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"Easy Rider" 1969 Movie
![color still from "Easy Rider" [1969]](images/stillEasyRider-color.jpg) |
Synopsis
Filmed in California, Arizona & Louisiana, and around Taos, Madrid & Santa Fe in New Mexico. Wyatt and Billy, two long-haired California bikers, complete a drug deal and stash the money in their motorcycle gas tanks, then set out across America toward the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans. They meet both friendly and hostile people, get thrown in jail, and get released with help from a drunken lawyer, who decides to travel with them to New Orleans. Down the road, the trio are run out of town and then beaten in their sleeping bags, with the lawyer killed by a machete cut to the neck. Billy & Wyatt continue to New Orleans, pick up two prostitutes, and experience an LSD 'acid trip' that goes badly. Billy & Wyatt decide that they 'blew it' in their search for freedom, but continue on toward Florida, expecting to retire on the drug money in their tanks. But fate intervenes, in the form of two lowlifes in a pickup truck with a shotgun.
History of The Film
'Easy Rider' entry at Wikipedia
Magic Lantern's 'Biker Movies' Film Festival Page
"Easy Rider"
[Columbia Pictures July 1969]
Co-written & directed by Dennis Hopper; co-produced & co-written by Peter Fonda; co-written by
Terry Southern;
cinematography by Laszlo Kovacs; music by Roger McGuinn; bike builder Ben Hardy;
starring Peter Fonda,Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Luke Askew & Karen Black; Oscar nominations
for Best Supporting Actor [JN] & Best Original Script; added to National Film Registry (1998)
film credits at Internet Movie Database
film entry at Wikipedia
 |
"Easy Rider" screenplay [1969] by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper & Terry Southern Signet 7x5 mass pb [12/69] out of print/used |
 | "Easy Rider" critical text [1996] by Lee Hill
British Film Institute 7¼x5 pb [11/96] out of print/used |
 | "Easy Rider" soundtrack albums
Hip-O remastered soundtrack CD [3/2004] 29 tracks on 2 disks for $29.48 M.C.A. soundtrack CD [6/2000] 10 tracks for $9.68 |
"Easy Rider: Shaking The Cage" [Columbia TriStar Oct 1999]
65-minute documentary film co-produced, written & directed by Charles Kiselyak
available on DVD & Blu-ray above •
full credits at IMDb
"Easy Rider: The Ride Back" [indep Sept 2009]
 |
A sort of prequel to "Easy Rider"; looks at the family of biker Wyatt (the role made famous by Peter Fonda) and the family's struggles from the 1940s forward, and how their love of motorcycles and the freedom of the open road was formed.
Co-produced, co-written & directed by Dustin Rikert; starring Chris Engen, Michelle Borth, Jeff Fahey, Newell Alexander, Thomas Blankenship, Phil Pitzer, Sheree J. Wilson, Rance Howard, Lauralee Bell & Michael Nouri
DVD/Blu-ray not available • full credits at IMDb • official movie site |
Related Fiction & Non-Fiction
"Easy Riders, Raging Bulls"
 | "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How The Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood" [1998] by Peter Biskind S&S/Touchstone 7x5½ pb [4/99] for $12.24 Bloomsbury Paperbacks 7¾x5 pb [9/99] out of print/many, many used Simon & Schuster 9¼x6¼ hardcover [4/98] out of print/many, many used book entry at Wikipedia |
 | feature documentary film [BBC-TV March 2003] 2-hour documentary covering significant films of the late 1960s & early 1970s: Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" [1968], "Easy Rider" [1969], Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" [1969], "Midnight Cowboy" [1969], Francis Ford Coppola's "The Rain People" [1969], Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" [1970], Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show" [1971], Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" [1971], Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets" [1973], George Lucas's "American Graffiti" [1973], Hal Ashby's "Shampoo" [1975] starring Warren Beatty, Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" [1976], and Scorsese's "Raging Bull [1980] Adapted & directed by Kenneth Bowser, based on Peter Biskind's book; narrated by William H. Macy Shout! Factory color DVD [5/2004] 2 disks for $15.00 full credits at IMDb |
http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Rider-BFI-Modern-Classics/dp/085170543X/
http://www.amazon.com/Trippin-Terry-Southern-Think-Remember/dp/0786441143/
http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Rider-Terry-Southern/dp/0800122429/
http://www.amazon.com/Rider-Nancy-Schlossberg-Marilyn-Hardin/dp/B000L3B9HE/
Principals
producer-actor Peter Fonda
actor-director Dennis Hopper [1936-2010]
cinematographer László Kovács -1933-2007]
http://www.amazon.com/New-Wave-King-Cinematography-Laszlo/dp/0935578196/
composer Roger McGuinn
actor Jack Nicholson
http://www.amazon.com/Five-Easy-Decades-Nicholson-Biggest/dp/0470422823/
writer Terry Southern [1924-95]
'Easy Rider' Links
Taos, New Mexico's 40th Anniversary "Summer of Love" Filmfest
U.K. 'Forty Years of EasyRider' fansite
40th Anniversary Easy Rider Road Trip article & Interactive Map at Slate [Nov 2009]
See also Magic Lantern Video & Book Store's
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