MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > The Voices of Psycho PART TWO

The Voices of Psycho PART TWO

posted a month ago by roger1 (2351)
32 replies | jump to latest

Roger 1 writes: (The original thread became too narrow for me to post on it.)

Telegonus wrote:

The 50s-60s and 70s-80s cusps in Hollywood is an interesting take on what seem in retrospect, competing eras; not at the time so much as now, viewed as four decades of the 20th century.

Those decades were also shaped by what even at the time, as a child, then teen, then a very young man, I was aware of as Old Hollywood in its death throes, and wasn't happy about. The historical breakdowns made major social change almost inevitable; and well beyond the usual suspects of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll: the rise of at the time a largely youth-driven culture led by Elvis, then JFK, with reality kicking in the the Vietnam war, the civil rights movements, and the massive changes in manners, morals and fashion implicit is S,D & R & R.

Psycho does appear as a key factor in these changes; as a template, a shocker and a hugely successful movie, filmed mostly on the Uni back lot, in glorious black and white and a cast of not thousands, or even hundreds but at most dozens; like maybe two or three, allowing for extras and very small parts players.

What happened, in the wake of all this isn't that Hollywood began changing history so much as history changing Hollywood. By around the mid to late 70s, the summer blockbuster era of movies, then Saturday Night Live, it's like America had become like Fernwood Tonight merged with Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. No one could have predicted that. It was like a tsunami, and it came to a halt when Ronald Reagan became President and things began to settle; a little anyway.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Telegonus wrote:

The 50s-60s and 70s-80s cusps in Hollywood is an interesting take on what seem in retrospect, competing eras; not at the time so much as now, viewed as four decades of the 20th century.

---

Well now we can look back and see "the entire stretch of those four decades" over American history(America being where most movies and TV shows came from) and world history. And of course , movie history.

Its funny though: you and I LIVED those decades.

I can look back over the 1940s and 1930s movies too -- but I didn't live when they were made. (Nor most of the 50s really.) There is a difference between reading history and living it.

---
Those decades were also shaped by what even at the time, as a child, then teen, then a very young man, I was aware of as Old Hollywood in its death throes, and wasn't happy about.

---

I use this analogy:

Psycho came out at the begininng of the 60's: 1960.

Easy Rider came out at the end of the 60's: 1969.

BOTH are very much "films of the 60's" but Psycho, for all its taboo-smashing sex and violence content, looks a LOT like Old Hollywood in the elegance of Hitchcock's shot compositions and the formality of the cinematography. Plus solid acting by a mix of young actors and some old pros.

Meanwhile, "Easy Rider" looks like a late 60's movie often DID look: gritty, realistic "semi-documentary" in style and very loose in plot and structure. Not terribly well acted by amateurs in certain scenes, either.

And yet, BOTH movies are famous for being:

Very cheaply made.
With huge profits.
That made their makers rich(Hitchcock ; Fonda and Hopper.)
And launched a hundred copycat movies.

(To be continued.)

CONT

[–] swanstep (2619) a month ago

Meanwhile, "Easy Rider" looks like a late 60's movie often DID look: gritty, realistic "semi-documentary" in style and very loose in plot and structure. Not terribly well acted by amateurs in certain scenes, either.

I first saw Easy Rider on VHS around 1987. I gap-filled a lot of '70 and '60s movies around then (on VHS). So, for example, I remember seeing The Graduate and Chinatown and ER all for the first time within a week or two. I remember ER seeming *very* amateurish compared to those other films, especially acting-wise. Everyone who watched with me was thrilled when Jack Nicholson showed up but bummed, and felt the film went downhill, when he left the story. Roughly I remember losing interest in the film after Jack's departure then suddenly being shocked awake by the out-of-nowhere downer ending (none of us knew that *that* was coming whereas I guess that that ending would have quickly become common knowledge during its original run). I remember Hippy Jokes and jibes in the discussion after the movie.

QT has had a lot to say about ER, e.g. here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt0W8HS9wVY
opining, for example, that ER is strangely sensitive to the time in which it's viewed so that it looked dated in the 1980s, not dated at all in the '90s and so on. I watched ER again about a decade ago and it definitely seemed better than I'd remembered it being. E.g.. the amateurish acting aside from Nicholson no longer bugged me much at all. So my own personal evolution on ER fits QT's model.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (943) a month ago

...ER is strangely sensitive to the time in which it's viewed so that it looked dated in the 1980s, not dated at all in the '90s and so on. I watched ER again about a decade ago and it definitely seemed better than I'd remembered it being. E.g.. the amateurish acting aside from Nicholson no longer bugged me much at all. So my own personal evolution on ER fits QT's model.
--
That is a fascinating observation. I think in more recent decades there's been more of a sanctified attitude regarding the New Hollywood movement as a rare moment in which Hollywood somehow prized ART above commerce. Not that that's necessarily true-- as always the reality is more complicated-- but I imagine nowadays a lot of film connoisseurs see the rough edges of ER as refreshing and "honest" rather than amateurish.

But that's just a guess. I don't really know how New Hollywood was seen come the 1980s, when the momentum from that period was stilled by-- whatever historians like to blame it on, be it Star Wars or New Hollywood directors getting too indulgent with fare like Heaven's Gate.

