Jenny Davis (Susan Strasberg) quite literally stops traffic as she hops off the bus onto the streets of San Francisco: she’s deaf and can’t hear the honking horns of frustrated drivers. Having run away from home to look for her brother Steve (Bruce Dern), she falls under the guardianship of ‘Stoney’ (Jack Nicholson) a pony-tailed musician who initiates her into a world of sex, drugs and rock’n'roll where even the clothes on your back are “free” for the taking. We learn that Steve has undergone something of a religious transformation since coming to SF and that his new age ramblings have not gone unnoticed. A gang of local toughs are hell-bent on knocking some sense into the young visionary …

Director Richard Rush had already worked with Nicholson on Hell’s Angels on Wheels, a so-so biker flick notable for using real gang members in the cast, including the notorious Sonny Barger. Like that film’s panic around the perceived social threat of motorcycle gangs, Psych Out! concerns itself with other hot issues of the day, not least drug use and the problem of teenage runaways.

Nicholson may make for an odd hippy - then so did Charles Manson - but his character is more hard-nosed than the others, prepared to put his band and music before the feelings of others. In the role of ‘Dave’ (far out, man!), Dean Stockwell acts as Stoney’s moral barometer, always questioning his motivations and exposing the hypocrisy in the reality rather than the rhetoric of the scene. Strasberg is suitably wide-eyed and curious before the puerility and squalor of her situation begins to sink in.

The film has a bad rep according to some other web pundits, but I find it a serious-minded and fairly accurate snapshot of the period - at least through 21st century eyes. The portrayal of drug use is surprisingly casual, even by today’s standards and there is an attempt (albeit a particularly odd one in this instance) at explaining why so many kids from all over America ran away to the big city. And whether by accident or design, Psych Out! fails to dispel the notion that the hippy dream failed to tackle the gender imbalance, its women having little to do except in the bedroom or kitchen.

Laszlo Kovaks successfully captures the colours and spirit of Haight Ashbury, as well as some eerily effective bad trip sequences. A fine soundtrack (including on-screen appearances from The Strawberry Alarm Clock and the mighty Seeds) make for a worthwhile 90 minutes spent among the counter-culture.

Hen-pecked by an over-bearing mother (Shelley Winters), Frost grows up to be quite the young revolutionary, dabbling in LSD and suburban terrorism before launching himself as a successful rock musician, hedonist and leader of men. He catches the eye of an ambitious politician (Hal Holbrook - “Deep Throat” in All The President’s Men) who wants to court the youth vote by reducing the age of franchise to 18. Frost, initially intrigued by the proposal, sees the potential for a real powershift when he discovers that 52% of the US population is now under 25. With his new ditty “14 or Fight!” echoing across the airwaves, he seeks to inspire a youth revolution and confine the oldies - and their damnable wars - to the dustbin of history…

Scriptwriter Robert Thom went on to pen several cult favourites, including Death Race 2000 and The Witch Who Came From The Sea and Wild … has a good reputation among fans of the period. Clearly inspired by the very real social shifts happening on the ground in the 60s, the film presents youth as the next battleground after gender and race but sadly cops out with some heavy-handed metaphors as Frost’s teenage “troops” become first giddy and then vicious, with power.

Nevertheless, Shear ensures that the movie zips along in an engaging manner, mixing stock footage of contemporary West Coast happenings with Richard Moore’s (The Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Stone Killer) colourful period cinematography. The soundtrack too is suitably groovy, all Spencer Davis-style pop-psych and at least one bonafide classic in the form of “Shape of Things to Come”, later covered by the Ramones towards the end of their career. Casting is fine, with Winters amusingly OTT, although Jones is empassioned, if not hugely charismatic. Quentin Tarantino apparently tried to revive Jones’ fortunes after a few decades of life mirroring art but according to IMDB, he’s only managed one movie since Ryan’s Daughter in 1970.

Many teen rebellion movies have these contrary spines running through them: appealing to the youth dollar yet reinforcing the status quo by film end. Wild In The Streets is a harsh judge of the daisy age but given the crises that were to rock the American political establishment over the next few years, such questioning of the old ways was justified more than is cynically presented here.

I recently decided I would spend more time watching movies that cheered me up, rather than made me dwell on the human condition or could be considered great art. Hence I plan to watch more trash (particularly of the 60s/70s variety) and anything with a decent quota of bare boobs. That seems like a recipe for happiness. Come join me!

P.S. Modern Jazz Review was a title I played around with when people still did this kind of thing on paper. It was an in-joke. A film fanzine! Who even thought about such a thing?