Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) on Netflix
Hunter S. Thompson is at his ranch, finishing a story about Carl Lazlo, Esq., his former attorney. Lazlo once urged him to cover a San Francisco marijuana trial for Blast Magazine.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Hunter S. Thompson is at his ranch in the Rocky Mountains, working on a story about Carl Lazlo, Esq., the lawyer he once knew. The tale reaches back to 1968, when Lazlo fights to keep a group of young people in San Francisco out of long prison terms for marijuana possession. He persuades Thompson to cover the case for Blast Magazine, and Thompson's editor, Marty Lewis, reminds him that he has 19 hours until deadline. The judge hands stiff sentences to every defendant, the last of them a young man caught with one pound of marijuana, who gets five years. Lazlo attacks the prosecutor and is jailed for contempt of court. The article becomes a sensation.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During production Murray and Thompson ran a series of dangerous one-upmanship contests: at Thompson's home in Aspen, Colorado, after many drinks and much arguing over who could out-Houdini whom, Thompson tied Murray to a chair and threw him into the swimming pool, and he nearly drowned before Thompson pulled him out.
- Bill Murray immersed himself so deeply that he returned to Saturday Night Live's fifth season still in character as Hunter Thompson, complete with long black cigarette holder and dark glasses; one of the show's writers said you couldn't talk to him without talking to Hunter Thompson.
- Producer Thom Mount paid $100,000 for the film rights to Hunter S. Thompson's obituary of the Chicano activist Oscar Zeta Acosta. Thompson agreed to the option without seeing a screenplay, figuring the film would never get made, as the vastly more popular Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas had been optioned several times and never made.
- Murray and Thompson were concerned about the film's lack of continuity and added voice-over narration in early 1980; when it was sneak-previewed in late March the narration and the last two scenes were absent, Murray was outraged, and the studio ended up shooting a new ending.
- In the original script the attorney's surname was Mendoza rather than Lazlo, and it was changed after Nosotros, a group of Chicano actors and filmmakers, threatened to create controversy if the character was played by Anglo actor Peter Boyle.
- Because music licensing was so expensive, most VHS copies and all DVD releases kept only the Neil Young score and the Creedence song “Keep on Chooglin'”, replacing the rest with generic approximations - 1980s-style songs in a 1960s and 1970s setting.
