Icarus File No 9: The Last Movie (dir by Dennis Hopper)

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The story behind the making of 1971’s The Last Movie is legendary. It’s also a bit of a cautionary tale.

In 1969, Hollywood was stunned by the box office success of an independent, low-budget counter-culture film called Easy Rider. Easy Rider not only made a star out of Jack Nicholson but it was also the film that finally convinced the studios that the way to be relevant was not to continue to crank out big budget musical extravaganzas like Doctor Doolittle and Hello, Dolly! Instead, it was decided that the smart thing to do would be to hire young (or, at the very least, youngish) directors and basically just let them shoot whatever they wanted. The resulting films might not make much sense to the executives but, presumably, the kids would dig them and as long as the kids were paying money to see them, everyone would continue to get rich. Because Dennis Hopper had directed Easy Rider, he suddenly found himself very much in demand as a director.

Of course, almost everyone in Hollywood knew Dennis Hopper. Long before he became an icon of the counter-culture, Dennis Hopper had been a part of the studio system. John Wayne even referred to Hopper as being his “favorite communist.” Everyone knew that Dennis could be a bit arrogant. Everyone knew that Dennis was very much into drugs and that, as a result, he had a reputation for being a bit unstable. Everyone knew that Dennis Hopper deliberately cultivated an image of being a bit of a wild man and a revolutionary artist. But Dennis Hopper had just directed Easy Rider and Universal was willing to give Hopper some money to go down to Peru and direct his follow-up.

The Last Movie was a film that Hopper had been planning on making for a while. The film’s original script told the story of an aging and broken-down stuntman named Kansas who retires to Mexico and searches for a gold mine with a friend of his. Hopper first tried to get the film going in 1965, with Montgomery Clift in the lead role. After Clift died, Hopper tried to interest John Wayne in the starring role but, though Wayne enjoyed having Hopper in his films so that he could threaten to shoot him whenever Abbie Hoffman said something shocking, he had no interest in being directed by him. When Universal finally agreed to put up the money for the film, Hopper offered the lead role to Jack Nicholson. Nicholson turned it down and told Hopper that it was obvious that Dennis wanted to play the role himself. Dennis decided that he agreed with Nicholson and he cast himself as Kansas. Dennis also made the fateful decision to not only change the story’s setting to Peru but to also film on location.

Dennis and a group of friends flew down to Peru, which, at that time, was the cocaine capitol of the world. Drug use was rampant on the set, with Dennis reportedly being one of the main offenders. The cast and crew filmed during the day and partied at night and no one was particularly sure what the film was supposed to be about. Amazingly, Hopper finished filming on schedule and within budget but, much as he did with Easy Rider, he also overfilmed and ended up with 40 hours of footage. Not wanting to be bothered by the studios, Hopper edited the footage in his compound in Taos, New Mexico. Working slowly and continuing to consume a large amount of drugs and alcohol, Hopper still managed to put together a film that had a straightforward storyline. When Hopper showed his initial cut to filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, the director of El Topo accused Hopper of being too conventional in his approach, which led to Hopper chopping up the film and reassembling it. Finally, after spending over a year working with the footage, Hopper turned in his final edit.

Universal had no idea what to make of the film that Hopper delivered to them. Still, they released it with the hope that the same crowd that loved Easy Rider would embrace The Last Movie. While the film did win an award at the Venice Film Festival, critics hated it and, even worse, audiences stayed away. The film’s reception was so overwhelmingly negative that Hopper found himself largely exiled from Hollywood, with only a few directors (like Francis Ford Coppola) willing to take the chance of working with him. It wasn’t until the 80s, when he finally got clean and sober, that Dennis Hopper was able to reestablish himself as a character actor and, ultimately, a beloved cultural institution.

But what about The Last Movie? Was is it really as bad as the critics claimed? Or was it, as some more recent reviewers have suggested, an unacknowledged masterpiece that was ahead of its time? I recently watched The Last Movie to find out for myself.

Despite its reputation, The Last Movie gets off to a pretty strong start. Samuel Fuller (playing himself) is directing a hilariously over-the-top and violent western in the mountains of Peru. Kansas (Dennis Hopper) is working as a stuntman. He’s fallen in love with a local sex worker named Maria (Stella Garcia). Kansas is meant to be an aging Hollywood veteran, someone who has broken a lot of bones and who carries a lot of aches as a result of his line of work. (One can see why Hopper initially imagined an actor like John Wayne in the role.) He knows that this is going to be his last job and, as we see over the first 25 minutes of the film, he feels alienated from the rest of the cast and crew. Admittedly, Hopper does appear to be a bit too young for the role. The ideal Kansas would have been someone like Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, or perhaps Warren Oates. But, still, Hopper does a good job of capturing Kansas’s mixed feelings about the western that’s being filmed around him.

A lot of familiar faces pop up in the film’s fictional western. Dean Stockwell plays an outlaw. Jim Mitchum, Russ Tamblyn and Kris Kristofferson plays his associates. Peter Fonda is the youthful sheriff. Michelle Phillips is the daughter of the town’s banker and apparently, she’s also the girlfriend of one of the outlaws. We watch as the actors pretend to shoot guns and kill each other while the cameras are rolling, just to get up off the ground once “Cut” is yelled. When a local Indian who has been cast as an extra grows upset at the violence, an assistant director explains to him that no one really dies while the cameras are rolling. When shooting wraps, the film company goes home but Kansas stays behind with Maria. One day, the local priest (Tomas Milian) warns Kansas that the local indigenous people have moved into the abandoned film set and are trying to shoot their own movie. Kansas discovers that they have built wooden cameras and wooden boom mics and that their chief is giving orders in the style of Sam Fuller. They’re also firing the guns that the Americans left behind.

The first part of the film works quite well. Hopper’s camera captures the beautiful and isolated Peruvian landscape. The violent western is a pitch perfect and affectionate parody of a generic studio film. Though Hopper is a bit too young for the role, he still does a good job of capturing Kansas’s alienation from his fellow Americans. Even more importantly, the first part of the film seems to have an identifiable theme. The American film crew invaded an isolated part of Peru and changed the culture of the natives without even realizing it. Now, they’ve left but the natives are still dealing with the after effects of the American “invasion.” It’s easy to see, within that part of the story, a critique of both American culture and American foreign policy.

The second part of the film is where things start to fall apart. Kansas meets an old friend named Neville (Don Gordon). Neville has discovered a gold mine in the Peruvian mountains. With Kansas as his partner, he tries to get a businessman named Harry Anderson (Roy Engel) to invest in it. Kansas and Neville try to impress Harry and his wife (Julie Adams, best-known for being stalked by The Creature From The Black Lagoon). Kansas and Neville take the Andersons to a brothel and, in the process, Kansas offends Maria. Kansas then paws Mrs. Anderson’s fur coat and mentions that human beings are covered in hair. For all of their efforts, Harry will not invest, no matter how desperately Neville begs him to reconsider.

The second part of the film drags, with many of the scenes being obviously improvised between Hopper, Gordon, Garcia, Engel, and Adams. Unfortunately, the improved conversations aren’t particularly interesting and they tend to go on forever. Usually a reliable character actor, Don Gordon ferociously chews the scenery as Neville and it doesn’t take long before one grows tired of listening to him yell. (Gordon was far more impressive in Hopper’s Out of the Blue.) With the use of improvisation and overlapping dialogue, the second half of the film tries to feel naturalistic but instead, it’s a migraine-inducing method exercise gone wrong. It’s also during the second part of the film that a “scene missing” title card flashes on the screen, an indication that the discipline that Hopper showed as a director during the beginning of the film is about to be abandoned.

Finally, the third part of the film — well, who knows? The final 25 minutes of the film is collection of random scenes, some of which may be connected and some of which may not. The natives have decided that the only way to properly end their “film” is to kill Kansas. Kansas is shot several times and rides away on his horse. Suddenly, Kansas is back at his home and Maria is taunting him for getting shot. Then, Kansas is riding his horse again. Then suddenly, Dennis Hopper and Tomas Milian are laughing at the camera. A script supervisor tries to get Dennis to look at the shooting schedule while Dennis drinks. This happens:

Milian points out that the blood on Hopper’s shirt is dry. Hopper looks at his shoulder, where Kansas was previously shot, and says that someone needs to add his scar before he can shoot the scene. Ah! So, now we’re acknowledging that it’s all just a movie. Thanks, Dennis! Suddenly, Dennis is Kansas again and he’s collapsing over and over again in the dust. He appears to be dead but no, now he’s Dennis again and he’s standing up and smiling at the camera. And now, he’s singing Hooray for Hollywood. And now, suddenly, Kansas and Neville are talking about The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and then….

Well, let’s just say that it goes on and on before finally ending with a scrawled title card.

It’s a disjointed mess and it’s all the more frustrating because the first 30 minutes of the film is actually pretty good. But then, Dennis apparently remembered that he was supposed to be the voice of the counter-culture and he gave into his most pretentious impulses. Of course, just because a film is a mess, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be entertaining. And again, the first part of the film is entertaining and third part of the film is weird enough that it’ll hold most people’s attention for at least a few minutes. But the middle section of the film is so slow and pointless that it pretty much brings down the entire film.

In the end, what is The Last Movie about? In The American Dreamer (a documentary that was filmed while Hopper was editing The Last Movie in New Mexico), Hopper spends a lot of time talking about revolution and taking over Hollywood but The Last Movie is hardly a revolutionary film. The film is at its most alive when it is focused on the shooting of its fictional western. For all the satirical pokes that The Last Movie takes at the studio system, it’s obvious that Hopper had a lot of affection for Old Hollywood and for directors like Sam Fuller. Kansas may say “Far out,” but he’s hardly a hippie. Even the film’s jumbled finale seems to be saying, “It’s all Hollywood magic!” In the end, the film’s call for a new style of cinema is defeated by its love for the old style of cinema.

Instead, I think The Last Movie works best when viewed as a portrait of paranoia. Hopper himself admitted that he was naturally paranoid and the heavy amount of drugs that he was doing in the 70s didn’t help. One reason why Hopper filmed in Peru and edited in New Mexico was so the studios couldn’t keep track of him and, while directing, he worried about being arrested by the Peruvian secret police. As an actor, Hopper plays Kansas as being someone who views the world with caution and untrusting eyes. He doesn’t trust the other members of the film crew. He loves Maria but he’s still convinced that she’s going to betray him. Even the natives ultimately try to destroy him and the script supervisor tries to get him to stick to the shooting schedule. The film works best as a disjoined portrait of one man’s paranoid and fatalistic world view.

The Last Movie pretty much ended the studio’s attempts to harness the counter-culture by giving money to self-described revolutionaries. The new wave of directors — like Spielberg and Lucas — may have shared Hopper’s then-politics but they weren’t looking to burn down the system. (Hopper himself later became a Republican.) The Last Movie may not have been the literal last movie but it was, for a while at least, the last of its kind.

Previous Icarus Files:

10 Oscar Snubs From the 1980s

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Ah, the 80s! Ronald Reagan was president. America was strong. Russia was weak. The economy was booming. The music was wonderful. Many great movies were released, though most of them were not nominated for any Oscars. This is the decade that tends to drive most Oscar fanatics batty. So many good films that went unnominated. So many good performers that were overlooked. Let’s dive on in!

1980: The Shining Is Totally Ignored

Admittedly, The Shining was not immediately embraced by critics when it was first released. Stephen King is still whining about the movie and once he went as far as to joke about being happy that he outlived Stanley Kubrick. (Not cool, Steve.) Well, none of that matters. The Shining should have been nominated across the board. “Come and play with us, Danny …. AT THE OSCARS!”

1981: Harrison Ford Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders received a lot of nominations. Steven Spielberg was nominated for Best Director. The film itself was nominated for Best Picture. (It lost to Chariots of Fire.) But the man who helped to hold the film together, Harrison Ford, was not nominated for his performance as Indiana Jones. Despite totally changing the way that people looked at archeologists and also making glasses sexy, Harrison Ford was overlooked. I think this was yet another case of the Academy taking a reliable actor for granted.

1982: Brian Dennehy Is Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor For First Blood

First Blood didn’t receive any Oscar nominations, not even in the technical categories. Personally, I think you could argue that the film, which was much more than just an action film, deserved to be considered for everything from Best Actor to Best Director to Best Picture. But, in the end, if anyone was truly snubbed, it was Brian Dennehy. Dennehy turned Will Teasle into a classic villain. Wisely, neither the film nor Dennehy made the mistake of portraying Sheriff Teasle as being evil. Instead, he was just a very stubborn man who couldn’t admit that he made a mistake in the way he treated John Rambo. Dennehy gave an excellent performance that elevated the entire film.

1984: Once Upon A Time In America Is Totally Ignored

It’s not a huge shock that Once Upon A Time In America didn’t receive any Oscar nominations. Warner Bros. took Sergio Leone’s gangster epic and recut it before giving it a wide release in America. Among other things, scenes were rearranged so that they played out in chronological order, the studio took 90 minutes off of the run time, and the film’s surrealistic and challenging ending was altered. Leone disowned the Warner Bros. edit of the film. Unfortunately, in 1984, most people only saw the edited version of Once Upon A Time In America and Leone was so disillusioned by the experience that he would never direct another film. (That said, even the edited version featured Ennio Morricone’s haunting score, which certainly deserved not just a nomination but also the Oscar.) The original cut of Once Upon A Time In America is one of the greatest gangster films ever made, though one gets the feeling that it might have still been too violent, thematically dark, and narratively complex for the tastes of the Academy in 1984. At a time when the Academy was going out of its way to honor good-for-you films like Gandhi, it’s probable that a film featuring Robert De Niro floating through time in an Opium-induced haze might have been a bridge too far.

1985: The Breakfast Club Is Totally Ignored

Not even a nomination for Best Screenplay! It’s a shame. I’m going to guess that the Academy assumed that The Breakfast Club was just another teen flick. Personally, if nothing else, I would have given the film the Oscar for Best Original Song. Seriously, don’t you forget about me.

1986: Alan Ruck Is Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor For Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Poor Cameron!

1986: Blue Velvet Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

Considering the type of films that the Academy typically nominated in the 80s, it’s something of a shock that David Lynch even managed to get a Best Director nomination for a film as surreal and subversive as Blue Velvet. Unfortunately, that was the only recognition that the Academy was willing to give to the film. It can also be argued that Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini, and Dean Stockwell were overlooked by the Academy. Dennis Hopper did receive a Supporting Actor nomination in 1986, though it was for Hoosiers and not Blue Velvet.

1987: R. Lee Ermey Is Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor For Full Metal Jacket

One of the biggest misconceptions about Full Metal Jacket is that R. Lee Ermey was just playing himself. While Ermey was a former drill instructor and he did improvise the majority of his lines (which made him unique among actors who have appeared in Kubrick films), Ermey specifically set out to play Sgt. Hartmann as being a bad drill instructor, one who pushed his recruits too hard, forgot the importance of building them back up, and was so busy being a bully that he failed to notice that Pvt. Pyle had gone off the deep end. Because Ermey was, by most accounts, a good drill instructor, he knew how to portray a bad one and the end result was an award-worthy performance.

1988: Die Hard Is Not Nominated For Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor, or Director

Die Hard did receive some technical nominations but, when you consider how influential the film would go on to be, it’s hard not to feel that it deserved more. Almost every action movie villain owes a debt to Alan Rickman’s performance as Hans Gruber. And Bruce Willis …. well, all I can say is that people really took Bruce for granted.

1989: Do The Right Thing Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

Indeed, it would take another 30 years for a film directed by Spike Lee to finally be nominated for Best Picture.

Agree? Disagree? Do you have an Oscar snub that you think is even worse than the 10 listed here? Let us know in the comments!

Up next: It’s the 90s!

TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Queen of Blood (dir by Curtis Harrington)

Posted on October 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Queen of Blood (1966, dir by Curtis Harrington, DP: Vilis Lapenieks)

Here’s a question: what happens when Roger Corman buys the rights to two Russian science fiction films, decides to jettison basically everything but the special effects footage, and then hires experimental filmmaker Curtis Harrington to shoot an entirely new film around that footage?

You end up with the 1966 film, Queen of Blood!

Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. Queen of Blood is actually pretty good and director Harrington manages to smoothly integrate the Russian footage with the new footage. Basically, it works out so that you’ll see a Russian shot of the spaceship taking off or landing and then you’ll see a shot of John Saxon, Dennis Hopper, or Basil Rathbone sitting on a set and pretending like they’re in space.

The film opens with Dr. Faraday (Basil Rathbone) discovering that aliens have been transmitting a message to Earth. They’re sending an ambassador to meet with the Earthlings but the aliens’ spaceship ends up crash landing on Mars! Faraday arranges for an Earth spaceship, the Oceano, to go to Mars and rescue the ambassador.

Aboard the Oceano is a cast made up of a few familiar faces. John Saxon plays Allan, who is the de facto leader of the expedition and also engaged to marry Dr. Faraday’s assistant, Laura (Judi Meredith). A young-looking Dennis Hopper is Paul Grant, an astronaut. Don’t get too excited about Hopper being in the cast. Queen of Blood was made when Hopper was still trying to pursue mainstream film stardom so he gives a rather bland performance here. There’s a few scenes where you can tells that Hopper is on the verge of smirking at some of his dialogue but, for the most part, he plays the role extremely straight. Rounding out the crew is Anders (Robert Boon) and Tony (Don Eitner), neither one of whom would go on to star in Easy Rider, Blue Velvet, or Nightmare on Elm Street.

It’s a difficult journey. The Oceano keeps running into Russian-filmed turbulence on the way to Mars. When they do land, they discover that the ambassador (Florence Marly) is waiting for them to rescue her. She doesn’t talk much nor does she have any interest in eating Earth food. She does seem to like every member of the crew except for Laura. Of course, the ambassador’s defining trait is that she likes to drink blood….

All things considered, Queen of Blood works pretty well. While none of the performances are particularly memorable (though Basil Rathbone does bring some old school class to what is essentially a cameo role), Curtis Harrington does a great job creating and maintaining a properly ominous atmosphere. It takes a while for the crew to finally find the Queen of Blood but, when they do, Harrington gets every bit of creepiness that he can out of the character. The film even ends on an appropriately dark note, suggesting that the human race may be just too stupid to survive.

Queen of Blood is an entertaining B-movie. Watch it the next time you’re in the mood for some intergalactic blood-sucking fun!

