Movie Review by Greg Goodsell
Just before the disastrous premiere of Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), compatriots Lawrence Schiller and L. M. Kit Carson hung out at Dennis Hopper's hippie compound in Taos, New Mexico to document what the countercultural phenomenon – ever since his breakthrough feature Easy Rider (1969) that was then – Dennis Hopper. Those expecting a spokesman for a new generation were probably soundly disappointed. Like his contemporary William S. Burroughs, Hopper was an unabashed fan of the Second Amendment (“I think that, in our lifetime, a man without a gun is a fool.”). Even worse, his view on the fairer sex was strictly in line with Hugh Hefner's, if not belonging to the 18th Century's. Women were strictly a commodity to Hopper at that time and were intended to be exploited. A crisis arises after dicking around, sitting around talking about approaches to life and art, the filmmakers become acutely aware that the project at hand has no commercial potential and Hopper remedies this by recruiting some hippie bimbos from a nearby airport and fills the camera's lens with POOOOOO – SAAAAAAY. It all falls apart – as was Hopper's career following the debacle that was The Last Movie.
The American Dreamer only makes sense when set against the trajectory of Hopper's progression as a screen star. Cutting his teeth on low-budget exploitation movies with roles in Night Tide (1963) and Queen of Blood (1967), both directed by his friend Curtis Harrington, Hopper made it big with Easy Rider (1969), a rambling free-form road picture about two hippie bikers' cross-country trek across America. Easy Rider was a smash hit for near bankrupt Paramount Pictures, inspiring other filmmakers to cash in on this “hippie thing.” Giving one of the masterminds of this Cinematic Youthquake unlimited reign, Hopper would sort-of direct and sort-of complete The Last Movie, about an American film crew's negative influence on a Peruvian tribe. Starring Julie Adams from The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1956), Adams pops up in the film to assure the viewers that Hopper's heart was in the right place.