Cisco Pike (1972)

Interesting facts

Cisco Pike is a 1971 American drama film that was written and directed by Bill L. Norton, and released by Columbia Pictures. The film stars Kris Kristofferson as a musician who, having fallen on hard times, turns to the selling of marijuana and is blackmailed by a police officer.

Background and production

Following the success of Easy Rider (1969), films depicting the ideals of the counterculture of the 1960s spawned the New Hollywood movement in film. Releases in this style which met a good audience reception in 1970 include Getting Straight, The Strawberry Statement and Five Easy Pieces.

UCLA graduate and Los Angeles–born Bill Norton wrote a draft of a story depicting the relationship between the contemporaneous music and drug scenes. Norton had worked as a director on short films for UCLA's film school, television commercials and rock-and-roll shorts. Norton came into contact with producer Gerald Ayres of Columbia Pictures and pitched the project to him.

Towne added the character of the corrupt police officer who forces Cisco Pike back into the drug world and further expanded the role of Cisco's girlfriend. Norton initially opposed the casting of Karen Black but relented when the studio imposed it as a condition for producing the film. Columbia felt Black's recent Best Supporting Actress nomination in the Academy Awards for Five Easy Pieces would help the promotion of the release.

Kris Kristofferson had made his film debut with a cameo appearance on Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie, which was unreleased at the time of Cisco Pike's production. After his debut performance as a singer at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour, Kristofferson was approached by Fred Roos, the casting director of Five Easy Pieces, who invited him to audition for his film debut for a leading role on Two-Lane Blacktop.

Filming began on November 2, 1970, initially under the working title Dealer, which was changed to Silver Tongued Devil (Kristofferson's 1971 album was entitled The Silver Tongued Devil and I). Ayres wrote some scenes of the film, and the script and storyline were altered while filming progressed. Editor Robert Jones contributed the ending of the story. Cisco Pike was mostly filmed on location around Venice Beach and its boardwalk.

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