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EASY RIDER
_________________________FACTS___________________
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Starring:
Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nichols
<>Dennis Hopper didn't care too much for riding a chopper at that time (1969); however he liked the big "Hogs".
<>Peter Fonda loved motorcycles, all kinds and everything they offered and represented. He was a full fledged biker off the
set and actually very active at bike rallys.
<>Fonda went out and bought the 1951 Harley panheads ridden by both he and Hopper in the movie himself.
<>The chopper ridden by Fonda, "Captain America", was in the Alamo Museum (the car rental folks); where it is now????? NO!
it disappeared! It is said that on today's market, it would be priceless.
<>Fonda stated in a interview lately that the other bikes in the movie were stolen from a nearby Paramount warehouse shortly
after the film became a box office hit.
<>Jack Nicholson was selected because Hopper and Fonda saw him as he was: just a wild and crazy guy that liked to play silly,
unusual roles (the Joker in BatMan). Jack wasn't in to motorcycles at all.
<>There was several scenes that were cut due to nudity,
obscene acts, vulgar language and profanity which today would actually make a movie a box office hit.
<>The movie was filmed on location because it was cheaper to set up in the actual place than try to construct buildings and
fakey backgrounds. In the scene where Wyatt and Billy stop in tiny town, get arrested and meet George (Jack Nicholson), it
was truly filmed in a Texas town and jail; the lawman and townsfolk were for real.
<>Released in the spring of 1969, Easy Rider won an award for best film by a new director at the Cannes Film Festival that
year.
<>Members of the cast including Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda admit that they actually smoked pot in the film (and a lot of
it)
<>Fonda and Hopper left the script somewhat open to accommodate for local flavor as they shot. Most of the extras were the
folks that lived in the towns.
<>The Mardi Gras and cemetary scenes were filmed on location in New Orleans.
_______________________EASY RIDER_________________
*The Movie*
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Two bikers hit the road to find America in Dennis Hopper's anti-establishment classic. After a major cocaine sale to an L.A.
connection (Phil Spector), free-wheeling potheads Billy (Hopper) and Wyatt aka Captain America (Peter Fonda, who also produced)
motor eastward to party at Mardi Gras before "retiring" to Florida with the riches concealed in Wyatt's stars-and-stripes
gas tank. As they ride through the Southwest, they take a hitchhiker to a struggling hippie commune before they get thrown
in a small-town jail for "parading without a permit." Their cellmate, drunken lawyer George Hanson (Jack Nicholson, does
them a "groovy" favor by getting them out of jail and then decides to join them. Babbling about Venusians, George discovers
the joys of smoking grass, but an encounter with Southern rednecks soon proves how right he is about the danger posed by Billy's
and Wyatt's unfettered life in a country that has lost its ideals. With the straight world closing in, Wyatt and Billy try
to revel in New Orleans with some LSD and hookers (Karen Black and Toni Basil), but the acid trip is shot through with morbidity.
Once they reach Florida, Billy raves about attaining the American dream; Wyatt, however, knows the truth: "We blew it."
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*******This is a "must see" movie, a real classic.
*******An adventurous, down-to-earth, serious, comical, sad, bizarre, true to life movie (Rated PG13)
*******It has a moral and in many scenes shows just how "narrow-minded" and prejudiced Americans can be.
******* There is much music in each scene by 60's artists such as:
Steppenwolf, The Byrds and others of that era.
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