Cisco Pike
1972's CISCO PIKE shares its name with the film's protagonist, an L.A. singer/songwriter past his prime, now only sometimes recognized as a guy who once played the Troubadour and had a few hits. Public tastes and the music business a fickle lot, Cisco (Kris Kristofferson, in his film debut) had to turn to selling dope to survive, and he got busted. As the film opens, he tries to pawn his guitar. His new demos keep being rejected, anyway. The store owner, played by the wonderful Roscoe Lee Brown, refuses, feeling as if he'd be robbing the young man's very existence. Cisco is soon confronted by the weirdo narco cop who put him away, Leo (Gene Hackman), and finds himself in a garage with several kilos of marijuana...which Leo stole from gang members. The dirty cop will eventually make him a deal - sell the bricks and give him the ten grand he needs to pay his stockbroker, and he will shuffle some paperwork in Cisco's drug charge. A deadline is set ...
