Having to deal with a failing marriage and professional dissatisfaction, Paul Groves (Peter Fonda) is an uptight television commercial director whose life is at a crossroads. His friend John (Bruce Dern) is convinced the answer to Paul’s problems has just three letters: LSD. The drug takes Paul on a journey he will never forget.

The Trip, ground-breaking in depicting drug use from the perspective of the user, took a non-judgemental tone that chimed with the time in which it was made, and carried authority in that the main players (Corman, Fonda, writer Jack Nicholson) all had experience with the drug culture of the period. None of this carried great weight with censors around the world and the film was frequently repressed. Here is a rare chance to see the film in the cinema. (Notes by Michael Hayden.)

This film is screening as part of Drugs, the second of our three-month season dedicated to excess, presenting examples of how cinema has taken on sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll.