The Hot Spot: The Making of a Sweaty Neo-Noir with a Soundtrack That Stands as an American Masterpiece

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“The Hot Spot” is a movie of dark joy – dark because it immediately pulls the viewer into a sweltering world of illicit lust, desperation, and deception, but joyful because director Dennis Hopper and leading stars Don Johnson and Virginia Madsen make it all so seductive and fun. They also happen to play out their schemes, manipulations, and dashed dreams over one of the greatest, and most underrated, soundtracks in the history of film. 

The 1990 major theatrical release is based on Charles Williams’ scintillating pulp novel, Hell Hath No Fury. Williams cowrote the script with Nona Tyson in the 1960s, with Robert Mitchum in mind for the lead role of Harry Madox, an amoral drifter who lands in a small Texas town. Looking for a place to quietly settle, he gets a job as a used car salesman, but soon finds himself embroiled in an affair with his boss’ sultry and mischievous wife. To pass the time in the one stoplight dot on an atlas, he also commits arson, robs a bank, foils a blackmail plot, and falls in love with his naïve, but beautiful coworker. Madox is never at a loss for hobbies. 

When director Dennis Hopper sunk his claws into the script, Mitchum was far too old for the part. So, he cast Don Johnson. Improbably handsome and yet able to effortlessly communicate sleaze, the “Miami Vice” alum was ideal as a character who, as he puts it, “has a perfect zero-point-zero batting average for staying out of trouble.”

“The Hot Spot” opens with a scorching blues-jazz number hanging in the desert air as Madox smokes a cigarette by the side of the road. No one knows anything about his personality, background, or ambition, but Johnson telegraphs concern, anxiety, and disappointment with a few well-timed glances. The inescapable conclusion is that he is on the run from someone or something that he would prefer to permanently forget. 

Life seems easy in his new little town. He sells cars by day, and sullenly stares at strippers at the Texas village’s sole entertainment venue at night. He also smokes a sufficient amount of Kools to char his lungs within a week. There is hardly a scene when Madox is not puffing, lighting, or crushing. Even if the use of tobacco is tantamount to respiratory and cardiovascular destruction, it must be said that Don Johnson is one of the all time great cinematic smokers. 

One of the elements of Johnson’s deft performance, in addition to the Kools, is the silent indication of tension. Even as he begins to develop a stable life, his body language and facial expressions make his restlessness undeniable. As far as diversions are concerned, he finds one that is simultaneously the best and the worst when he meets Dolly Harshaw, wife of the owner of Harshaw Motors, played by the scene stealing Virginia Madsen. As a succubus Marilyn Monroe, Madsen has Sharon Stone, whose own turn at the femme fatale archetype in “Basic Instinct” hit screens in 1992, easily beat. She manages to imbue every line of dialogue she utters with three qualities: tantalizing sensuality, hilarity, and danger. 

Her chemistry with Johnson is as hot as the Texas climate, and they manage to make lines that might seem corny with inferior thespians register in the annals of noir. An illustrative example is from a scene when Dolly summons Harry to her home on an errand, before their affair begins:

Dolly: Oh, Harry, I meant to ask you…about finding me. Did I give you the right directions?

Harry: I could find it in the dark.

When they do commence their inevitable adulterous entanglement, one of their trysts takes place in the backseat of a car on a riser in the Harshaw lot. Before departing for the evening, Dolly tells Harry, “That was more fun than eating cotton candy barefoot.” 

The most memorable line of the movie is in the middle of another sex scene. Dolly’s husband needs imminent heart surgery, after already suffering two cardiac events. She sees his medical crisis as an opportunity, ties him to the bed, and starts dry-humping him while smacking his chest. When he begins to struggle for air and grimace, Dolly says, “I’m fucking you to death, George.”

“The Hot Spot’s” plot offers intrigue, but is a secondary consideration. It involves blackmail, bank robbery, and plenty of double cross. Despite its twists and turns, the movie moves at a pleasurably slow pace, allowing “The Hot Spot” to function as a character-driven neo-noir. No matter what happens, the reason for watching the film is Don Johnson and Virginia Madsen’s respective portrayals of Harry and Dolly. 

As much as it is a delight to watch, “The Hot Spot” is also a unique feast for the ears. 

“Something Special” – The Soundtrack

“Dennis Hopper knew Miles Davis,” blues slide guitarist Roy Rogers, who played on “The Hot Spot” soundtrack, told me when I interviewed him about the experience. “It was his dream to have his favorite jazz artist – Miles – and his favorite blues artist, John Lee Hooker, play together.” 