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Meanwhile, "Easy Rider" looks like a late 60's movie often DID look: gritty, realistic "semi-documentary" in style and very loose in plot and structure. Not terribly well acted by amateurs in certain scenes, either.
---

I first saw Easy Rider on VHS around 1987. I gap-filled a lot of '70 and '60s movies around then (on VHS). So, for example, I remember seeing The Graduate and Chinatown and ER all for the first time within a week or two.

---

Its always interesting to think about the difference between "seeing a movie when it first came out" versus "catching up with a movie years after its release." For you to have had the experiences of The Graduate, Easy Rider, and Chinatown all together but (in the case of The Graduate) almost 20 years later means you could still see their historic power but perhaps miss out on "what it was like to be there when it happened."

But I should talk. Of those three, I only saw Chinatown in its first weeks of release(June 1974 -- it was a SUMMER MOVIE, one year before Jaws changed that genre.) The Graduate of 1967 got multiple re-releases(before VHS theatrical re-releases were the way movies kept going) and I saw mine in 1973...on request of a worldly girlfriend who had already seen it and wanted ME to see it(it was her favorite movie) and...I thank her to this day. It was a very worldly, sexy movie date. Easy Rider? I didn't see it on release, and I can't for the life of me remember when I finally saw it, probably VHS. (This from the guy who usually knows when and where and how I saw it.)

I do remember this about Easy Rider. In 1969 when it came out, I joined some male teenage friends at the house of one of them to "hang out" and our host had the "Easy Rider soundtrack album" (a high-earning adjunct to the movie ) and I really felt like we were a bunch of hippies just LISTENING to it. ("Don't Bogart that Joint, My Friend," said it all.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

...ER is strangely sensitive to the time in which it's viewed so that it looked dated in the 1980s, not dated at all in the '90s and so on.

---

That QT assessment is, I suppose, the kind of opinion QT is famous for. He's so SURE about it, and then you have to examine the premise.

Why would a "hippie counterculture movie" from 1969 seem dated in the 80's but NOT dated in the 90s?

My guess(and we know that QT hates 80s movies) is that while the 80's was a time of Lucas/Spielberg and "sedate" movies(as hated by QT) like Out of Africa and The Big Chill and also a time when Hollywood first saw REGULAR sequels(Psycho II as opposed to Godfather II) and TV show adaptations(The Untouchables) as viable...it took the "indiefilm trend" of the 90s (led by QT and others) to "bring back that counterculture feeling again." Some of those 90's flicks looked almost as ragged as late sixties/early seventies films though it is my contention that low budget movies can NEVER look that bad again -- our computer technology allows even the cheapest of movies look like...they were made in a computer.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

-- I watched ER again about a decade ago and it definitely seemed better than I'd remembered it being. E.g.. the amateurish acting aside from Nicholson no longer bugged me much at all. So my own personal evolution on ER fits QT's model.

---

That is a fascinating observation. I think in more recent decades there's been more of a sanctified attitude regarding the New Hollywood movement as a rare moment in which Hollywood somehow prized ART above commerce. Not that that's necessarily true-- as always the reality is more complicated--

---

Yeah...as in Easy Rider becoming a blockbuster of sorts but also -- like Psycho -- a movie made so cheap that its PERSONAL PROFIT to just a few people was astronomical.

Also in 1969 was released the gigantic and expensive old-fashioned musical "Hello Dolly," which, like Easy Rider was a huge hit but -- unlike Easy Rider -- cost so much to make that it barely made a profit at all.

I tell you what, though. The 70's was rife with articles entitled "Easy Rider, the most expensive bomb ever made," which pointed out that while ER itself made big money, it led to a TON of "Easy Rider wannabee movies" being made(starting with Dennis Hopper's next one, "The Last Movie") that all LOST money in such an aggregate sum that Easy Rider was BLAMED for all those bombs in its wake. Go figure. (These "youth movies" also included "Two Lane Highway," in which we learned that James Taylor can't act, and a few "college sit in movies" like The Strawberry Statement, Stanley Kramer's "Revolutions Per Minute" and Elliott Gould in "Getting Straight.")

--

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

I remember ER seeming *very* amateurish compared to those other films, especially acting-wise.

---

I think the amateur acting came through strongest(in memory) in the scene where our three hippie heroes go into a diner and are ogled by some pretty local chicks and therefore dissed by the bigoted men in the place. The scene is amateur in its acting but--- the point is still made. It IS uncomfortable in a totally acceptable, dramatic way. Perhaps because these amateurs -- clearly real men -- are all the more scary for it.

---

Everyone who watched with me was thrilled when Jack Nicholson showed up but bummed, and felt the film went downhill, when he left the story.

---

...and that's how Jack Nicholson became a star. You were happy to meet him and sorry to see him go, and the movie was never as interesting after he WAS gone.

One of those famous "lucky break stories." Rip Torn had been hired for the role(as a worldly and smart lawyer) but dropped out, and Nicholson got it. Rip Torn went on to be a GREAT character actor from the 80s on -- great voice , great presence -- but Lucky Jack became a star. More interesting still, in their later years, Rip Torn and Jack Nicholson as late middle-aged men looked a lot alike -- same hairstyle, same bearing, voices that were different in one way but alike in how POWERFUL they were.

