want to meet the mysterious Robertson, Locke, who had hoped to become nothingness, instead has only multiplied his being. In one scene, Locke’s automobile breaks down in the middle of the desert and he screams furiously at the universe, ”Alriiiight!” signaling his defeat. As if the outcome was ever in doubt.•

Neil Diamond and Carole King were among the songwriters who supplied the Monkees with hits.

Faux rock had four heroes and they were known collectively as the Monkees. A pre-fab Fab Four knockoff, the Monkees were formed as a commercial entity, via cattle call, and Mickey Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones weren’t exactly selected for their musical talent. The group’s peppy TV show made them humongous teen idols and money movers made sure the best songwriters and studio musicians of the day kept them atop the charts. Then the show got cancelled and the hits didn’t keep on coming. The boys had been tired for some time of being marketing tools and wanted to create their own music and identity, something that spoke to the turbulent times. They hoped to prove they weren’t just children’s entertainers but also the children of Marx and Coca-Cola.

Enter director Bob Rafelson and screenwriter Jack Nicholson. Rafelson had cut his teeth directing the Monkees silly show and Nicholson was then still more of a writer than an actor. Both were headed for gigantic careers, but at this point their assignment was to create a surreal, plotless movie full of trippy, musical scenes that would explode and recreate the Monkees, with the lads gleefully making the kind of contributions that heretofore had not been allowed. Head pretty much accomplishes the task at hand, even if the surrealism isn’t of the Buñuel or Jodorowsky calibre.

There is, however, Frank Zappa and a talking cow, boxer Sonny Liston beating the snot out of the elfin Englishman Jones and soda machines sitting incongruously in the middle of the desert. The band didn’t last much longer than the Head premiere party, so this prelude to their new identity was actually the main act. But it’s one worth watching for its historical value and anarchic energy. (Available from Netflix and other outlets.)

More Film Posts:

• Classic DVD: Logan’s Run. (1976)
• Classic DVD: The Phantom of Liberty. (1974)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: The Face of Another. (1966)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Night Moves. (1975)
• New DVD: Greenberg.
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: The Silent Partner. (1978)
• New DVD: Big Man Japan.
• Classic DVDs: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One. (1968)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Hi, Mom! (1970)
• Classic DVD: Beat the Devil. (1953)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Targets. (1968)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: All the Vermeers in New York. (1989)
• Classic DVD: “La Jetée.” (1962)
• New DVD: The T.A.M.I. Show.
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Bad Company. (1972)
• Classic DVD: The Other. (1972)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: The Naked Kiss. (1964)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: “La Soufriere.” (1976)
• Classic DVD: Network. (1976)
• Classic DVD: Seconds. (1966)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: The Honeymoon Killers. (1970)
• New DVD: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Electra Glide in Blue. (1973)
• Strange, Small & Forgotten Films: Prime Cut. (1972)
• Top 20 Films of the Aughts.