Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie ... bizarre, surreal

By Doug Gibson

I finally got a chance, via YouTube, to see the infamous "The Last Movie," the 1971 Universal bomb that starred directed Dennis Hopper. I'd always wanted to see it after reading about it almost 30 years ago in the Medved brothers book, "The 50 Worst Films of All Time." The film, which barely got a VHS release and has never been released on DVD, damaged Hopper's career for about 15 years.

Although, there is a small contingent of film fans who claim "The Last Movie" is a misunderstood genius, don't believe it. It's an incomprehensible, pretentious, expensive ego trip for the star, who had become a hot property due to "Easy Rider." Given $1 million by Universal to make a film, Hopper and many friends, hopped to a small town in rural Peru and shot a film. Purposely not shot in sequence (one waits almost 30 minutes before the title "The Last Movie" is shown, it stars Hopper as "Kansas," a stunt man for a Hollywood western film production. Kansas is shacked up with the town whore and decides to stay after the western filmmakers go home.

At this point, locals, egged on by a Catholic priest who hates Kansas and the others western film people, decide to make their own film. They use fake cameras (made of wood) and worse, real weapons and violence, that kill and main people. The priest blames Kansas, and he's wounded and on the run from the filmmaker villagers, who want to finish the film with Kansas as the villain.

This sounds mildly interesting but the film is shot out of sequence and with little coherence. The film "begins" with a wounded Kansas being hunted by villagers ... and so on, back and forth. At one point, the plot goes away and Kansas and a buddy visit a degenerate couple with plans to invest in a mine. The degenerate is played by Julie Adams, star of Creature of the Black Lagoon and once a girlfriend to "Andy Taylor" in The Andy Griffith Show. She's very fetching as a 40sh trophy wife but her performance is so bad it has to be seen to fully comprehend how bad it is. As poor as Hopper is in the film, Adams is beyond belief. The film has a couple of "erotic" scenes, including a voyeuristic one involving staged lesbianism.

The rest of the film flies back and forth sequentially. At one point is seems to settle with a climax of Hopper facing death in the villagers' "film," but then everything goes out the window and we're subject to what looks like outtakes from director Hopper. Then the film just ends, and the people of Chinchero, Peru are eventually thanked. ...

The backstory of the film is more interesting. As mentioned, Hopper was provided a million plus to make the film from Universal execs, who did not oversee the filmmaking. There are rumors, and from viewing the film I'd tend to agree, that drug use was frequent on the set. Apparently, Hopper did prepare a conventional, sequential version of a film. However, it was mocked by "El Topo" director Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Hopper, humiliated, tore apart the film and attempted to make a "deep" "metaphysical" "spiritual" incomprehensible adaptation that allegedly poked fun at materialism. Some of the co-stars include Adams, Tomas Milian, Sylvia Miles, Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law, James Mitchum, Dean Stockwell, Michelle Phillips, Russ Tamblyn and Kris Kristofferson, who sings.

The film horrified Universal execs. Despite winning a minor award at a Eiropean film festival, after it played in NYC, LA and a few other major cities, it was dumped into general release as a second or third feature on the drive in circuit, often titled "Chinchero." The film bombed, Hopper's career was harmed. Defiantly, he took the film on the road during the 70s, showing it on college campuses. After Hopper's career returned, he regained rights and before his death spoke of getting a DVD release. That never happened, although I'm sure one day there will be an art house label DVD release. When that occurs, don't expect much, but it's worth a peek just to experience the pretentious banality. Maybe it will pop up on TCM Underground some day. Watch the trailer above.

Queen of Blood a decent B sci-fi film of the '60s

By Doug Gibson

Not many know it, but the 1960s was a fertile field for low-budget science fiction space operas. Like 1970s slasher films, the sci-fi genre had not been co-opted by A studios yet. There was a wide variety of low budget scifi, running the gamut from Edgar Ulmer to Hugo Grimaldi to David Hewitt and even Mario Bava.

I'd say among the best of the lot was Bava's Planet of the Vampires, the worst including Space Probe Taurus and Hewitt's Wizard of Mars, although that kitschy film is still a lot of fun. Other mediocre offerings of low-budget scifi include The Human Duplicators, and also that silly film with Richard Kiel as an oafish monster that miniaturized spaceman overpower, when they're not making out with teeny alien women (can't recall the title). Hewitt's Journey To the Center of Time isn't too bad, though, despite its five and dime budget.

Somewhere in the middle, with a definite tilt toward the positive, is the 1966 scifi "Queen of Blood," which you can watch on Amazon Prime or buy as "Planet of Blood" from Sinister Cinema. As you can see above from the green alien woman, it has one creepy monster alien. I use the term "alien" because I think, not unreasonably, that this film played some inspiration for the eventual film "Alien." Our title monster is on a space ship with several astronauts, including an earth woman, and victims get picked off in solitary fashion.

So, the plot: Earth has discovered communications with aliens. The head of all this is a slumming Basil Rathbone, who chews the scenery well as a scientist/administrator who regards gathering and storing information on aliens as more important that the personal welfare of human astronauts, or frankly the earth's future. Speaking of astronauts, a couple of them are played by star John Saxon and future bigger star Dennis Hopper. The obligatory love interest female astronaut, and these films usually had 'em, was played by Judi Meredith.