Horror Film Review: Night Tide (dir by Curtis Harrington)

Posted on October 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Long before he became Hollywood’s favorite quirky character actor, Dennis Hopper was a young performer who was known for his devotion to the method and for being more than a little difficult. In fact, directors like Henry Hathaway had gotten so frustrated with Hopper and his refusal to “compromise his art,” that, by the time the 1960s rolled around, Hopper had gone from being a promising young star to being virtually blacklisted. He had gone from scene-stealing turns in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant to struggling to get anyone at the major studios to even admit to knowing who he was.

Unable to get a job on a mainstream film, Hopper teamed up with another unconventional talent, director Curtis Harrington. A film critic-turned-experimental filmmaker, Harrington was talented but, like Hopper, he had a reputation for being an eccentric. An openly gay artist who was living and working a time when that was still a crime in some states, Harrington gravitated to other outsiders so it was perhaps inevitable that he and Dennis Hopper would become early collaborators and make a film together.

That film was 1961’s Night Tide. Harrington directed while Hopper played Johnny, a naïve young sailor who, while in on leave in Santa Monica, meets a mysterious woman named Mora (Linda Lawson). Mora works as a mermaid at a sideshow. Her boss is the overly possessive and somewhat brutish Captain Samuel Murdock (Gavin Muir). Captain Murdock makes it clear that he doesn’t want Johnny to have anything to do with Mora. Is it because he’s worried about losing Mora or is there another, more supernatural reason?

Johnny hears rumors that the men who fall in love with Mora tend to disappear. Mora, herself, explains that she’s a Siren. Her destiny is to lead sailors to their doom. Johnny tells her that’s ridiculous but what if she’s right?

It’s a strange film, one that moves at its own slow and rather deliberate pace. As Mora, Linda Lawson delivers her lines hesitantly, as one might expect from someone who is having to pretend to be a human being. Meanwhile, Dennis Hopper gives a compelling but nervous performance as Johnny. As written, Johnny is a pretty bland character but Hopper plays up Johnny’s sense of isolation. He’s far from home, he doesn’t know many people in town, and the woman he loves just explained that she’s a sea monster. One can understand why Johnny is a bit jumpy. There’s a few scenes where Hopper’s devotion to the method works against him. He’s convincing when he’s at the center of the scene but a bit too fidgety in the scenes where he just has to listen to other people speak. But, ultimately, Hopper’s performance works. He plays Johnny with a mix of fresh-faced innocence and hints of instability.

As I said, it’s not a conventional film. It moves at its own dream-like pace. The film was shot in black-and-white and that’s the version to see. Avoid the colorized version, in which the colors are so garish that they ruin the film’s surreal atmosphere. Night Tide is an experiment that won’t be for everyone but, when taken on its terms, it’s definitely intriguing.

Horror Film Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (dir by Tobe Hooper)

Posted on October 2, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Texas-OU Weekend!

First released in 1986, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 opens with two idiots driving down an isolated highway in Texas. They’re heading down to Dallas for the Red River Showdown, the annual football game between Oklahoma U. and the University of Texas at Austin. They’re drunk, of course. And, being rich kids in the mid-80s, they’ve got a car phone. They place a call to a local radio DJ named Stretch (Caroline Williams, giving a great performance) and they force her to listen as they harass the driver of a passing truck. Of course, when a chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (Bill Johnson) emerges from the truck and kills both of them, Stretch hears that as well.

Yes, Leatherface and the entire family are back. When last seen at the end of 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Leatherface was dancing with his chainsaw while the morning sun shined down on the Texas countryside. Now, he and the family have moved to North Texas and the eldest brother, Drayton Sawyer (Jim Siedow), has become a bit of a local celebrity due to his chili. (Everyone loves Drayton’s chili but that’s mostly because they don’t know who the main ingredient is.) Though one of the brothers was killed at the end of the original film, he’s been replaced by the manic Chop-Top (Bill Moseley), who has a metal plate in his head. Of course, Grandpa (Ken Evert) is still alive. He’s well over a hundred years old but he still enjoys trying to wield a hammer.

The family is being pursued by Lefty Enright (Dennis Hopper), a crazed Texas ranger who is also the uncle of Sally and Franklin Hardesty, who were both victimized in the first film. (Sally, we’re told, is in a mental institution. As for Franklin, a skeleton in a wheelchair does make an appearance at one point.) Lefty approaches Stretch to get a copy of the tape of the two drunk idiots being killed by Leatherface. Unfortunately, the family also discovers that Stretch has the tape and they soon come after her as well….

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is not as universally beloved as the first film but I like it. It helps, of course, to know something about Texas-OU weekend. Imagine Mardi Gras without the nudity or the beads but with a lot more beer and a lot more frat boys and you have a pretty good idea of what Texas-OU weekend is like in Dallas. The entire city goes crazy as it’s invaded by football fans from Oklahoma and Austin. Why are they playing football in Dallas as opposed to their own cities? Dallas is considered to be neutral ground and the fact that they need neutral ground to play a football game should tell you just how invested people get in that one game. Texas-OU weekend is all about excess and the same could be said about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2.