First, Miles Davis agreed to play, and from there, John Lee Hooker brought his musical mastery and blues spirit to the studio. For support, Dennis Hopper and producer, Jack Nitzsche, managed to assemble one of the greatest gatherings of musicians to ever lay down the blues: the legendary Taj Mahal on National steel guitar and electric banjo, drummer Earl Palmer, who is one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, Tim Drummond, who had previously played bass for BB King, Eric Clapton, and Miles Davis, Hollywood keyboard veteran, Bradford Ellis, and the aforementioned, Grammy-award winning slide guitarist, Roy Rogers, who was also John Lee Hooker’s producer. 

For three days, all the players, with the exception of Miles Davis, sweated it out in the studio, with Dennis Hopper observing in ecstasy. “It was a groove,” Rogers told me, “And once we got into the groove, we kept going, and never stopped.” 

Rogers explained that none of the musicians had read the neo-noir script, but that Nitzche would provide direction by way of scene summary, discussion of musical key, and the general feeling that a song should transmit (tension, seduction, excitement). 

“It was all live in the studio. The band improvised,” Rogers said, “And it was all in support of John Lee Hooker. He was the leader, and we played around him. So, it became atmospheric, moody, and natural within the parameters of John Lee Hooker doing John Lee Hooker.” 

In his role of producer, Nitzsche occasionally offered a suggestion, such as having Taj Mahal start a song instead of Hooker, but most of the tracks emanate out of a few crucial verbal cues – “escalation,” “disappointment.” What follows is the magical alchemy of consummate professionals playing according to the direction of a restless, exploratory spirit. “Playing,” in fact, is an inaccurate term. They weren’t playing music. They were making it.

“Creatively, we were all given free reign. Jack might have told me, play a slide riff here, but I knew John’s music and style well-enough, that I could just let it fly. That’s what we all did. One of the best things about it is that there is so much texture,” Rogers said.

Miles Davis, absent from the jam sessions that created the foundation of the music, arrived like a living, breathing myth on the fourth day. “Miles was a separate session,” Rogers remembered, “Thankfully, we all got to watch him play and meet him. He overdubbed.”

Taking almost no time to prepare, Miles Davis blew into his trumpet over the track tapes, playing some of the best solos of the last ten years of his career. Poet and jazz music critic, Steve Day, went so far to write that Davis “reached inner places” on “The Hot Spot” that he never had previously found in his entire career. His trumpet amplifies an entanglement of lust and doom; mapping a fiery collision within every man’s spiritual geography.

“He was really happy. He really dug it,” Roger said of Miles Davis, who because of his joy in the music, belied his surly reputation. “Let me paint you the scene,” Rogers continued, “John Lee Hooker, after watching Miles play, said, ‘let’s go in there.’ He wanted to meet Miles. So, we all followed John. Miles is smiling, and he said, ‘Man, this is great shit.’ He shook John’s hand, and said, ‘John, you play like you got one foot in the mud.’ John always loved that.”

The mud in which John Lee Hooker buried his foot was a product of the human capacity for triumph and destruction. His singular guitar and vocal style managed to capture the most primal impulses, while telegraphing an intellect. It is once visceral and philosophical. Rogers added the word, “existential.”

The jam session tracks of “The Hot Spot,” far from an exception, are an exemplary exhibition of his unique gifts. Without any lyrics, John Lee Hooker “oohs” and “aaahs” his way through the music, periodically adding, “Have mercy” or “That ain’t right.” It is not only the voice of the beleaguered Harry Madox’s heart, but in the words of Ralph Ellison, “a biographical chronicle of pain expressed lyrically.” In lieu of actual words, the lyricism derives from the expert music backing his voice – his own guitar, but also the contributions of every other player in the room, and the man who would later float into the room, Miles Davis.

“The Hot Spot” is a magnificent document of the power of blues and jazz. One example, among many, is the song, “Bank Robbery.” Over a grinding blues riff, Davis blows one of his most emotional, fevered, and fractured solos. Just as the danger heightens, making the song feel as if it is going to detonate into thin air, the band deconstructs, breaking down for John Lee Hooker’s voice to cut through. He moans and groans acapella, hitting a spine-tingling high note. At that instant, the blues riff begins again, eventually playing the song out to a crashing conclusion.

“Bank Robbery” is one of several reasons why “The Hot Spot” soundtrack is a masterpiece of American music.

“I don’t talk to Taj Mahal very often,” Roy Rogers told me, “But whenever I do, we talk about ‘The Hot Spot.’ We both know it was something special.”

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