![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Jeff-Bridges-Crazy-Heart-2009-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Searchlight Pictures)<\/p>\n
Wed 2 July 2025 21:45, UK <\/p>\n
The 1970s were an incredible time for film. The New Hollywood movement was in full swing, meaning directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg had more creative control over their own films. Star Wars came out, changing mainstream cinema forever, while the likes of The French Connection, Kramer vs. Kramer, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest won \u2018Best Picture\u2019 at the Oscars. The decade also saw the rise of many movie stars who are still going strong to this day, one of whom was Jeff Bridges<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other than an appearance he made as a baby in a 1951 film called The Company She Keeps, Bridges got his first start in Hollywood right at the beginning of the decade. He caught everybody\u2019s attention with The Last Picture Show, a snapshot of America at the time, which is still celebrated<\/a> to this day. He followed this up with more prominent roles in John Frankenheimer\u2019s version of The Iceman Cometh, John Huston\u2019s boxing drama Fat City, and the first of many, many, many remakes of King Kong.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an interview with Paste<\/a>, the second-generation star recounted what it was like growing up and finding fame in those magical times; a story that mostly revolved around hot-boxing his car with friends David Greenholt and Steve Baim. He spoke about another of his friends, Stan Ayeroff, who would eventually become a member of surrealist street theatre troupe, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo<\/a>. This led him to discuss a movie the group made, which was directed by Richard Elfman, who also co-wrote it with Matthew Bright.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want some weird, visual, acoustic stuff to wash over you, check out a movie called The Forbidden Zone [sic],\u201d he recommended. \u201cBright wrote The Forbidden Zone [sic], and my wife Susan was a dancer on that. Baim\u2019s wife Arla was in it. Rick Elfman directed it. That really will give you a vibe of the times.\u201d<\/p>\n Forbidden Zone (no definite article) is bonkers. The \u2018plot\u2019, if you want to call it that, revolves around a mysterious door that transports people to the psychedelic \u2018sixth dimension\u2019. There, our heroes encounter all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff, overseen by the all-powerful King Fausto, played by \u2018James Bond\u2019 and Fantasy Island star Herv\u00e9 Villechaize. In many ways, it does capture the hazy, lethargic energy of the mid-1970s, but there\u2019s just one problem. It wasn\u2019t released until 1980.<\/p>\n As you can imagine, a film like this had absolutely zero budget. Only one of the actors, Phil Gordon, was paid, as the rest of the cast waived their fees to help out the shoestring production. Despite being shot in 1977 and 1978, it didn\u2019t premiere until the Los Angeles International Film Exposition in 1980. It wouldn\u2019t be made widely available for another two years.<\/p>\n Luckily, things worked out fine in the end. Forbidden Zone is now considered a cult classic, to the point where reports of a sequel have even been floated. It also marked the film composing debut of director Richard\u2019s brother Danny, who would go on to provide music for movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Good Will Hunting. He also wrote the theme tune for The Simpsons, completing this week\u2019s edition of \u2018Weird Things in Hollywood That Are Somehow Connected\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Searchlight Pictures) Wed 2 July 2025 21:45, UK The 1970s were an incredible time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[91533,91534,77,11613,3943,91535,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-233491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-1970s","9":"tag-danny-elfman","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jeff-bridges","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-oingo-boingo","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114786793243637797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}