--

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Roughly I remember losing interest in the film after Jack's departure then suddenly being shocked awake by the out-of-nowhere downer ending (none of us knew that *that* was coming whereas I guess that that ending would have quickly become common knowledge during its original run).

--

I never saw Easy Rider on first release but indeed, its downer violent ending was soon well known in my circles. When I finally saw that ending, I thought two things: (1) it rather reminded me of the violent end of Bonnie and Clyde(though on a more modern rural highway and (2) I liked the stylization of Fonda's death by simply showing his motorcycle flying through the air -- "Easy Rider-less" -- in pieces onto the grassy knoll(such a green, lovely place to die.)

"On topic" kinda/sorta: Alfred Hitchcock actually offered an opinion on Easy Rider, which he did see. This was in an interview he did while he was getting ready to make Frenzy. He was asked to opine on modern-day films and he gave a "grumpy old man" answer of a type that guys like Billy Wilder and John Ford were giving at the same time(they KNEW their days were numbered as New Hollywood encroached.)

Anyway, here is what Hitchocck said:

"Oh, I liked Easy Rider alright. The ads say these young men went looking for America, but as far as I could see, they just went looking for rednecks in the South."

Ha.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

in the same interview, Hitchcock said of Love Story: "This rich boy/poor girl story is practically Victorian. But people like a good cry. They don't like a bad cry, but they like a good cry." (Astute -- I suppose a bad cry is a REALISTIC , bleak cry.)

in the same interivew, Hitch seemed to level a double-whammy against Bullitt: (1) "If I see another car bounce off a hill in San Francisco, I'll scream." (Sounded a lot like my grandmother, there) and (2) "I hate these modern movies with sunflowers out of focus in the foreground as people talk in the background(well McQueen and Jackie Bisset have just such a scene in Bullitt.)

Truth be told, other old directors like Capra, Ford and Wilder were more out-of-touch and blunt in their assessments of modern film ("Pornography," John Ford called MIdnight Cowboy -- having not seen it.) Hitchcock dutifully watched ALL movies in his private screening room and made note of the changes and grumpily adjusted to them.

For instance: Hitchcock used one player from Easy Rider as his first-billed star in Family Plot: Karen Black. She had also been in Five Easy Pieces(also with Jack Nicholson) and in Drive, He Said(DIRECTED by Nicholson, co-starring Bruce Dern) and whaddya know Bruce Dern was ALSO in Family Plot(in a role Hitch first pitched to...Jack Nicholson.) And Bruce Dern had been with Peter Fonda in the "Hells Angel" type biker movie The Wild Angels and had been with Fonda in "The Trip" WRITTEN BY Jack Nicholson.
And Dern and Nicholson played brothers in The King of Marvin Gardens by the director of Five Easy Pieces.

Such incestuous criss-crossing...and Hitchcock got a piece of it by casting Karen Black(known as "Blackie" to Nicholson) and Bruce Dern(known as "Dernsie" to Jack and others) in Family Plot. You can't say Hitch didn't keep up with the times.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

And, while we are on "the voices" of movies(not just Psycho), let's consider that Jack Nicholson AND Bruce Dern had great voices, and that Family Plot villain Wililam Devane ALSO had a great voice, and a voice that rather sounded like...Jack Nicholson's. Whew.

And I'll toss this in here: Hitchcock used Karen Black and Barbara Harris in Family Plot in the year after they appeared together in yet ANOTHER counterculture director's film: Robert Altman's Nashville. And Devane was in Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller. And Altman knew Hitchcock from directing some of his TV shows. So Hitch -- in his own way -- certainly did what he could to use New Hollywood talent in Family Plot.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

I don't really know how New Hollywood was seen come the 1980s, when the momentum from that period was stilled by-- whatever historians like to blame it on, be it Star Wars or New Hollywood directors getting too indulgent with fare like Heaven's Gate.

---

Somewhat "all of the above."

There was a "karma" feeling to some of it. While "auteur" old guy directors like Hitchcocck and Hawks and Ford just sort of got pushed aside(well, Hitchcock was too God-like to ever lose his contrct with Universal).."regular" Hollywood types -- studio heads, producers, journeyman directors and agents -- evidently went nuts trying to "go hippie" with love beads and Nehru jackets and were pushed aside, too.

But the karma came as a "next generation" of studio executives arrived from TELEVISION -- guys like Barry Diller and Michael Eisner -- and they rather aggressively got rid of a lot of New Hollywood directors. Or the directors self-destructed. Dennis Hopper: out. Bob Rafelson: out. Peter Bogdanovich: out. Robert Altman: out. Francis Coppola: out (One from the Heart and The Cotton Club did it.) Producer Bert Schneider(Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show): out.

Peter Bogdanovich offered us a famous quote from Dennis Hopper to old director George Cukor at a Hollywood party around Easy Rider's peak: "We are going to bury you." Said in public, among movie people(Bogdo was embarrassed for Cukor.) And Cukor evidently said "You are probably right."

