After the huge success of Easy Rider (1969), director Dennis Hopper could have made any movie he wanted.
Sadly he did just that, and the resulting fiasco is one of the all-time classics of pretentiously incomprehensible cinema.
Outlining the hippy antics of a film crew in Peru aiming to shoot a western, Hopper uses movie-making as a metaphor for imperialism in this mess of over-indulgent allegory and mind-numbing ranting.
When the director quits after the death of a stuntman, the locals start acting out the violent script for real and pretending to film themselves with fake cameras made of sticks.
The opening credits appear 30 minutes into the film, and numerous cameos from the likes of Peter Fonda, Michelle Phillips, Russ Tamblyn and Kris Kristofferson (here making his movie debut) help perk the flagging interest.
Kansas
Dennis Hopper Maria
Stella Garcia Director
Samuel Fuller Thomas Mercado
Daniel Ades Priest
Tomas Milian Neville
Don Gordon Mrs Anderson
Julie Adams Sheriff
Peter Fonda Minstrel Wrangler
Kris Kristofferson Minister’s son
Henry Jaglom Banker’s daughter
Michelle Phillips Billy
Dean Stockwell Member of Billy’s gang
Russ Tamblyn
Director
Dennis Hopper
You May Also Like
Sweet Hostage (1975) This made-for-TV movie for ABC starred Martin Sheen as Leonard Hatch, an escaped psychiatric patient who…
Legend of Hell House, The (1973) Dying millionaire Rudolph Deutsch (Roland Culver) offers £100,000 to hard-headed physicist and para-psychology expert Dr Lionel…
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) The versatile HB "Toby" Halicki not only wrote, directed and starred in this grandaddy of the…
Outlaws Is Coming, The (1965) The film begins in post-Civil War Boston, where The Three Stooges - Larry, Moe, and Curly…
Mean Streets (1973) "You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets." Charlie…
Alex & The Gypsy (1976) Jack Lemmon looks tired and unappealing in this cynical and grubby film about the torturous relationship…
Beetlejuice (1988) Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play Barbara and Adam Maitland - a young married couple who…
Freejack (1992) Loosely based on the 1959 novel Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley, this dystopian science fiction action…
