The Hired Hand.

Review #2414: The Hired Hand.

Cast: 

Peter Fonda (Harry Collings), Warren Oates (Arch Harris), Verna Bloom (Hannah Collings), Robert Pratt (Dan Griffen), Severn Darden (McVey), Rita Rogers (Mexican Woman), Ann Doran (Mrs. Sorenson), Ted Markland (Luke), Owen Orr (Mace), Al Hopson (Bartender), Megan Denver (Janey Collings), and Michael McClure (Plummer) Directed by Peter Fonda.

Review: 

“I’m sure they would have liked me to do another biker movie. But I wanted to try something different — something more like what my father might have done. I wanted to do a western, because it’s the genre where you can explore the mythologies of America. And, yeah, because of my own psychological links to the genre, because of the many my dad did. I felt I had to do this one because there were no clichés in this script, just western mythology.”

Hey, remember Easy Rider (1969)? That was the movie where Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda worked together on the counterculture movie-oh, sorry, was having a bit of deja vu. But hey, this movie is a directing debut, believe it or not. Fonda had directed exactly zero other things before this movie, no industrial stuff, no TV stuff. Universal gave money to Hopper and Fonda and plenty of privilege to make something for them that presumably would make oodles of money: Hopper went to Peru and Fonda went to New Mexico (okay he filmed a cameo for The Last Movie) and ended up making movies that, well, didn't exactly please the studio. Fonda was interested in the script, as written by Alan Sharp, a Scottish novelist that had gone from TV to film with The Last Run (1971). As it turned out, Sharp would be behind a handful of scripts of varying quality ranging from Night Moves (1975) to The Osterman Weekend (1983) to Rob Roy (1995). Fonda stated in later years that while he expected Easy Rider to make money, he didn't think about the idea of being an icon, and it was with The Hired Hand he wanted to "break that mold" (apparently, one instance of filming was briefly interrupted by a drive-in theater that nearby was playing, well, Easy Rider). At any rate, The Hired Hand was only shown for a few weeks in first-run engagement and Fonda contended that Universal wasn't behind the movie in general.* Apparently, the studio was going to do a billboard promoting the movie with Fonda in a cowboy hat and a billing of "That Easy Rider Rides Again!" that Fonda explicitly (read: preparing to blow it up) told them to take it down. Fonda directed just two more movies in his lifetime: The Idaho Transfer (1975) and Wanda Nevada (1979). The movie did live on in the drive-in circuit for a number of years and even being edited for TV (twenty minutes were actually put back in the movie, featuring Larry Hagman as a sheriff) before a DVD restoration happened in the 2000s, and the movie has a handful of admirers that include Martin Scorsese. Apparently, Fonda showed the movie to his father Henry late in his life, whereupon he stated, "Now, that’s my kind of western."

Admittedly, you can see where Universal probably wasn't big on the movie by the fact that it is a movie firmly about trying to settle oneself in the frontier rather than a slap-bang adventure. Anything that dwells on someone trying to move on from the dusty trail (and finding a reality that probably is a bit feminist, at least in some arguments) rather than duels in the desert has to sound like an art film to those without some sort of patience for a film that just soothes the soul of those who look (and hear) closer. Oh sure, the movie does feature a bit of action throughout its 93-minute runtime, but you will dwell more on the fact that some people really can't just go home again more than anything. The young (as seen in the opening sequence) might not understand what it means to rest, but the weary know all too well about knowing about the grass and how green it seems on the other side. It is funny to see a movie with three distinct presences that grace the screen with varying levels of sensitivity that you sometimes don't even see with experienced directors. Fonda and his understated nature come clear in a yearning that is striking when compared to what one sees with Oates and his natural instincts that does in fact also know what it means to care about certain folks and their feelings. Bloom has her own distinct interests that do not revolve around just letting old wounds go by the wayside. This is made clear in a sequence where she in fact says, yes, she had plenty of time to plow her field when her husband was away. A good chunk of the movie is driven by the very fact that the touch of a person like Bloom sounds more captivating than being on the road any longer but also that one has to earn one's trust and so on and so forth, since it all deals with responsibility in love and friendship. Granted, it isn't a movie to see a terrifying threat (Darden spends a chunk of it crippled, as one does when one's feet have bullets in them), but the resulting clash at the end probably makes for it quite well. The music was composed by Bruce Langhorne, the folk musician who apparently was the inspiration for the Bob Dylan song "Mr. Tambourine Man". Langhorne* did music here with the sitar, fiddle, and banjo and went on to do a handful more movies (ranging from the aforementioned Idaho movie to Melvin and Howard [1980]). Much like the landscape, it sure is a hell of a thing to experience. As a whole. what we have here is a sobering look on responsibility in the frontier for a "far out Western" that might be just up your alley for those looking for a sobering type of movie.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*I like this one quote by Fonda: “They had no intention, I think, of getting behind it. They hated me and Hopper, but mostly me and Bert Schneider. Yeah, they thought we were trying to overthrow the system. I mean, how egotistical. Overthrow the government, yeah. But Hollywood? Jesus, no…”

*Langhorne, I should point out, did his music without the use of two (and a half) fingers, as he had suffered an accident as a youth. 

The Last Movie.

Review #2413: The Last Movie.