Well, Dennis Hopper got buried by...Michael Eisner?

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

A stray memory about 1969 for the Fonda family.

In a kind of "perfect storm" of success for Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, and Peter Fonda...each of them had a breakthrough film in 1969:

Henry flipped his persona as the sadistic villain in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West."

Jane finally escaped the "sex kitten roles" that were her bread and butter to get an Oscar nonmination for her heavy dramatic turn in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" -- its like she almost instantaneously became a "serious actress" with one movie.

And Peter got the biggest hit and biggest cultural event of the year with Easy Rider.

Time Magazine did a cover story(1970, maybe?) called "The Fabulous Flying Fondas" and gathered the three for a joint interview and photos. The story ended up being very ironic: though Henry was the Golden Era star and Jane had the Oscar career underway -- Peter was clearly the Big Winner of the moment.

But alas, it wouldn't last for Peter. Jane gathered steam and two Oscars in the 70's(Klute and Coming Home), Henry rather rested on his laurels (some good plays, some bad movies...On Golden Pond and Oscar awaiting) ...and Peter ended up in B-movie drive-in stuff like "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" and "Race with the Devil."

Still, I think Peter stayed rich all his days from Easy Rider alone...

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Those decades were also shaped by what even at the time, as a child, then teen, then a very young man, I was aware of as Old Hollywood in its death throes, and wasn't happy about. The historical breakdowns made major social change almost inevitable; and well beyond the usual suspects of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll: the rise of at the time a largely youth-driven culture led by Elvis, then JFK, with reality kicking in the the Vietnam war, the civil rights movements, and the massive changes in manners, morals and fashion implicit is S,D & R & R.

---

It was quite an overlay: real current events and political trends "with an overlay of movies" reflecting the times.

We are speaking here mainly of the 60s, which stands as a massive time of change -- certainly in America(my home base) but around the world too. Still, a lot of popular culture was American and the "British invasion" needed America to truly make the Beatles and the Stones BIG.

There is a poster around here who pounces with great vengeance and furious anger on anyone who says "the 50's were an innocent time changed by the 60's.'" He clearly feels t there was plenty of sex and violence and tumult and sophistication in the 50s , too. I'll agree within bounds but clearly AT THE MOVIES, Hays Code Censorship kept movies VERY innocent, or trying hard to "push out" on matters of sex and violence without being able to go all the way. (A Streetcar Named Desire, Strangers on a Train, From Here to Eternity, Baby Doll --these movies pushed the envelope but many OTHER movies were as innocent and sweet as could be, and TV series were saccarhine from what I"ve seen in re-runs. TV dramas were less so, but outnumbered.)

CUT
---

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

We can't discount the stronger role of "the Church" over movie censorship(the Catholics had a movie code system that included "Morally Objectionable for All" which could lead to no Catholics attending a movie so rated and theaters not showing it.

---

What happened, in the wake of all this isn't that Hollywood began changing history so much as history changing Hollywood.

--

A GREAT line! Filmmakers wanted stronger politicalHe and personal content in their films. Studio heads watched as TV kept taking away their audience. Once color TV came in strong(about 1967)...the movies shifted from "color to content" to compete, and the new MPAA R/X code emerged in 1968.

Hence, the "50/60s cusp" that produced daring movies like Anatomy of a Murder(with its case of rape and murder and explicit courtroom testimony thereof), The Apartment(tons of adultery could still yield a happy ending), and Psycho(so "new" and yet so "old" in the same classical package) did climax in the 60s/70s cusp where filmmakers just went drunk with power: sex, nudity, cussing, realistic ultra violence.

I suppose there are other "historic moments" in American movies that don't rely on a "cusp" from decade to decade. When sound came in. When the Hays Code came in(thus, "pre-code movies" of the 20s and 30s ended up having more sexual content than movies of the late 30s through the 50s.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Speaking of the "70's/80s cusp," I recall some disgruntled writer writing an article for the coming of the year 2000 and the 21st Century with a rather insulting take on the final two decades of the 20th Century.

He basically felt that, after the historic changes and excitements of the 60s and 70s...the 80s and 90s were a dull, banal bust. He zeroed in on rock music: "MTV -- the corporations weren't going to let the music business get away from them, so they homogenized it into MTV." Oh, maybe. Springsteen? Jackson? Madonna? Prince?"

But this guy found 80s-90s politics boring, music boring, movies boring, celebrities boring. He seemed to take back-handed notice that these were actually rather peaceful and prosperous years and he hated them for it.

Well, boy did the 21st Century say "be careful what you wish for." 9/11 to kickstart the century in horror(especially in "safe" America).. Cable news and the internet turning politics insane(though money-making.) COVID opening the 2020s in chains.

And the movies from 2000 to today? Well, we been tawkin bout that for years now, yes? Comix uber alles -- Oscar movies widely unseen, but "international grosses" promising that practically EVERY movie is a hit.

[–] swanstep (2619) a month ago

Well, Dennis Hopper got buried by...Michael Eisner?

If so then he didn't stay buried for long. Blue Velvet (for which Hopper told Lynch,'I am Frank Booth') put Hopper back on the map big time and not just as a madman although that would be his strong suit throughout the '90s in stuff like Speed, Waterworld, True Romance, etc..