With the original film, Tobe Hooper fooled audiences into thinking that they were seeing more gore than they actually were. The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre is nearly bloodless. Hooper takes the opposite approach to the sequel, filling the screen with blood and viscera. For that reason, Part 2 is still controversial among fans of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre films but I think Hooper made the right decision. Attempting to duplicate the original’s atmosphere would have been impossible. Instead of just remaking the original film, Hooper did something different. As well, as opposed to the more subtle social satire of the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the humor in Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is far broader and a bit more hit-and-miss. But again, it all links back to Texas-OU weekend. There may not be much that’s subtle about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 but the same can be said of the Red River showdown and Texas-OU Weekend. For that matter, the same can be said for much of Texas in general and Dallas in specific. Like me, Tobe Hopper was a Texan. True Texans know what makes our state great but we also know what makes our state totally batshit insane. Tobe Hooper got Texas in a way that all the filmmakers from up North never will.

That’s not to say that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is a perfect film, of course. The film’s second half, which takes place almost entirely in the underground caverns in which the Sawyers have made their home, is considerably less compelling than the first. The scene where the Sawyers attempt to get Grandpa to bludgeon Stretch with a hammer goes on forever and it’s far less effective than when they tried to get Grandpa to do the same thing to Sally in the first film. As well, it’s hard not to be disappointed with Drayton’s transformation from being ambiguously friendly in the first film to being a flat-out villain in the second. The first film showed that Jim Siedow was a far better actor than one might guess from the sequel.

But here’s what does work. Bill Moseley’s performance as Chop Top is completely manic and over-the-top and, at times, a little bit annoying. But he’s also so completely unhinged and Moseley is so uninhibited in the role that it’s impossible to look away whenever he’s onscreen. Dennis Hopper, who was just starting to make his Hollywood comeback when he appeared in this film, plays Lefty as being so obsessive that sometimes, he seems like he might be just as dangerous as the people that he’s pursuing. Hopper makes the character sympathetic, though. There’s a gleam of madness in his eyes but the viewer never doubts his love for his family. It takes a special actor to pull off the scene where Lefty discovers Franklin’s remains and Hopper was exactly that actor. And finally, there’s Caroline Williams, giving a strong and inspiring performance as Stretch and never allowing the character to become a helpless victim. Stretch may scream (because who wouldn’t in that situation) but she never stop fighting. The scene where she “charms” Leatherface is the epitome of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2. It’s over the top, excessive, borderline offensive, sickly funny, and yet somehow very effective. If nothing else, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is one of the few of the 80 slasher films to acknowledge what’s really going on with those boys and their chainsaws, machetes, and knives.

Though it may not be as good as the original, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 holds up well on its own. It’s an effective mix of satire and horror, featuring a strong heroine and a great performance from Caroline Williams. Hell, I think I’m going to be Stretch for Halloween this year!

Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 with #ScarySocial

Posted on August 27, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1986’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2!

That’s right! It’s Tobe Hooper’s classic sequel to his classic horror film! It’s Dennis Hopper vs. Leatherface! It’s Caroline Williams vs Chop Top! It’ll make you laugh. It’ll make you scream. And the ending …. well, the ending always make me cry.

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime and a few other streaming sites. I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

This Saturday, at 9 pm et, join @LisaMarieBowman and #ScarySocial for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2! It's on Prime, Tubi, and Pluto! pic.twitter.com/rYQHJ1ZHVk

— Scary Social (@SocialScary) August 23, 2022

Film Review: Speed (dir by Jan De Bont)

Posted on August 2, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Awwwww, Keanu and Sandra are so cute together!”

That was my main thought when I recently rewatched the 1994 film, Speed. There’s a lot of reasons why Speed remains popular 28 years after it was initially released but I think a huge (if underrated) factor is that it’s just a good love story. At this point, everyone knows that the film is about a bus that has been wired to explode if it goes under 50 miles per hour. Most people know that Dennis Hopper plays Howard, the mad bomber, Keanu Reeves plays Jack, the cop who jumps on the bus and tries to figure out how to defuse the bomb, and Sandra Bullock plays Annie, the passenger who takes over driving the bus after the driver is incapacitated. (If you’re fan of the work of John Hughes, you might also know that Speed was the film where Ferris Bueller‘s Alan Ruck broke free of his Cameron typecasting and established himself as a dependable character actor.) Most people remember what the cops do in an attempt to trick Dennis Hopper and, for that matter, they also remember the one mistake that led to Hopper figuring out their ruse.

