Out of the Blue

A PITCH DARK PORTRAIT OF THE 15-year-old punk-rock girl Cindy's meaningless life. Her father is in jail after having driven his truck, while drunk, into a school bus full of children, of whom many were killed. When he returns from jail, Cindy all of a sudden remembers that he has abused her sexually and she kills him. After that she blows up herself and her drug-abusing mother._
Comment:
OUT OF THE BLUE WAS A MOVIE THAT I went to act in, to play the father. It was a new director who had never directed before. Paul Lewis, who had been my production manager on Easy Rider and my producer on The Last Movie, was the executive producer. He told me that I should look at the rushes, because nothing was usable. I said that maybe he didn't understand what the young director was trying to do, and refused because I didn't want to upset the first time director. I got into wardrobe everyday, and sat in my trailer, but never worked.
After two weeks, Paul Lewis came to me and said that he was closing down production. He told me that I would be paid, but he was ending the production. I asked to look at the work that had been done. I was shown two and one half hours of film, none of it usable. Over the weekend I took over as director with full autonomy. I rewrote the entire screenplay, and started shooting on Monday. We shot it in 4 1/2 weeks, and I edited it in six weeks. It was one of the twenty-two films in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981, nearly winning Best Actress for Linda Manz. There is another group of people who feel that this is my best film. _
DENNIS HOPPER