Blue Velvet was accompanied by acclaimed turns in River's Edge, Hoosiers (w. Hackman), etc.. and he quickly directed (for mid-major studio Orion) the topical and semi-successful but now largely forgotten Colors (1988) w/ Duvall and Sean Penn playing cops trying (and of course failing) to sort out warring gangs in LA.

In 1990, Hopper starred in Flashback, a very broad comedy about decadal change w/ Kiefer Sutherland as an FBI straight-man escorting Hopper's burned-out '60s radical. Hijinks ensue. Hopper hams it up a lot, e.g., 'It takes more than going down to your local video store and renting Easy Rider to become a rebel' and 'Once we get outta the 80's, the 90's are going to make the 60's look like the 50's.' Haw haw. Both lines were used in the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO8ivMSn_eY
Also in 1990, Dennis directed (again for Orion) The Hot Spot, a pretty good, mostly forgotten, erotic, twisty southern/sunny noir w/ Don Johnson, Jennifer Connolly, Virginia Madsen etc..

In sum, Hopper had his mojo back by the second half of the '80s and my sense is that he worked pretty much exactly as much as he wanted ever after from there, albeit it's most fairly disposable, paycheck stuff after the '90s. I believe that for his artistic kicks Hopper concentrated on his rather successful painting career for his last decade or so. I'd bet that he was principally just very thankful that he didn't kill himself or anyone else in his wild years:
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/iggy-pop-david-bowie-dennis-hopper-cocaine/
Hopper and Bowie would later appear together in Basquiat (1996) as an art impresario and Warhol respectively
https://noideasbutinthings.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/basquiat2.jpg
and, hey, it's currently on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFfcqK_S36o
Both Bowie and Hopper were deeply into their painting and art-collecting at this time so this was fortuitous casting to say the least.

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Well, Dennis Hopper got buried by...Michael Eisner?

---

If so then he didn't stay buried for long. Blue Velvet (for which Hopper told Lynch,'I am Frank Booth') put Hopper back on the map big time and not just as a madman although that would be his strong suit throughout the '90s in stuff like Speed, Waterworld, True Romance, etc..

---

Ha, swanstep...I'd say that's your "gotcha!" met by my "touche" and...what can I say?

Still, I've done a little research and rather than fully "walking back my statement," I think I will refine it a bit: thus:

Dennis Hopper -- riding high on the huge success of Easy Rider and what it SEEMED to mean -- that the counterculture was about to take over the entire "means of production" of Hollywood films "forever more" was STILL pretty much wrong when he told George Cukor "we're going to bury you!"

Because Hopper directed just one more movie -- "The Last Movie" in 1971 -- and it bombed and Hollywood -- being the vengeful place it likes to be -- DID bury Dennis Hopper -- as a director or a "studio creative force" for much of the 70's.

A glance at Hopper's IMDb list of 70's movies -- as actor OR director -- after "The Last Movie" -- finds him struggling -- in my mind - until he finally came back on screen in "Apocalypse Now"(1979, the end of the decade) in a bit of a "wacked out supporting role" as a photographer in Brando's kingdom.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

And he still needed to go aways into the 80s to "get his mojo back" and even then, more as an ACTOR ( a VERY in demand character guy) than as a director. But he did get to direct, sure, as you note, swanstep. So let's take a further look at the "post burial years' of Dennis Hopper.

--

Blue Velvet was accompanied by acclaimed turns in River's Edge, Hoosiers (w. Hackman), etc..

--

That was 1986. What a year that was for Dennis Hopper! The ultra-horrific bad guy role of Frank Booth in Blue Velvet AND the "nice guy drunk on a small town comeback as assistant basketball coach" in Hoosiers(Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the nice guy..not the bad guy.) River's Edge -- playing a wacked out, burned out hippie druggie type guy with a SEX DOLL as a girlfriend!

1986 "re-launched" Dennis Hopper in his somewhat more distinguished-looking middle age as a character guy -- hero or villain, you pick -- right on through the 90s and beyond.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

and he quickly directed (for mid-major studio Orion) the topical and semi-successful but now largely forgotten Colors (1988) w/ Duvall and Sean Penn playing cops trying (and of course failing) to sort out warring gangs in LA.

---

I remember Hopper getting a lot of ink for his direction of that rather tough, straightforward film("The Easy Rider Director is Back...but he's Square!"). The movie is a good companion piece to "End of Watch" with Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as "cops trying (and of course failing) to sort out warring gangs in LA."

I saw Colors on release at a theater and remember two things beyond the gritty realism: (1) a good sex scene for Sean Penn and Maria Conchita Alonso and (2) a GREAT death scene for Robert Duvall...shot, laying on the ground and repeating over and over and over: "Just let me catch my breath...just let me catch my breath"..unto death. It struck me as a very real representation of what it would FEEL like to die.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Also in 1990, Dennis directed (again for Orion) The Hot Spot, a pretty good, mostly forgotten, erotic, twisty southern/sunny noir w/ Don Johnson, Jennifer Connolly, Virginia Madsen etc..