And yet, even though most viewers will know exactly what is going to happen, the film remains a fun watch because of the chemistry between Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. This was one of Sandra’s first major roles. This was also one of Keanu’s earliest attempts to helm a big budget, major studio action picture. (Director Jan de Bont insisted on casting him after seeing him in the film Point Break. The studio preferred Tom Cruise.) In Speed, both Keanu and Sandra are young, likable, attractive, enthusiastic, and they have smiles that light up the screen. As soon as Sandra takes over driving and Keanu tells her that she cannot allow the bus to slow down under any circumstances, the two of them just seem to belong together. The film’s enduring popularity is about more than just watching a bus try not to go under a certain speed. The popularity of Speed is also about watching the characters played by Keanu and Sandra fall in love.

Who would have guessed it? Well, certainly not whoever put together the film’s original theatrical trailer. Check this out:

As you can see, the original trailer doesn’t feature much of Sandra Bullock. For that matter, it’s not quite as Keanu-centric as you might expect it to be. Instead, the trailer is dominated by things exploding and Dennis Hopper’s over-the-top performance as the bomber. And make no doubt about it, Dennis Hopper is definitely an entertaining part of the film. There’s not a subtle moment to be found in his performance and that makes him the perfect for the role of a man whose response to a cheap retirement present is to go on a bombing spree. That said, the film belongs to Keanu and Sandra.

That said, it would be a mistake to ignore the other people on the bus. One of the things that I like about Speed is that the other passengers on the bus come together to survive their ordeal. They may start out as weary commuters but, by the end of the film, they’ve become a family. They may get annoyed with each other but, when it comes time to climb from one bus to another, they hold on to each other and they hug one another on the other side. The bomber, like all terrorists, thought that he could turn people against each other through his threats and his violence. Instead, the people came together provided one another with comfort and protection. There’s an important lesson there, one that’s even more important in 2022 than it probably was in 1994.

(On a personal note, I’m not usually a public transportation person. However, in high school, I would occasionally catch the DART bus — that’s Dallas Area Rapid Transportation — if it was raining. The buses were often not in particularly good shape. One that I boarded actually had a hole in the floor and, since it was raining, the passengers would have to hold up their feet whenever the bus splashed through a puddle. Personally, I was kind of amused by the weirdness of it all but I think I was the only one. Would the passengers of that bus bonded together to defeat a mad bomber? One can only hope.)

Speed may be a film about a bomb on a bus but, ultimately, it’s also a film about humanity at its best. And that’s why, after all this time, it remains a classic.

Book Review: Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel by Peter L. Winkler

Posted on July 2, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that Dennis Hopper is no longer with us.

Seriously, he’s one of those iconic screen figures who remains as much of a pop cultural presence in death as he was in life. For an actor who spent a good deal of his career under an unofficial blacklist, Hopper appeared in a number of classic films. Rebel Without A Cause, Giant, Night Tide, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Speed, True Romance, The Trip, The Other Side of the Wind, Queen of Blood, Land of the Dead, Hoosiers, Out of The Blue …. one of the things that they all share in common is the eccentric presence of Dennis Hopper. Even Hopper’s bad films, like Waterworld, are more popular than the bad films of other actors. And while Hopper will probably always be best-known as an actor, he’s received some posthumous recognition for his work as a director. It’s been 12 years since Dennis Hopper passed but he’s still very much a part of the American cultural landscape.

How did this happen? How did Dennis Hopper go from being a kid from Kansas to being a disciple of James Dean? How did Hopper go from appearing in big budget films like Giant to working as a member of Roger Corman’s stock company? How did Hopper come to revolutionize American film with Easy Rider, just to lose the next few years of his life to his legendary addictions? Remarkably, Dennis Hopper not only inspired the “New Hollywood” with Easy Rider but he nearly destroyed it with The Last Movie. In the 70s and the first half of the 80s, he was still capable of giving a good performance but the key was to find him when he wasn’t dealing with a fit of drug-induced paranoia. And yet, even with his addictions and demons, he still directed one of the most important films of the 80s, Out of the Blue.

Remarkably, Hopper did eventually conquer his addictions. Starting with David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Hopper remade himself as one of Hollywood’s busiest character actors and, to many, he became an almost lovable relic of the 60s. The former self-described communist became a Republican. And, even if he never could quite restart his directing career, Hopper stayed busy for the rest of his life. It was a remarkable transformation. The rebel who once ran a cult-like commune in New Mexico became a beloved member of the establishment that he once swore he would destroy.

