The movie that got Dennis Hopper so drunk he baffled science: “He should have been clinically dead”
As one of Hollywood’s most legendary hellraisers, it’s hardly shocking to discover that Dennis Hopper celebrated his final day of shooting a movie by letting his hair down and getting absolutely hammered because that was par for the course with the hard-partying counterculture icon.
However, what is surprising is that he got so pissed he defied the very laws of science, consuming so much alcohol that it would have rendered a lesser man – and the majority of the general population – dead. Obviously, Hopper knew how to handle his liquor and narcotics, but still.
Consuming so much booze that nobody could quite understand how his body hadn’t simply given up, shut down, and shuffled him off his mortal coil was an impressive feat, even by his lofty standards. Then again, maybe “impressive” isn’t the word, especially when it was hardly the first time he’d mystified the experts by getting so wasted it was a minor miracle he hadn’t been killed.
The tales of Hopper embarking upon drug and alcohol-fuelled benders and getting up to all sorts of ludicrous shenanigans are woven into his legacy, with the ‘New Hollywood’ era’s premiere enfant terrible never too far from the headlines whenever copious volumes of his favoured substances, whether they were liquid or powdered, were involved.
After a three-year sabbatical from the screen following the release of 1973’s comedic western Kid Blue, Hopper reappeared in writer and director Phillipe Mora’s biographical crime story Mad Dog Morgan as the title character, the Australian outlaw and bushranger who was involved in multiple robberies, shootouts, and murders in the 1860s.
Ozploitation and 1970s-era Hopper seemed tailor-made for each other, and while he was the consummate professional during shooting, all things considered, all bets were off as soon as his on-camera contributions were in the can. That’s not to say he was a saint all the way through filming, but he didn’t cause any major issues and did the job he was hired to do.
Admittedly, the filmmaker did catch him drinking aftershave in a hotel room when he’d run out of alcohol, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary for someone of his proclivities. As he often was, Hopper’s short fuse and iffy temperament reared their heads several times, but it wasn’t until Mora called it a wrap that he truly let himself off the least.
As the director explained to the Syndey Morning Herald, as soon as it was confirmed his services were no longer required, the leading man rode off wearing his character’s full costume, poured a shot of rum into the real Dan Morgan’s grave, tanked the rest of it himself, and disappeared over the horizon.
Still in full-period apparel, Hopper went on a tear, culminating in his arrest and subsequent deportation. Not only was he forcibly ejected from Australia less than 24 hours after Mad Dog Morgan had wrapped, but he did so in a condition that mystified both toxicologists and the authorities.
As Mora recalled, Hopper was booted out of the country “with a blood-alcohol reading that said he should have been dead, according to the judge studying his alcohol tests.” Not only was he deported, but he was deported in a condition where every piece of scientific evidence pointed to the conclusion that he shouldn’t have even been alive when he was placed under arrest.
