Hopper on 'The Last Movie'

Asked would he be embarrassed to talk about The Last Movie (his follow-up to Easy Rider, which was accused of making no sense and costing a fortune), he said "I love The Last Movie! The Last Movie gets better and better with each passing year. It may never be distributed, never be shown, but I'm very proud of it."

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"But getting back to [John] Wayne. You met him, didn’t you? What do you think –- is it possible not to like the man? You know, he’s like the character I play in ‘The Last Movie.’ Naïve, innocent, blindly American, a guy with preconceived ideas about everything. Paranoid and afraid of anything that’s different. After all, Duke fought the battle of Iwo Jima and the battle of the Green Berets, and now he’s patrolling up and down the Pacific in his minesweeper, protecting Americans from the Red Menace. I tell you, it was really something to see him landing every morning on location in his helicopter!"

Hopper and his "Last Movie" crew created something of a scandal on location in Peru. There were many vivid reports of ultra-liberated sexual shenanigans, wild booze bouts and, particularly, drug-induced pandemonium. According to Hopper, most of the printed accounts of the Peruvian carousing fall into the category of strictly creative writing.

"That story in Life about my shooting heroin really bugged me. Man, I never shot anything in my whole life. I never, ever, took a needle. And I don’t mind telling you that it’s a big drag to think that kids will read that and think that if Dennis Hopper can go out and shoot heroin and then make ‘Easy Rider,’ so can we. Now as far as grass goes, I’ve smoked that for 18 years. I get high when I can, but I don’t need it. And I’ve dropped acid. Yet I don’t seem to have any brain damage. Well, maybe a little."

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