--

Hoo boy. I"ve ALWAYS been a Don Johnson fan...he just aged handsomer and handsomer it seems like he enjoys his stardom right at the medium-low level it is (standout as plantation owner Big Daddy in QT's Django Unchained) and he looks GREAT in "The Hot Spot" and indeed capable of landing BOTH Jennifer Connolly AND Virginia Madsen back when both actresses were young and nublie and quite willing to take it all off. So sue me...that was one sexy movie, man. Plus the humor of Johnson's super-handsome guy being paired as a used car salesman with Terry the Toad himself, Charles Martin Smith, in that movie.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

In sum, Hopper had his mojo back by the second half of the '80s and my sense is that he worked pretty much exactly as much as he wanted ever after from there, albeit it's most fairly disposable, paycheck stuff after the '90s.

---

Well, whatever the promise of the landmark Easy Rider, eventually Dennis Hopper became "a guy who worked" in Hollywood. Age brought him character roles that youth had not.

About "young" Dennis Hopper pre Easy Rider. I found Hopper one of those young guys I just didn't LIKE on screen -- from Giant on through True Grit, he played...snivelling, whining wimpy guys.

Hopper did point out that in the two John Wayne movies he did (both for tough director Henry Hathaway) -- The Sons of Katie Elder and True Grit -- "I died in John Wayne's arms." Its true. On the True Grit set, Wayne would always get into arguments on purpose with Hopper: "Somebody go find me that Commie pinko Hopper kid!" Wayne would yell. (In later life, Hopper noted that he generally voted Republican -- Reagan, Bush, Bush -- until Obama.)

Meanwhile:

In the 90's, Hopper got two great roles, one good one bad:

True Romance: Directed by Tony Scott, but WRITTEN by Tarantino, an early triumph albeit with "the N word throughout." Hopper is trapped for interrogation by Mafia Don Chris Walken and his thugs(one played by young James Gandolfini.) Hopper's acting is so superb - he is NOT going to give up the whereabouts of the son he only just saw after years apart(Christian Slater) and his plan of action is simple: to so enrage Walken as to be killed QUICKLY, not tortured. The speech is great, Hopper and Walken are great, Gandolfini is a little bit great and -- the moment when you can see that Hopper knows he is about to die and pushes it all the way...GREAT.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) a month ago

Speed. Keanu's the New Age action hero, Sandra Bullock is debuting her "funny girl next door" heroine and Hopper gets the brilliant psycho mastermind role. His best lines:

Hopper: "I'm not insane. I'm too rich to be insane. I'm eccentric!"

Hopper: (Fighting Keanu to the death atop a speeding train in a tunnel)
I'm SMARTER than you! I'm SMARTER than you!"
(Keanu pushes Hopper's head up and he is decapitated.)
Keanu: Yeah..but I'm TALLER than you!

The movie also introduces Hopper being discovered by a security guard, fast talking the guy -- and then jamming a screwdriver into the guy's ear. Establishing his "psycho who kills sickeningly without nausea" credentials.

Speaking of villains, I recall that once Kevin Costner took the hero role in "Waterworld"(1995) the trades revealed that "the producers are having trouble casting a villain." Laurence Fishburne stepped in and backed out. Finally...they got Dennis Hopper.

I bet Hopper got paid a LOT for that role.

[–] swanstep (2619) 24 days ago

Virginia Madsen

I never thought much about Madsen back in the day - she was a beauty alright but (a) she never quite got a signature role (Lunch's Dune could have been it but that movie flopped etc., and Cabrini Green-horror, Candyman 1992 was pretty great as was The Hot Shot but I, like most people, didn't see them until much later), and (b) her basic willowy blonde, big hair look was close to Nancy Allen, Sharon Stone, Nancy Travis - in certain shots Madsen can look almost identical to each of them and I suspect that that was a problem for her. Madsen, interestingly, has really got a boost from the recent Dune and especially Dune Part 2. Florence Pugh now plays the Princess Irulan/Narrator character that Madsen played, and book fans aren't happy... Irulan in the books is an idealized tall blonde aristocratic beauty supposedly capable of turning male characters to jello whereas Pugh is short, gal-next-door-ish, and is left mostly invisible/hidden behind chain-mail veils. Paul's decision to marry her comes across as *pure* political convenience rather than a properly mixed decision - I'm marrying the hottest chick in the galaxy, not so bad!

I quite like the more-grunged up, more-pure-politics Dune series myself and Pugh fits well with that, but Madsen is the better book-casting for sure (shades of Reacher book fans never accepting Tom Cruise as Reacher).

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

Virginia Madsen

I never thought much about Madsen back in the day - she was a beauty alright but (a) she never quite got a signature role (Lunch's Dune could have been it but that movie flopped etc., and Cabrini Green-horror, Candyman 1992 was pretty great as was The Hot Shot but I, like most people, didn't see them until much later)

--

I have Virginia Madsen memorized pretty much for three movies ONLY, spaced out by the years:

The Hot Spot (first)

Sideways (last)

and in between, in a very interesting movie called "John Grisham's The Rainmaker." Its very interesting to me because while it was the same kind of "prestige potbolier" as its fellow Grisham movies The Firm, The Pelican Brief , and The Client, THIS one was directed by Francis Coppola, who did nothing more to assert his classic talent than by being almost entirely: normal in his direction.

