Cisco and his partner Jesse (Harry Dean Stanton, billed as \u201cH.D. Stanton\u201d) had a couple of hits back in \u201967 and used to play the Troubadour fairly regularly. Cisco was a reliable weed connection for the scene \u2013 I\u2019m figuring he was to the music dudes what Harrison Ford was for the movie brats \u2013 yet as the years wore on, Cisco figured out he was better at being a drug dealer than he was at being a musician, especially after Jesse turned into a full-blown junkie and their careers fell by the wayside. But Cisco\u2019s been busted a couple of times and he\u2019s looking at serious prison time if he gets arrested again. \u201cThree strikes means five years,\u201d Kristofferson reminds us in his inimitable, bass-y drawl, \u201cand that\u2019s a lot of time between drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bad luck comes in the form of a crooked narcotics detective played by Gene Hackman, even twitchier and more off-putting than the still-in-theaters Popeye Doyle, while modeling some entertainingly square men\u2019s athletic wear. He\u2019s got a garage full of grass and wants Cisco to help him move ten grand worth by Monday morning. If he does, the friendly cop will help get his priors chucked. If he doesn\u2019t, the miserable pig will send him away. It\u2019s an impossible deadline that leads to our hero schlepping around Hollywood with his guitar case full of kilos. But the thing about dealing drugs is that Cisco\u2019s really good at it, and there\u2019s a pride in his work that seems to light Kristofferson from within, however disreputable the avocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cisco Pike<\/em> will never be confused with a well-plotted picture, but it\u2019s an especially effective portrait of a time and place, anchored by an effortlessly magnetic Kristofferson performance. The singer-songwriter contributed four songs to the soundtrack, including \u201cThe Pilgrim, Chapter 33,\u201d which would a few years later be immortalized by Cybill Shepherd in Taxi Driver<\/em> when she calls Travis Bickle \u201ca walking contradiction.\u201d It\u2019s my favorite Kristofferson song, and presumably explains how easily he inhabits the role of Cisco, who \u201chas tasted good and evil in your bedrooms and your bars, and he\u2019s traded in tomorrow for today. Running from his devils, Lord, and reaching for the stars, losing all he loves along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robert Towne was brought in by the studio to finesse Norton\u2019s original screenplay, and reportedly it was he who came up with the Hackman character and the ticking clock deadline to put a structure around Cisco\u2019s return to the drug trade. The film overlaps thematically with Towne\u2019s later script for Shampoo<\/em><\/a>, which conjures a similar \u201cparty\u2019s over\u201d vibe via a dreamer making a living on the periphery of the beautiful people who will never accept him as one of their own. Cisco deludes himself into thinking he can get back in the studio and live a straight life with a good woman (Karen Black, in a thankless role that must have seemed a huge comedown after her electrifying work in Five Easy Pieces<\/em><\/a>) but he only ever had one part to play in this scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s something wrenching about the resignation in Kristofferson\u2019s eyes when his demo tapes are ignored by industry players who only called him for his drug connections. The movie chronicles an ego death by a thousand pinpricks, the most amusingly brutal being when a groupie played by Joy Bang tells Kristofferson and Stanton that their big hit was her favorite song in junior high. A terrific, virtually plotless stretch of the picture finds the two musicians hanging with her and a pregnant party girl played by Warhol superstar Viva, capturing the shambling, anything-can-happen nature of endless nights in the Hollywood hills, after hours when the festivities carry on more out of habit than enthusiasm. (It\u2019s depressingly funny how Stanton has to keep modulating his drug intake in failed attempts to perform sexually. Eyeing his needle and works, an exasperated Kristofferson asks, \u201cIs that how you got hepatitis?\u201d) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Released as the back half of a double bill with the fascinatingly loopy Machine Gun McCain<\/em>, in which John Cassavetes, Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands hijacked an Italian gangster picture, Cisco Pike<\/em> was savaged by critics, with The New York Times<\/em>\u2019 Vincent Canby claiming<\/a> it took \u201call the discipline I can muster to keep from immediately walking out of the theater into my own streets and into my own life.\u201d The film was never released on VHS, and didn\u2019t hit DVD until 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Norton botches the final scenes pretty badly, with Hackman going crazy just because something needs to happen so the screenplay will be able to end. But what lingers with you about Cisco Pike<\/em> is the mood of the thing. It feels like a Kristofferson song, heavy and sparse and haunted by regret. It leaves you wondering, like the character in \u201cThe Pilgrim,\u201d if \u201cbelieving is a blessing or a curse, or if the going up was worth the coming down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Cisco Pike” is streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a>, Tubi<\/a>, and the Roku Channel<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/cisco2-1024x576.jpg\")
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