Peter L. Winkler’s 2011 biography, Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel, takes a look at how this happened. The Dennis Hopper that emerges from this detailed biography is a natural born rebel who was also canny enough to keep one foot in the system that he was trying to destroy. As such, Hopper could shares James Dean’s dismissive attitude towards Hollywood while also remaining a favorite of John Wayne’s. Hopper could make the ultimate hippie film without actually becoming a hippie himself. Hopper had the talent necessary to keep getting roles even when he had a reputation for not being quite sane. Indeed, the book argues that Hopper’s best performances were given when he had something to prove and that Hopper’s work and his films became significantly less interesting once he was fully welcome back into the establishment.

And while I do think that Winkler is a bit too dismissive of some of Hopper’s later work, he does have a point. Dennis Hopper thrived on being a rebel, which is one reason why he came to define the late 60s and the early 70s. One reason why Hopper’s performance as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet remains so powerful is because he’s rage is so palpable. Booth is trying to destroy the world, just as surely as Hopper once tried to destroy Hollywood. But, eventually, Hopper’s style of rebellion fell out of fashion and then resurfaced as the subject of nostalgia. The rebels always eventually become the establishment.

Winkler’s biography not only takes a look at some of Hopper’s best films but it also puts him and his work in a proper historical and cultural context. The book is as much about what Hopper represented to a generation as how Hopper lived his life. And while Hopper himself is not always a sympathetic figure (like many actors, he could be more than a little self-absorbed), he does come across as being a fascinating talent. Hopper often referred to himself as being the epitome of the “American Dreamer” and this biography leaves no doubt that he was correct.

Scenes That I Love: Mardi Gras in Easy Rider

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy March 1st!

Today is not only the 1st of March. It’s not only Texas Independence Day. It’s not only Zack Snyder’s birthday. It’s not only the day of Texas primaries. It’s not only the day when the State of the Union address is scheduled to be given (yawn!). It’s also Mardi Gras!

What a busy day!

For today’s scene that I love, here is the Mardi Gras/Cemetery sequence from 1969’s Easy Rider. Featuring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Karen Black, and Toni Basil walking through the streets of New Orleans, this scene was actually filmed during Mardi Gras. Those are real Mardi Gras floats and real Mardi Gras participants staring at the camera. That’s an actual citizen of New Orleans with whom Dennis Hopper appears to have nearly gotten into a fight. And, in the cemetery scene, that was real acid that Peter Fonda took.

Here is today’s scene. The scene is age-restricted so you’ll actually have to click on “watch on YouTube” to see it.

If you don’t want to click on “watch on YouTube,” here is a shorter version that just features the parade without the admittedly disturbing cemetery stuff.

I like how Toni Basil can’t help but dance, no matter what.

7 Shots From 7 Films: Special Dennis Hopper Edition

Posted on May 17, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films is just what it says it is, 4 (or more) shots from 4 (or more) of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 (or more) Shots From 4 (or more) Films lets the visuals do the talking.

85 years ago, Dennis Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas.

It seems rather appropriate that one of America’s greatest cinematic outlaws was born in a town that will be forever associated with the old west. Dennis Hopper was a rebel, back when there were actual consequences for being one. He started out acting in the 50s, appearing in films like Rebel Without A Cause and Giant and developing a reputation for being a disciple of James Dean. He also developed a reputation for eccentricity and for being difficult on set and he probably would have gotten completely kicked out of Hollywood if not for a somewhat improbable friendship with John Wayne. (Wayne thought Hopper was a communist but he liked him anyways. Interestingly enough, Hopper later became a Republican.) Somehow, Hopper managed to survive both a raging drug addiction and an obsession with guns and, after a mid-80s trip to rehab, he eventually became an almost universally beloved and busy character actor.

Hopper, however, always wanted to direct. He made his directorial debut with 1969’s Easy Rider, a film that became a huge success despite being an infamously chaotic shoot. The success of Easy Rider led to the Hollywood studios briefly trying to produce counter-culture films of their own. Hopper was given several million dollars and sent to Peru to make one of them, the somewhat dangerously titled The Last Movie. Unfortunately, The Last Movie, was such a bomb that it not only temporarily derailed Hopper’s career but it also turned Hollywood off of financing counter culture films. Hopper spent a decade in the Hollywood wilderness, giving acclaimed performances in independent films like Tracks and The American Friend, even while continuing to increase his reputation for drug-fueled instability. Hopper would eventually return to directing with his masterpiece, 1980’s Out of the Blue. (Out of the Blue was so controversial that, when it played at Cannes, Canada refused to acknowledge that it was a Canadian production. It played as a film without a country. Out of the Blue, however, is a film that has stood the test of time.) Unfortunately, even after a newly cleaned-up Hopper was re-embraced by the mainstream, his directorial career never really took off. He directed 7 films, of which only Easy Rider and Colors were financially successful. Contemporary critics often didn’t seem to know what to make of Dennis Hopper as a director. In recent years, however, Hopper’s directorial efforts have been reevaluated. Even The Last Movie has won over some new fans.