Category Archives: zabriskie point

cute couple alert

Daria Halprin and Dennis Hopper.

The former Mrs. Hopper came up on Alec Baldwin’s podcast this week when Alec’s guest Dick Cavett mentioned that his interview with Daria and Mark Frechette on his ABC show was among the worst of his career. Only Cavett doesn’t recall either of their names and refers to them (accurately) as “whoever the lout was who was the male lead in the movie Zabriskie Point and his non-verbal girlfriend”.

Their appearance on Cavett has been discussed here in the past and remains pretty entertaining and is worth a look if only to ponder that ill-fitting dress that Halprin is wearing. Check this out for more from Cavett and his interview with the Zabriskie Point stars. It’s particularly great when he tells Mark Frechette to fuck off posthumously.

most promising

Films and Filming. January 1971.

antonioni directs

Antonioni directs Daria Halprin and Mark Freschette (and manages a smile out of the usually dour pair) in Zabriskie Point. 1970.

cover art

Top row: David Bradley in Kes. Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon. Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Center row: Hiram Keller in Satyricon. Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse. Joe Cocker in Woodstock.
Bottom row: Helmut Berger in The Damned. Mark Freschette in Zabriskie Point. Alain Delon in Borsalino.

the jerusalem file

Fantastic news. I found a few more images of that other flick that Daria Halprin was in.

Daria Halprin and Bruce Davison in The Jerusalem File. John Flynn. 1972.

on your sleeve

The cover of the French edition of the Zabriskie Point Soundtrack (1970) sure beats the American version.

Above is a photo that I found on ebay of the American version—the image is slightly cropped on the left but it’s more or less intact. I have a copy of this album that I bought at a yard sale that’s in terrible condition—or at least the sleeve is. It looks like it was rescued from a fire only to be thrown into a flood. Here’s a glimpse of the back of mine with its “The Pink Floyd” tracklisting.

making zabriskie point

feb 68

Wow, considering that it was neither directed by an ageing Chaplin nor did it star the Burtons, Zabriskie Point sure got an inordinate amount of press back in the day. Here’s a sampling of the coverage from Films and Filming beginning in February 1968 (above).

july 68

July 1968.

Antonioni

Antonioni oneAntonioni two

October 1968.

ZabriskiePoint

January 1969.

daria halprin strikes back

While looking for something else, I came across these photos of our dear friend Daria Halprin in one of her two non-Zabriskie Point roles, 1972’s The Jerusalem File.

Because I am doing next to no “research,” I’m having a hard time sorting out the particulars on her departure from and return to Hollywood but according to a more poorly-written than most wikipedia entry, Halprin decided to leave the commune and found conditions in Hollywood tolerable enough to make one more film for “the man” before jacking it in and leaving the film biz forever—let’s assume she went to another commune. Our relative loss was, I’m sure, the commune’s gain. (And let’s not forget about that child that she had with Hip Hopper whom she was married to from 1972 until 1976. Could you imagine calling those two mom and dad?)

This film apparently isn’t in the thoughts of many as it has only sixteen votes on imdb (it’ll never join the illustrious likes of The Dark Knight and Shawshank Redemption on the imdb top two hundred and fifty that way!) and it seems as though it was never released for home consumption in any format. Anyway, here are the pics. I have no idea what my fixations with this Halprin chick or her groovy anti-establishment Zabriskie Point costar are all about but fixations exist. I’m pretty sure that they are comic fixations though. Having said that, since my initial viewing of Zabriskie Point, I’ve probably watched it five times since. It’s a love hate relationship I have with that flick.

UPDATE: While re-reading this post this morning (typos galore! What was I on last night?), I realized I never looked for a pic of The Hopper/Halprin Connection (as I hear they liked to be called). Found one! A charming couple.

even more zabriskie point

more zabriskie point

More Zabriskie Point pics.

Also, I found this amazing video of the film’s two stars, Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin, turning on the charm on the Dick Cavett show in 1970.

This clearly well adjusted young man in no way comes off as the type who would eventually meet his end crushed beneath a barbell while serving a six-to-fifteen year sentence for armed robbery. Halprin, meanwhile, sort of seems like the type who would eventually marry and have a child with Dennis Hopper.