Matt Damon was the young star, but they surrounded him with names, starting with Teresa Wright(the teenager of Shadow of a Doubt) as an old woman(sigh -- The Rainmaker was in 1997.) Danny DeVito used his comedy short guy sidekick persona for good after just using it for evil in LA Confidential. But the guy who stole the movie was....Mickey Rourke, all mystery and a certain amount of charm as Southern storefront/strip club lawyer "Digger Barnes" -- a crook of sorts who nonetheless gives Damon his first lawyer job(on SPEC) and proves to really know the law when he turns up for a split second after disappearaing for most of the movie. This began my "MIckey Rourke comeback" long before Sin City and The Wrestler.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

But late in the film, in the courtroom drama phase...they bring in Virginia Madsen for a cameo as a key witness against a villainous insurance company than never pays claims. Madsen was "down the road" from her sexpot period, but still striking(to me) and very sympathetic as a beautiful woman still drawn down low and forced to work for crooks and now positioned to get her revenge. I remember the character, and I remember that Virginia Madsen was STILL...pretty hot to me.

You'd think that maybe her turn in The Rainmaker landed Madsen her Oscar-bait role in Sideways but I dunno..that was 7 years later. You just have to keep working in this movie acting business. Madsen was great in Sideways -- still a beauty, but a bit more mature and able to connect with Paul Giamatti's sad sack character if only because well, sometimes very beautiful women become more accessible to less attractive men when the women are aged past peak youthful beauty. AS LONG AS the less attractive man has other things going(smartness, wine knowledge...pathos.)

So: The Hot Spot. The Rainmaker. Sideways. That's enough to make Madsen memorable for me. And I"ve never even seen her in Dune.

PS. Virginia Madsen's brother is cool, mumbly Michael Madsen, who memorably cut off a cop's ear in QT's Reservoir Dogs, did two more QT films and has the memorable Reservoir Dogs line: "You gonna bark all day little doggie -- or you gonna bite?" And from the same movie: "You're a tough guy. I'll bet you like Lee Marvin movies. I LOVE Lee Marvin movies."

Brother Michael said he would watch his sister's movies -- except he would walk out during her nude scenes and then walk back in.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

(Virginia Madsen's) basic willowy blonde, big hair look was close to Nancy Allen, Sharon Stone, Nancy Travis - in certain shots Madsen can look almost identical to each of them and I suspect that that was a problem for her.

---

Hollywood always has a bunch of handsome guys and a bunch of beautiful gals and...some break through, some don't.

Nancy Allen, Sharon Stone and Virginia Madsen did some nude scenes to help break through(Stone biggest of all) but after awhile, that's not enough. (I don't remember seeing any Nancy Travis nude scenes.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

Madsen, interestingly, has really got a boost from the recent Dune and especially Dune Part 2. Florence Pugh now plays the Princess Irulan/Narrator character that Madsen played, and book fans aren't happy..

--

Well, I'll assume that makes the original Dune the most famous Virginia Madsen movie and now...she's BACK.

Me and Dune:

Once a year, I go to a distant small town location for an event. eOn business. Just me. They have one multiplex in town and I amuse myself by seeing a movie there. In that distant godforsaken locale, I have seen Zodiac, La La Land, Captain Marvel, and THE Batman. (I recall walking into the theater in pouring rain, sopping wet, to watch the opening bright-sky "Sunny Day" number in La La Land and being self-amused.)

Anyway, this year, same town, same theater and the only non-animated movie on the marquee was "Dune Part 2."

My thought processes included:

But I haven't seen Dune Part 1. Can I figure it out?
Come to think of it, I never saw the original David Lynch Dune(with Virginia Madsen.)
Come to think of it, I never READ Dune (though I recall copies all around me in high school and college.)
So...I can't see Dune Part 2. (I found a local pub instead.)

I suppose my SciFi fantasy taste is as lacking as my thriller taste isi strong. Its MY fault. But this should not rule out Dune in the future. I have time left and I DO think from time to time that I SHOULD catch up on the event book/movies of my time. So Dune is still possible! But I have to see Dune Part 1 first. Anyway, I must have a real problem with Dune if I refused to watch it when nothing else could be seen.

Sidebar: So this Timothy Chalamet kid is in Dune 1 and 2. Big hits. And he is in Wonka. Big hit. But I can't bring myself to LIKE him as a star (I saw him in "Don't Look Up.") No matter, he truly IS for a generation several removed from mine. I've read he's quite the entitled brat given these successes, but that's Hollywood. Or just Hollywood gossip.

[–] swanstep (2619) 24 days ago

A glance at Hopper's IMDb list of 70's movies -- as actor OR director -- after "The Last Movie" -- finds him struggling -- in my mind - until he finally came back on screen in "Apocalypse Now"

Yep, that's what I noticed too - most of the '70s were a complete write-off for Dennis. I'm guessing that he had a big pile of Easy Rider money to live off during that time.