Once earth learns that the aliens are in distress, earth sends some assistance. Eventually, our human astronauts discover a mysterious colorful (in the hue sense) alien woman (Florence Marley) who is as mentioned, creepy to the max. She doesn't talk, has a smile that would suit Medusa and shies away from any contact. While the astronauts are separated, she preys one the unlucky one, hypnotizing them and sucking out all their blood. The others discover their colleagues dead and the Queen of Blood asleep, with blood trickling from her mouth. She's satiated, until she wakes up again to feed.

Although on my first watch of the film I wished we could learn more about the alien, maybe have her speak, on second viewing I realized that keeping her silently mysterious, even after she's revealed as a killer adds to the sinister themes. Why is she doing this? Is she even aware of its evil, or is it normal behavior among her planet?

I won't give away any more of the plot except to point out that the film does extend beyond the action and horror to illustrate the callousness of scientific obsessives who care far more about keeping the blood-sucking aliens alive than the astronauts in their care. Rathbone is the chief example of this sentiment in the film.

Queen of Blood is a fun, at times shocking 1960s' offering. It was released through a larger studio, MGM, and made a lot of money, although the film has the look of a lower-budget offering. Saxon is good as the chief astronaut and Hopper exudes the charm that more audiences would discover.

Watch the trailer below and check this out if you haven't seen it.

Dennis Hopper's 'The Last Movie' is as bad as you've heard it is

By Doug Gibson

I finally got a chance, via YouTube, to see the infamous "The Last Movie," the 1971 Universal bomb that starred directed Dennis Hopper. I'd always wanted to see it after reading about it almost 30 years ago in the Medved brothers book, "The 50 Worst Films of All Time." The film, which barely got a VHS release and has never been released on DVD, damaged Hopper's career for about 15 years.

Although, there is a small contingent of film fans who claim "The Last Movie" is a misunderstood genius, don't believe it. It's an incomprehensible, pretentious, expensive ego trip for the star, who had become a hot property due to "Easy Rider." Given $1 million by Universal to make a film, Hopper and many friends, hopped to a small town in rural Peru and shot a film. Purposely not shot in sequence (one waits almost 30 minutes before the title "The Last Movie" is shown, it stars Hopper as "Kansas," a stunt man for a Hollywood western film production. Kansas is shacked up with the town whore and decides to stay after the western filmmakers go home.

At this point, locals, egged on by a Catholic priest who hates Kansas and the others western film people, decide to make their own film. They use fake cameras (made of wood) and worse, real weapons and violence, that kill and main people. The priest blames Kansas, and he's wounded and on the run from the filmmaker villagers, who want to finish the film with Kansas as the villain.

This sounds mildly interesting but the film is shot out of sequence and with little coherence. The film "begins" with a wounded Kansas being hunted by villagers ... and so on, back and forth. At one point, the plot goes away and Kansas and a buddy visit a degenerate couple with plans to invest in a mine. The degenerate is played by Julie Adams, star of Creature of the Black Lagoon and once a girlfriend to "Andy Taylor" in The Andy Griffith Show. She's very fetching as a 40sh trophy wife but her performance is so bad it has to be seen to fully comprehend how bad it is. As poor as Hopper is in the film, Adams is beyond belief. The film has a couple of "erotic" scenes, including a voyeuristic one involving staged lesbianism.

The rest of the film flies back and forth sequentially. At one point is seems to settle with a climax of Hopper facing death in the villagers' "film," but then everything goes out the window and we're subject to what looks like outtakes from director Hopper. Then the film just ends, and the people of Chinchero, Peru are eventually thanked. ...

The backstory of the film is more interesting. As mentioned, Hopper was provided a million plus to make the film from Universal execs, who did not oversee the filmmaking. There are rumors, and from viewing the film I'd tend to agree, that drug use was frequent on the set. Apparently, Hopper did prepare a conventional, sequential version of a film. However, it was mocked by "El Topo" director Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Hopper, humiliated, tore apart the film and attempted to make a "deep" "metaphysical" "spiritual" incomprehensible adaptation that allegedly poked fun at materialism. Some of the co-stars include Adams, Tomas Milian, Sylvia Miles, Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law, James Mitchum, Dean Stockwell, Michelle Phillips, Russ Tamblyn and Kris Kristofferson, who sings.

The film horrified Universal execs. Despite winning a minor award at a Eiropean film festival, after it played in NYC, LA and a few other major cities, it was dumped into general release as a second or third feature on the drive in circuit, often titled "Chinchero." The film bombed, Hopper's career was harmed. Defiantly, he took the film on the road during the 70s, showing it on college campuses. After Hopper's career returned, he regained rights and before his death spoke of getting a DVD release. That never happened, although I'm sure one day there will be an art house label DVD release. When that occurs, don't expect much, but it's worth a peek just to experience the pretentious banality. Maybe it will pop up on TCM Underground some day. Watch it above.