Classic Movie Wednesday

Easy Rider (1969)

Two young "hippie" bikers, Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) sell some dope in Southern California, stash their money away in their gas-tank and set off for a trip across America, on their own personal odyssey looking for a way to lead their lives. Hilarity ensues as on the journey they encounter bigotry and hatred from small-town communities who despise and fear their non-conformism. However Wyatt and Billy also discover people attempting 'alternative lifestyles' who are resisting this narrow-mindedness, there is always a question mark over the future survival of these drop-out groups. The gentle hippie community who thank God for 'a place to stand' are living their own unreal dream. The rancher they encounter and his Mexican wife are hard-pushed to make ends meet. Even LSD turns sour when the trip is a bad one. Death comes to seem the only freedom. When they arrive at a diner in a small town, they are insulted by the local rednecks as weirdo degenerates. They are arrested on some minor pretext by the local sheriff and thrown in jail where they meet George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), a liberal alcoholic lawyer. He gets them out and decides to join them on their trip to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras.

Trivia: The Captain America jacket was designed by Peter Fonda and made by "two little old ladies" in Los Angeles. It was later sold at a charity auction. According to Peter Fonda, four police bikes were customized for the film. One was burned during filming, and the other three were stolen before filming was completed. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson were actually smoking marijuana on camera. During Jack Nicholson's "UFO" speech, Dennis Hopper was intent on getting him very stoned on marijuana. The laughing that eventually broke up his speech was not planned, and when Nicholson repeats the line "it....it....would be devastating...." was the next take. The final campfire scene was left out of the original shooting schedule and was shot after both motorcycles had been stolen. Some of the film was shot on 16mm film instead of 35mm. This was demo footage shot a year before production began. Some of the weird lighting effects in the LSD scene came about because a can of film was accidentally exposed when it was opened before being developed. Peter Fonda was an experienced motorcycle rider and the bike he rides in the movie is seriously stretched and raked and has tall "apehanger" style handlebars. Dennis Hopper was not as experienced a rider, therefore his bike is less radically chopped. Peter Fonda wore the Capt. America jacket and rode his chopper a week around L.A. before shooting began to give them a broken-in look and to get used to riding the radically designed bike. The American flag on the back of the jacket and on the gas tank of the bike caused him to be pulled over several times by the police. The rednecks in the Louisiana coffee shop who taunt the boys, and the two in the pickup truck at the end of the movie, were all local residents recruited by the filmmakers. In the case of the coffee shop denizens, the filmmakers were preparing to audition a group of local theater people when Dennis Hopper saw Causey, Lafont, et al, watching them and making wisecracks and decided to use them instead. It was one of the first films to make extensive use of previously released musical tracks rather than specially written film score. This is quite common with films now but was quite unusual at the time (the exception being the Beatles films and some other special cases). Hopper and Fonda did not write a full script for the movie and made most of it up as they went along. They didn't hire a crew and instead picked up hippies at communes across the country and used friends and passersby to hold the cameras and were drunk and stoned most of the time. Captain America's (Peter Fonda's) chopper was so "squirrely" to ride that at one stage Jack Nicholson (who was on the back) squeezed his knees on Peter Fonda's side to balance himself and broke one of Fonda's ribs.

Well, this was an interesting movie. There isn't really much dialog, a lot of it is Hopper and Fonda driving across America, which is beautiful. The most interesting part of this was the "making of" documentary. These guys made this on a shoe string budget and with the help of friends. They were also pretty much high the whole time. When you see them smoking marijuana on screen, they are smoking the real stuff. The cocaine was powdered sugar, but the marijuana was real.