Easy Rider

[exc911ence]

Sat down with a bunch of friends last night to watch the 1969 classic, Easy Rider. I'd never seen it before and couldn't believe the ending of the film! I don't want to be a spoiler so I won't say how it ended but for those who have seen it, what are your thoughts?

[BeyGon]

I liked it when it came out, kind of a period thing, we tried to watch that and Alice's Restaurant a while back but they just weren't the same.
It might have been Jack Nicholson's first movie.

[9dreizig]

The ending was appropriate for the times,, rednecks really hated hippies...

[Sonic dB]

The ending was great... here is a nice retrospective video on the making of Easy Rider on Youtube

[RWebb]

an excellent documentary, especially the ending

another good documentary (though outside of Louisiana) is "Deliverance"

[Jeff Higgins]

I thought it was a great movie the first time I saw it.

I wondered what the hell I was thinking the second time I saw it.

[Zeke]

I saw it in a theater. When it finished, a guy yelled out, "God bless America." I'll never forget that. I'm sure you know he was being sarcastic. That's not a powerful enough word for the moment.

I drove thru the South in '68 with long hair. Had I not been driving a race car hauler, I'm sure I would have been beaten up, if not worse. We had a flat tire on the truck and it seemed like we weren't going to be able to buy a replacement until we opened the doors on the trailer. Even tho it was a formula car in stock car territory, the car opened doors for us.

It was a bad time to be a long hair south of the Mason Dixon.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by BeyGon

I liked it when it came out, kind of a period thing, we tried to watch that and Alice's Restaurant a while back but they just weren't the same.
It might have been Jack Nicholson's first movie.

I used to live in West Stockbridge, MA, and we'd go past the church all the time when we drove to Great Barrington.

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

I thought it was a great movie the first time I saw it.

I wondered what the hell I was smoking the second time I saw it.

Fixed it for ya.

[speeder]

Nicholson had actually done quite a few films prior to Easy Rider but they were mostly Roger Corman B-movies. The real story of ER is how rich they all got from it. They shot it for peanuts and it made some ungodly amount of money for the time. Can't remember how much, maybe $30-40 million(?)

It was written by Peter Fonda and Hopper during a pretty dry period for them work-wise and produced by Bill Hayward, who was Hopper's BIL at the time. Hopper was married to Brooke Hayward, an incredibly beautiful woman whose dad was Leland Hayward, one of the biggest producers in the "golden age" of Hollywood and a larger-than-life figure. Everyone in Hollywood thought that Brooke had a free pass to be one of the biggest stars ever but she just didn't give a schit.

Bill Hayward's son Leland is one of my best and oldest friends. Sadly, (and ironically), Bill passed away last year after a bad MC crash on a Harley. He took his own life when it didn't seem worth living because of a pretty bad head injury. He's all over the DVD special feature documentary about making the film. It was before his bike accident and he's a great-looking older guy who looks like an old hipster. The little documentary is probably better, and more interesting than the film which really wasn't that great. It was revolutionary at the time because it was an auteur film from Hollywood, IOW it had a voice. It was told from the film makers' personal perspective. The story of making it is much better, especially the experiences they had down south as long-haired biker-looking guys in small towns and how they got the extras, etc...

Phil Spector is the coke dealer in the beginning of the film that they score from at the airport.

[charleskieffner]

quite abit filmed in arizona from kingman to seligman past the aubrey cliffs to williams, then to flagstaff along route 66.

[LakeCleElum]

Pretty powerful ending for a young college kid back in those days. My friend just stood there and stared at the screen for several minutes. Like they say: " If you can remember the '70's, you weren't there!!!!!!!!!!"

[URY914]

Speaking of long hair hippies passing thru the South.....

I lived in the Florida panhandle for a while and one of the local rednecks to me a story. The 1968 National Convention of the Republican Party was held in at the Miami Beach Convention Center. To get to Miami from points west you drove on US 98 right thru some rough little towns. The local rednecks would wait around for VW vans full of "long hair hippies" headed to Miami to protest the war. When they would stop for gas the rednecks would just pick a fight and kick some azz for fun. He laughed and laughed when he told me this.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by LakeCleElum

Pretty powerful ending for a young college kid back in those days. My friend just stood there and stared at the screen for several minutes. Like they say: " If you can remember the '70's, you weren't there!!!!!!!!!!"

Except the film was made in, (and about), the '60s.

[techweenie]

Easy Rider was powerful because for at least 4 years before it, there was a rising sense of "us vs. them" in society. And this was a movie made from the "us" perspective for a big part of the population. Funny thing is, a lot of "them" found watching the movie to be a mind-opening experience.

Like a lot of other things, you just had to be there.

[varmint]

you can really spot the baby boomers.

no generation before or after can stand that movie.

[ramonesfreak]

the cemetery scenes bring back memories of my late teens and 20's.

[David]

I watched a biography on Nicholson the other day and it spent quite a lot of time on ER. They said Jack didn't smoke much then, but for the scene around the campfire (I think) they were really smoking pot and Jack was really stoned

I didn't realize what a long career Nicholson has and how close he was to quiting acting before he really got started.

[techweenie]

Originally Posted by 125shifter

I watched a biography on Nicholson the other day and it spent quite a lot of time on ER. They said Jack didn't smoke much then, but for the scene around the campfire (I think) they were really smoking pot and Jack was really stoned

I didn't realize what a long career Nicholson has and how close he was to quiting acting before he really got started.

He was just an errand boy on the studio lot until his mid-20s, as I recall. Only Roger Corman would hire him at first. I lived across Mulholland from him for 18 years. His house was pretty modest, but had about $10 million worth of art in it.

He really dodged a bullet in '77, since he and most of his pals had slept with their drug dealer, who turned out to be 13. Polansky took the heat for the entire group.

[VincentVega]

I saw Easy Rider for the first time a few months ago, big let down.

Not sure what I was expecting, but it was more than what I got out. There were several interesting characters and some good road footage but in general I thought it was boring.