Cisco Pike
A has-been rock star, a crooked cop and a lot of money.
Just released from prison for drug-dealing, Cisco Pike (Kris Kristofferson) dreams of making a comeback. A once-famous rock singer, he finds his music contacts are more interested in his dope connections than his new songs. Pike's plans to go straight, however, go somewhat awry when he's blackmailed by a crooked narc (Gene Hackman) into selling $10,000 worth of stolen marijuana. Forced back into a business he thought he was out of, Pike drops in on friends, groupies and musicians as he tries to move a 100 kilo stash in just 53 hours. Co-starring Karen Black, Harry Dean Stanton, Doug Sahm, Joy Bang and Warhol superstar Viva!, Cisco Pike is a revealing look at the LA music scene of the early '70s, off-beat, unique and "surprisingly good. ***" (Leonard Maltin).
Member Reviews
Kris Kristopherson's Debut Film - newdaysof
A very young Kris Kristopherson plays Cisco Pike, a young musician who deals dope on the side. He wants to quit dealing, but a narcotics officer played by a young Gene Hackman, forces him into one last major dealing spree.
This was Kristopherson's first film and he obviously has a lot of charm, good looks and talent. He's got a baby face but also has a lot of poise and determination. He also wrote three songs from the film's soundtrack, the title song is a simple but beautiful country ballad that is somewhat autobiographical. The young and incredibly gorgeous Karen Black plays his girlfriend and acts as the good side of his conscience.
The film takes a look at the drug scene in the early 70's: it was an idealist time when people freely gave sex and drugs and enjoyed music. But with every party, there is a hangover, and this film shows the upside as well as the downside. It's an interesting look at a long-gone era.Cisko Pike - Coco
You would be well advised to start here if you need to get the straight dope on what your now sixty-five-year-old high school math teacher thinks “counterculture” means. Kristofferson plays the titular dimebag disseminating country crooner with the hard livin’ zazen reserve and secretly ethical streak. Karen Black is his soulful, put-upon but always there lifemate and partner in bathetic cuddling, and Harry Dean Stanton seems to have researched heavily for his role as a speed and hooch addicted bandmate with an inferiority complex the size of the Delaware, his eyes congealing into pools even before he bites it, rigged up and out in Viva’s Warholian WC. What we basically have here is an odd early-70s combo pack of countercultural Warhol “star” saturation (essentially an extended Factory-style screen test for Kristofferson), after school FDA “say no to etc.” moral imperative community-communiqué, and something like a bargain basement French Connection, co-starring Gene Hackman, shading in the margins parenthetically (it should have been Rip Torn, if you ask me). All of Cisco Pike's songs come from Kristofferson’s album The Silver Tongued Devil And I, in an unprecedented marketing coup for Sony (if, of course, anybody actually saw or enjoyed this movie upon its release). At one point Cisko even allows a hot bar lady to take him home, calling her “you silver tongued devil!” The film is as silly and dated as Midnight Cowboy, if a little more believable in its basic conceit that to live right you must live against other people's ideas concerning how such a thing is done, while respecting them and allowing them their ground. A movie that, if you are like me, you will want to like considerably more than it actually is possible to.
cOcO2
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Kris Kristopherson's Debut Film - newdaysof
A very young Kris Kristopherson plays Cisco Pike, a young musician who deals dope on the side. He wants to quit dealing, but a narcotics officer played by a young Gene Hackman, forces him into one last major dealing spree.
This was Kristopherson's first ...Cisko Pike - Coco
You would be well advised to start here if you need to get the straight dope on what your now sixty-five-year-old high school math teacher thinks “counterculture” means. Kristofferson plays the titular dimebag disseminating country crooner with the hard livin’ ...