"Easy Rider" (BFI Publishing, paperback)
By Lee Hill

“Easy Rider,” starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson, roared into theaters in the summer of 1969, becoming “the first blockbuster hit of the Hollywood New Wave.” In his brief but incisive study, Easy Rider (BFI Publishing, paperback), scholar Lee Hill deftly analyzes this counterculture classic. He asserts that “Easy Rider” was “not just the vision of one man.” Rather, it “was the creation of a highly talented collective” that included Fonda, Hopper, Nicholson, Terry Southern, Bert Schneider, Bob Rafelson, Lazslo Kovacs, and Henry Jaglom. The fourth highest-grossing movie of the year, “Easy Rider” earned two Oscar nominations: Best Original Screenplay (Fonda, Hopper, and Southern) and Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson). Of course, it also boasted a stellar soundtrack, “an essential part of the film’s success,” with cuts by such artists as the Byrds, the Band, Steppenwolf, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Hill views “Easy Rider” as the “ultimate road movie.” It follows “two hippie bikers” (Fonda as Wyatt and Hopper as Billy) as they travel from California across America after a major drug deal. Along the way, they befriend a hard-drinking Texas civil rights attorney, George Hanson (Nicholson), who delivers the picture’s memorable “this used to be a helluva good country” speech. By movie’s end, Hanson, Wyatt, and Billy all fall victim to Dixie Neanderthals.

Hill, author of A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern, convincingly argues that the novelist and screenwriter, “a hip man of letters who loved the possibilities of film,” (Candy, The Magic Christian, Dr. Strangelove) made significant contributions to “Easy Rider.” According to Hill, “Southern’s extensive work and input were played down by Hopper and Fonda after [the film’s] release in favour of the more exotic notion that the screenplay was largely improvised.”

Hill provides fascinating tidbits throughout his text. For example, early working monikers of the movie were The Loners and Mardi Gras. Southern, however, “came up with the [film’s final] title, a gritty colloquialism for a man who lives off the earnings of a whore.” Hill contends that Southern’s “title was a stroke of genius: simple, imagistic and allusive. It reinforced the basic pitch of two bikers ‘on the road’ but also focused the idea that America had become lazy and materialistic in its pursuit of money at all costs.”

Bruce Dern and Rip Torn were considered for the role of George Hanson. But Nicholson gave an “astonishing” performance. Hanson, Hill maintains,” is empathetic, insightful, witty, passionate, spontaneous, aware of his faults and open to new ideas…[He] is only in a quarter of the film, but his presence is so warm and charismatic that even critics who hated ‘Easy Rider’ were won over by the character and Nicholson’s performance.”

Hill’s volume is part of the British Film Institute’s Modern Classics Series, which also includes Will Brooker’s Star Wars and Joan Mellen’s In the Realm of the Senses. Pop culture enthusiasts, particularly those interested in Sixties cinema, will enjoy Hill’s commendable book. However, it should be supplemented by the second chapter (“Who Made Us Right?”) of Peter Biskind’s indispensable Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.