Cast: 

Dennis Hopper (Kansas), Stella Garcia (Maria), Don Gordon (Neville Robey), Julie Adams (Mrs. Anderson), Peter Fonda (The Young Sheriff), Sylvia Miles (The Script Clerk), Samuel Fuller (Sam), Dean Stockwell (Billy the Kid), Russ Tamblyn (Charlie Bowdre), Tomas Milian (The Priest), Toni Basil (Rose), Severn Darden (The Mayor), Roy Engel (Harry Anderson), Henry Jaglom (The Minister's Son), Warren Finnerty (The Banker), Michelle Phillips (The Banker's Daughter), Kris Kristofferson (The Minstrel Wrangler), Michael Anderson Jr (The Mayor's Son), and Rod Cameron (Pat Garrett) Directed by Dennis Hopper (#1430 - Easy Rider).

Review: 

“I'm trying to say our lives are fragmented. That some people care and some people don't care and some don't know how to care."

Hey, remember Easy Rider (1969)? That was the movie where Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda worked together on the counterculture movie to end all counterculture movies. The veracity of who wrote what with that movie (as also worked on by Terry Southern) is debatable, but what you saw with that movie was one directed by Hopper and starring him and Fonda that, well, yes, it was a hit. Hopper and Fonda would go into their own paths after the success of the movie because studios thought that they could replicate movies like that (cheap and "cool") for themselves. Paradoxically, the idea for what became The Last Movie came a number of years prior to Easy Rider, as Hopper, in the midst of finishing The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), came up with an idea during the wrap party under the influence of what else but pot that saw him come up with an idea about "making movies and the effect it has on people, and what they do when a movie company leaves town." Enter Stewart Stern. Hopper enlisted the services of the screenwriter (having done such scripts as Rebel Without a Cause [1955]), with each partaking in certain practices (namely blowing smoke down the snorkel of a scuba mask) that resulted in a script that would have a "far out" ending involving the culmination of a stuntman staying in a Latin American town and seeing the people react to a film company having shot a Western there. Long story short, the idea would go through several hands considered for producers and stars (Phil Spector was once thought to be involved as a producer alongside Jason Robards to star). The success of Easy Rider would make one think that the company led by Bert Schneider would back The Last Movie, but that was not to be. Instead, Universal Pictures dropped right in and even gave him final cut privileges as long as he did it on a tight budget. There are various roads that all seem to intersect with the making of the film, which started in Peru in 1970 and went through a road of drugs and other various substances behind the scenes (as captured in The American Dreamer, a documentary that followed Hopper around that at one point showed him carry a gun around), although the shoot itself was apparently not that chaotic. Funny thing about that script: Hopper basically junked it in favor of improvisation, not even bothering to shoot the ending (as noted by Stern, because Hopper asked him to come to New Mexico when he was editing it down). It eventually culminated in a disjointed print in 1971 (apparently, Alejandro Jodorowsky, director of films such as El Topo, had a hand in the editing process). The end result, after such strange sorrow, was a movie that barely made it into theaters and was essentially dropped by Universal with the energy of a wayward child being dumped onto a military school. Hopper (who took the movie on lecture tours as late as 1978) did not direct another movie until Out of the Blue (1980). The movie was not available on DVD for many years and a restoration of the movie only happened in 2018.*

Universal apparently had the belief that if you gave a couple of young directors a budget of $1 million, you would get something worthwhile. The result was the following: Douglas Trumbull made Silent Running, Monte Hellman made Two-Lane Blacktop, George Lucas made American Graffiti, Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand and the aforementioned Last Movie as made by Hopper. Honestly, the only way to view the movie is to just see it. You can't really get a great description of the movie that isn't just describing things that happen (such as "scene missing" or credits that pop up out of the blue). It wasn't exactly a critic favorite (Roger Ebert called it a "wasteland of cinematic wreckage"). It isn't even a movie you could watch for the acting, unless you want to see people improvise on the level just above dinner theater or to see the weird wacky weary world of one Dennis Hopper. It probably won't do many favors to those who thought Zabriskie Point (1970) was obtuse to watch. But it is quite the trip for 108 minutes to realize that reality and ritual can in fact collide for what you might call a new type of heaven or hell. One probably fades in and out about the same level as this movie does, complete with having an uncertain road close right from under one's skin. The whole movie could be called as one that gets under your skin: arrogant, free-wheeling, beautiful to look at (as shot by the famed László Kovács), rambling, pick any adjective you want. But there is something about it that is hard to resist when it comes to just calling it a mess. Hopper is a fascinating presence to be around even in the moments that might resemble a drifter on a stormy night. You'll see people come and go (yes, the director Samuel Fuller appears at one point alongside the film debut of the immeasurable Kristofferson) and that I suppose is just how it feels in our own lives to have people love and betray us in where they come and go (a chunk of this might sound like syrupy hokum, but life is bullshit enough before one goes around not saying what they think, don't you think?). Real or imagined, we live the life we make for ourselves and sometimes that can be a slice of heaven or a piece straight from hell. We see violence on TV and film and sometimes we just believe that it is something to slip by us with no muddling into our own lives but it does fester in us because that is just how things are as one of the supposed creatures of a certain power. It is a bit funny to see Universal foot the bill for such a weird movie. In truth, it took me a while to ponder what the hell I watched with this movie and the end result is that I found it to be a curious movie that exists in the realm of near-unrankability: you either will like it or you won't like it, but at least Hopper made something he could be proud of cultivating.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*By sheer coincidence, that was the same year that The Other Side of the Wind (the movie where Hopper appeared in that was shot in the 1970s) came out.