By Erin Free
When Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s 1969 counterculture masterpiece Easy Rider lit a fire under conservative Hollywood after it pulled down massive numbers at the box office, the major studios – always ready to chase a trend and make a buck, no matter how absurd it may be – started courting every hippie and free-thinker under the hard-baking LA sun, resulting in a slew of odd, freewheeling films that largely sank without a trace. Most were far from bad, but Easy Rider was a distinct and singular one-off, and its mammoth success was near impossible to duplicate.
1972’s Cisco Pike – the debut of talented writer/director B.L Norton, who would go on to helm More American Graffiti, before sadly disappearing into episodic television and TV movies – is a classic example of a post-Easy Rider wig-out released by a major studio. Though the Columbia Pictures logo sparkles away at the start of proceedings, Cisco Pike feels far more like a rusted-on indie. After all, how often do you see a drug dealer as the hero of a Hollywood studio movie?
In his first major big screen role, country singer Kris Kristofferson is all loose-limbed, raw-boned charisma and cool as Cisco Pike, a famous singer just out of prison for dealing grass. His efforts to get his life and career – as well as his relationship with Karen Black’s goofy but sensible sweetheart – back on track are almost instantly foiled when Leo Holland (a typically fierce and compelling Gene Hackman) – the jittery, idiosyncratic cop who put him behind bars – shows up on his doorstep with a particularly indecent proposal. The corrupt Holland has stolen a massive haul of top-grade weed, and he wants Cisco to sell it for him…or he’ll frame him and send him straight back to prison. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Cisco starts offloading the grass, beginning a tour through LA’s hip counterculture scene, which is surprisingly located in every socio-economic strata of the famously debauched city.
Boasting a lazy, laidback feel, and a supporting cast of wonderful oddballs (Andy Warhol “superstar” Viva and cult actress Joy Bang winningly play cute upper class drug fiends; Texan musician Doug Sahm plays a hipster singer; Harry Dean Stanton is Kristofferson’s decrepit former musical partner; Antonio Fargas is a drug dealer; and Severn Darden is a sleazy lawyer), Cisco Pike is a perfect piece of forgotten seventies cinema.
