The Last Movie Blu Ray Review (Arbelos)

The Last Movie is a 1971 drama film directed by Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider, Colors, The Hot Spot, Chasers, & Out of the Blue). This is based off Hopper’s experience on The Sons of Katie Elder. Universal launched a project to give five young film makers $1 million each & give them free rein to create a movie with little to no intervention from the studio. Dennis Hopper was trying to make this film for years but only got the opportunity after the success of Easy Rider. The script was from Rebel Without a Cause writer Stewart Stern. Cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky did his own edit of the project & he was an influence for the feature. Hopper shot 40 hours of footage for the production. It won the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival. This release was a complete disaster & Hopper didn’t get a chance to direct for another 9 years after this! Two documentaries were made about The Last Movie which were The American Dreamer & Scene Missing.

Kansas (played by: Dennis Hopper from The American Friend, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Blue Velvet, Hoosiers, & Speed) is a stunt coordinator in charge of horses on a western being shot in a small Peruvian village. Following a tragic incident on the set where an actor is killed in a stunt, he decides to quit the movie business & stay in Peru with a local prostitute Maria (played by: Stella Garcia from The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, Eye for an Eye, & Joe Kidd). He’s looking for redemption & he starts to think he found his own personal paradise until a Priest (played by: Tomas Milian from The Big Gundown, Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!, Don’t Torture a Duckling, & Almost Human) asks for his help with a strange incident happening in town. The Peruvian natives decide to make their own movie with the sets left from the previous production. They think everything is real & the violence in their film can’t be re shot because reality is taking over fantasy here.

You can tell The Last Movie was Dennis Hopper’s most his personal passion project. He put everything into it & took so many risks for it. He had a huge buzz after directing Easy Rider & basically could do anything that he wanted in the movie industry. This is what he decided to do after all that success & it didn’t go as planned for the filmmaker. The location & setting for The Last Movie is as much as a major character as any actor in the actual feature. It was beautifully shot by cinematographer László Kovács (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Ghostbusters, Blood of Dracula’s Castle, & Say Anything) & the music had the perfect vibe for the production. Dennis Hopper called in some favors & put together a real solid supporting cast plus some nice cameos. Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Samuel Fuller, John Phillip Law, Toni Basil, & Julie Adams all made appearances here. Dennis Hopper gives his bravest performance in this & it’s one of true highlights from his impressive acting career. His character looks for redemption & walks away from everything to make a drastic change in his life. I thought the first half was much stronger compared to the rest. It kinda went incoherent & crazy after that which isn’t exactly a bad thing but it was hard to follow at times. That’s mainly the editing & how it was put together after a few experiments. It gives it a unique vision & it definitely stands out from other productions made at the same time. It was very entertaining & it had lots of action. I really liked this especially when it got darker. It’s the type of cinema I think needs multiple viewings to fully appreciate it because it grows on you. It’s wild that it’s been forgotten & faded away all this time. RECOMMENDED!!!!

Let’s talk about the high definition presentation from Arbelos on this new blu ray release! This 1080p (1.85:1) transfer from a 4K restoration from the original camera negative looks AMAZING! For a film that’s been basically lost & forgotten for all these years, it’s very impressive to see this at it’s highest quality ever on home video. The locations look great here. The English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track has a nice punch to it. The dialogue is very clean, the action is elevated, & the music has never sounded better. It also includes English SDH.

Let’s discuss the special features from Arbelos! A little over a minute “Introduction” from director & actor Dennis Hopper from 2007. It has all kinds of promotional material which include the original “Theatrical Trailer”, “1971 Product Reel”, & a “2018 restored Trailer”. “Scene Missing” is a 47 minute documentary directed by Alex Cox. It has all kinds of interviews with various actors, members of the production crew, & associates of Dennis Hopper. They talk about how the project got started which includes Universal putting up $1 million each for 5 different independent films to be produced for them. The Last Movie was one of them but none of the features made any money for the studio. They chat about working with Dennis Hopper. He originally wanted to make this in Mexico but they wanted too much control over it. There’s a hilarious story about him getting the screenwriter high while they were doing the script for it. They bring up some of the actors & talent involved with the feature. They bring up the main character had a completely different name in the first draft. They talk about all the drugs & music done on the set while making this. They mention the editing process & how much the project got changed due to bad influences. They tell a story about Hopper getting into a fight at a Universal screening because of a negative opinion of the film. All the stories & experiences here sounded like this production was a wild ride for sure!

“Some Kind of Genius” is a 29 minute documentary about Dennis Hopper directed by Paul Joyce. It’s an interview with the legendary actor. He chats about how he got into acting. He talks about some of his influences & how working with James Dean changed everything for him when it came to performance. He brings up some experiences on the set. He mentions the trouble that he got into on a project & that he got blacklisted for a long time because of it. He brings up going outside of the studio system & doing lower budget/independent work. He chats about working on AIP productions & getting mote opportunities. This all lead to Easy Rider & meeting everyone involved with that. He talks about all the problems he had with The Last Movie. He got blacklisted again, he says he wrote a script every year that he wasn’t approached to direct anything which lasted 9 years after this feature. “Postcard from Peru” is a 31 minute featurette with interviews from various members of the Peruvian film crew directed by Daniel Garcia & Aurelio Medina. They talk about their experience on the feature & talk about what they did on the project. A decent of them had no experience before this. Lots of interesting stories here about what happened on set. They chat about working with Dennis Hopper. It has English subtitles. It has a 7 minute 1971 “Interview” with Dennis Hopper from The Dick Cavett Show. It has a 3 minute “Restoration Demo”. It wasn’t included with this review copy but the back lists it also has a 32 page booklet. This release is stacked & it has all kinds of cool extras related to The Last Movie. This lost film finally got some proper treatment on home video, check it out!!!!