Hopper's first direction since The Last Movie was in 1980 with Out of the Blue, which gave Linda Manz her second big role after Days of Heaven. The opening scene of that movie has become a bit legendary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qjq6PRjXQg
and has been sampled in, what in my view is some of the best music and music video of the '90s, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E86gWQs-ios

I've only seen OOTB once - it was a true bleakfest and hard watch, but was evidently well-shot and -directed - and I really need to see it again. OOTB has plenty of famous and non-famous fans these days and now frequently appears on lots of people's Best of the '80s lists. Probably more people have seen it since its blu-ray restoration appeared in the mid-2010s than saw it in the thirty years after its initial release.

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

A glance at Hopper's IMDb list of 70's movies -- as actor OR director -- after "The Last Movie" -- finds him struggling -- in my mind - until he finally came back on screen in "Apocalypse Now"

Yep, that's what I noticed too - most of the '70s were a complete write-off for Dennis. I'm guessing that he had a big pile of Easy Rider money to live off during that time.

---

Yes, I was GOING to mention all that Easy Rider money in my OP about Hopper's "70's downfall." Heh. But better in response to you.

It seems to have come more with the "indiefilm" moviement(or indiefilm WITHIN studios like Bonnie and Clyde for Warners and Easy Rider for Columbia) but "mere actors" like Warren Beatty , and later Fonda and Hopper, each got this one sudden gigantic payday from a megahit and -- practically set for life with one movie. (In my readings on Hopper and Fonda btw, evidently trying to properly split up THEIR payday tore them apart as friends and Fonda was expressly banned from Hopper's funeral. And now Fonda's gone. At least Beatty got to keep his B and C money all to himself..)

Its funny though..whereas Fonda and Hopper(and to a lesser extent, Beatty) got "once in a lifetime jackpots" with their single movies. Old Hollywood Hand Alfred HItchcock pulled off the same stunt with one movie -- the self-funded(almost) Psycho - and then just WENT BACK to getting top director-producer pay on less successful films like Marnie and Torn Curtain. Hitchcock took that giant hit in stride and kept making "outside money." (Not to mention the TV series which, I think, paid him more than Psycho when syndication sales came in.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

Still the "strike it rich" tale of Dennis Hopper perhaps makes his troubled 1970s less troubling. More simply put, Hopper succeeded as one MAN, but his pledge to George Cukor that "we will bury you" didn't pan out for his peers. Rafelson, Bogdanovich(who witnessed Hopper insult Cukor and was incensed), Ashby, even Altman fell away in power (though Altman made a comeback.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

Hopper's first direction since The Last Movie was in 1980 with Out of the Blue, which gave Linda Manz her second big role after Days of Heaven. The opening scene of that movie has become a bit legendary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qjq6PRjXQg
and has been sampled in, what in my view is some of the best music and music video of the '90s, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E86gWQs-ios

---

"Kill All Hippies" -- Dennis Hopper knew the score on his reputation I guess. By the 1980s, hippies were kind of extinct. Though it is my contention that after various decades of change, ALL lifestyles were allowed to thrive side by side in the 21st century. You've got men wearing crew cuts next to longhairs. Disco remnants alongside folksters. Etc. And yes, more than a few hippie types (including, alas, a lot of our homeless -- the ultimate hippie destination? A lot of them LIKE that lifestyle and refuse to be "put in" centers off the street.

---

I've only seen OOTB once - it was a true bleakfest and hard watch, but was evidently well-shot and -directed - and I really need to see it again. OOTB has plenty of famous and non-famous fans these days and now frequently appears on lots of people's Best of the '80s lists. Probably more people have seen it since its blu-ray restoration appeared in the mid-2010s than saw it in the thirty years after its initial release.

--

Other than a very vague recollection of the title, I have no historical memory of this film at all. That's an interesting open shot (and radio dialogue) but it tells me nothing of the plot. I guess I got to go find out.

Though I preferred Dennis Hopper somewhat more in the 80s and 90s when he was middle-aged(check him out in a cameo as a very RICH Texan murdered by his serial killer wife in Black Widow of 1986), he never did much for me as a movie presence, ESPECIALLY in his whiny weak mode of Giant and the John Wayne movies.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2351) 19 days ago

I suppose its different for all of us. Just like we pick our favorite leading men and women according to personal taste, so we pick our favorite support or character people.

I was always happy to see Richard Boone turn up in the 60s and 70''s, and then Rip Torn in the 80s and 90s. Martin Balsam -- natch for Psycho-- but also for 12 Angry Men and Cape Fear and Breakfast at Tiffany's and Hombre(with Richard Boone) too.

But Dennis Hopper? He'd show up and I'd go looking around for the more interesting actor in the room.

I felt exactly the same way about Martin Sheen in the 70's -- lo and behold BOTH Sheen (in the lead) AND Hopper show up in Apocalypse Now and maybe that's one reason the movie doesn't much linger in my care department. I mean, Robert Duvall is the most LIVELY and starrish guy in the movie and he was often the bland guy in other movies. Coppola cast Sheen in the lead after Eastwood and McQueen and Pacino (from Coppola's Godfather) said no...and Harvey Keitel HAD said yes, but had a heart attack(in his THIRTIES) trying to make the movie and got replaced by...Sheen.

CONT