Preferring to work with natural light, Hopper was granted $20,000 to shoot parts of New Orleans with 16mm Bolex cameras, hidden in Fonda’s bags. He understood framing.” Shooting commenced on 23 February, 1968, with Terry Southern assigned to write the treatments. Hooking up with two prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) in a whorehouse in the French Quarter of New Orleans, they revisit the mardi gras parade, experiencing a hallucinogenic breakdown under the influence of LSD.įonda, as producer and co-writer, picked Hopper to director the project because, “He had the passion… the ability to see form and substance much better than I.
Resented, abused and insulted for their apparent defiance as ‘non-conformists’ and therefore, the enemy, the three beat a hasty retreat, only to be pursued and attacked where Hanson is beaten to death. Now a trio, they visit a small-town diner where the local rednecks take an instant dislike to these representatives of the counterculture. Arrested and jailed for parading without a permit, they fester behind bars of the county jailhouse, where they meet alcoholic ACLU lawyer & UFO nerd George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), whom they recognise as a fellow bohemian drop-out and someone who can secure their bail.
First they stumble upon a ‘Switch-off, Tune-in and Drop-out’ hippie commune, then a native American reservation, before gatecrashing the annual Mardi Gras parade.
On the way to Miami they encounter the culture clash of a divided America. Having successfully acquired their contraband, they travel to LA and sell their stash for a hefty profit, then, head out West for adventure towards the East Coast. Introduced to the strains of Steppenwolf’s psychedelic rock anthem ‘Born to Be Wild’, the two renegades mount chopper bikes, speeding over the winding bridges and highways of Mexico en route to scoring drugs. Riding in tandem is Dennis Hopper, (his co-star from The Trip), as the buckskinned Billy (The Kid) a paranoid, long-haired cowboy. Fonda’s Wyatt, is the mellow ‘Captain America’, resplendent in tight black leather with the American flag emblazoned upon his jacket, helmet and Harley Davidson. “Well, that’s what happened to America – Liberty became a whore and the whole country took an easy ride.”Īdopting the style of a John Ford western, Easy Rider charts the (mis)adventures of two outlaws riding roughshod across the vast tracks and terrain of the US in their quest for a quick profit and spiritual enlightenment.
“Easy Rider is a term for a whore’s old man not a pimp, but a dude who lives with a chick,” he explained. Securing a budget of $400,000, Fonda decided to produce a new type of road movie. He didn’t believe that Doris Day’s Pillow Talk reflected a society marred by civil unrest, political assassinations, segregation, recreational drugs and sexual permissiveness.
JACK NICHOLSON EASY RIDER MOVIE
“We need to make more movies like Dr Doolittle!” Having experienced success with low-budget biker movie The Wild Angels, which earned $16 million, Valenti’s comments infuriated Fonda. “It’s time we stop making movies about motorcycles, sex and drugs,” said Valenti. It was in September 1967, during the publicity tour of The Trip in Toronto, that Peter Fonda first encountered Jack Valenti, the President of MPAA.
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