CISCO PIKE

US, 1972, 94 minutes, Colour.
Kris Kristofferson, Karen Black, Gene Hackman, Harry Dean Stanton..
Directed by Bill L. Norton.

US, 1972, 95 minutes, Colour.
Kris Kristofferson, Karen Black, Gene Hackman, Harry Dean Stanton, Viva, Roscoe Lee Browne, Severn Darden, Antonio Fargas, Howard Hesseman.
Directed by Bill L. Norton.

Cisco Pike has interesting credentials. It was the screen debut of singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson who continued for almost four decades as singer and actor. The film also stars Gene Hackman as a corrupt policeman. Karen Black is Kristofferson’s girlfriend and Harry Dean Stanton is his pal.

The film shows the drug scene in Los Angeles in the late 60s and early 70s. Kristofferson’s character spends a lot of his time driving around Los Angeles trying to offload a big deal in marijuana. He encounters Gene Hackman who wants the money for himself. Karen Black is his girlfriend – although in the anti-hero spirit of the times, Kristofferson is high and betrays her.

The film is interesting, if dated, in its re-creation of a particular subculture of the period. It was written and directed by Bill L. Norton who also made Gargoyles and More American Graffiti in the 1970s. From 1985 for more than two decades he was prolific in directing television films and episodes and television series.

1. Did you like this film? Was it interesting and entertaining?

2. Did it give insight into America in the sixties, at least into the sub-culture of drugs and the West Coast?

3. Cisco Pike as a character: as a singer of the sixties, who had got older, who had a past to remember but no present to rely on, who had dealt in drugs but who had reformed? Was he an interesting character in his situation?

4. Sue: what kind of girl, why in love with Pike, how sensible and understanding. was she a real help to him?

5. Leo Molland: What made him tick? His motivations, his work as a policeman, what had gone wrong with him, why was he so bitter? How was his downfall as a person shown by his trafficking in drugs? Was he in any way likeable or pitiable?

6. The predicament for Pike: Pike's suspicions about whether Holland's plan was a set-up or whether he was genuine, and the suspense that this created for him. and for the audience? Pike and the style in which his attempts to sell the drugs were filmed, the impact of this as realism? The parties the rich, the eccentric, the pressures that he felt? What did you feel about the morality of all this?

7. The obsessions of the policeman, and his growing mad obsession, continual watching, his being chased finally and killed? Was this inevitable? Why?

8. Pike's friends: the strange world of those involved with drugs? Are they easily understood? E.g. Myrna, Lynn, the music man?

9. Jessie: as a hopeless heroin addict; his death; Cisco and Sue dumping the body? What else were they to do?

10. The ending and the shooting? As a pessimistic ending to this kind of film?

11. Why did Cisco go on alone at the end; how ruthless, how irresponsible? What had he learnt? How disillusioned was he ? What future did he have?

12. Will this film be relevant always? Or is it already a glimpse of a world that has gone, that fashions have changed?