The Doors (1991)


Val Kilmer              Jim Morrison
Meg Ryan                Pamela Courson
Kyle MacLachlan         Ray Manzarek
Kevin Dillon            John Densmore
Frank Whaley            Robby Kreiger
Billy Idol              Cat
Dennis Burkley          Dog
Josh Evans              Bill Siddons
Michael Madsen          Tom Baker
Kathleen Quinlan        Patricia Kennealy
John Densmore (III)     Engineer-Last Session
Gretchen Becker         Mom
Jerry Sturm             Dad
Sean Stone              Young Jim
Kendall Deichen         Little Sister
Floyd Westerman         Shaman
Rion Hunter             Indian in Desert

Directed by:            Oliver Stone
Produced by:            Mario Kassar, Nicholas Clainos, Brian Grazer


A look at the enduring 60s rock group The Doors, fronted by Jim Morrison.

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Oliver Stone's homage to 60's rock group The Doors also doubles as a biography of the group's late 
singer, the "Electric Poet" Jim Morrison. The movie follows Morrison from his days as a film student 
in Los Angeles to his death in Paris in 1971, at the age of 27. The movies features a tour- de-force 
performance by Val Kilmer, who not only looks like Jim Morrison's long-lost twin brother, but also 
sounds so much like him that he did much of his own singing. It has been written that even the 
surviving Doors had trouble distinguishing Kilmer's vocals from Morrison's originals.

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Covers the period from 1965-1971; Produced and released in 1991. Val Kilmer stars as Jim Morrison in 
Oliver Stone's electrifying profile of the Doors, which takes the group from its inception to its 
demise with the death of the "Lizard King" in a Paris hotel room in 1971. In the early days of the 
group's formation, Morrison is at his most benign; he's just a guy hanging out at the beach writing 
poetry. But soon the Doors' fame begins to spread--with Morrison as the focus of attention. Capable 
of an eerily correct vocal imitation of Morrison, Kilmer makes manifest the talent and charisma, as 
well as the confusion and despair, of the complex man who was the focal point of the group. As Morrisson's 
drug consumption and erratic behavior increase exponentially, the rest of the band--Ray Manzarek 
(Kyle McLachalan), John Densmore (Kevin Dillon), and Robby Krieger (Frank Whaley)--begins to grow tired 
of his late arrivals, the increasing number of cancellations, and the drunken recording sessions requiring 
infinite retakes. But no one can help Morrison as he spirals downward into an inferno of drugs, alcohol, 
public obscenity, and depression, bringing the music to an untimely close. Stone's intimate familiarity 
with SoCal in the 1960s provides the film with a high degree of surface verisimilitude, though the film 
is as much a tribute to the enduring power of the Doors' music as it is a cautionary tale about the perils 
of both celebrity and substance abuse.