Hopper was unable to capitalize on his "Easy Rider" success for several years. In 1970 he filmed "The Last Movie", cowritten by Stewart Stern and photographed by Laszlo Kovacs in Peru, and completed production in 1971. It won the prestigious CIDALC Award at that year's Venice Film Festival, but Universal Studios leaders expected a blockbuster like "Easy Rider", and did not like the film or give it an enthusiastic release, while American film audiences found it confounding – as convoluted as an abstract painting. On viewing the first release print, fresh from the lab, in his screening room at Universal, MCA founder Jules Stein rose from his chair and said, "I just don't understand this younger generation." During the tumultuous editing process, Hopper ensconced himself at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico, which he had purchased in 1970, for almost an entire year. In between contesting Fonda's rights to the majority of the residual profits from "Easy Rider", he married singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas on Halloween of 1970. The marriage lasted eight days.