October 21, 1990 | Dennis Hopper spent most of the '70s on a wild toboggan slide toward self-destruction, and most of the '80s on a long, hard climb back up the hill.

Now, after giving career-reviving performances in Hoosiers and Blue Velvet, and directing Colors, one of the top-grossing movies of 1988, Hopper can be viewed as a living, breathing, detoxified advertisement for sobriety and straight-arrow rehabilitation.

And, even more remarkably, he can be heard as a critic of other people's excesses.

Just how sober and straight is Dennis Hopper these days? Consider this: At 9 on a Sunday morning in the middle of the hurly-burly of last month’s Toronto Festival of Festivals, Hopper sat in his posh hotel suite, impeccably attired in an expensively-cut suit, a saucer delicately balanced on one knee to hold his coffee cup. He looked less like a filmmaker flogging his latest picture than a well-dressed televangelist relaxing a few minutes before this week's satellite-beamed worship service.

Hopper was in Toronto to promote The Hot Spot, his steamy film noir thriller about death, duplicity and adultery in a Texas backwater. And when asked about it, he admitted that, yeah, sure, as a director, he was mightily peeved that the movie's star, Don Johnson, wasn't there.

''Here's a guy who wants this movie to be successful,'' Hopper said, laughing at the absurdity of Johnson's absence. ''And yet he looks at it, admits that it's best thing he's ever done, but he will not come out and do any publicity on the picture until he sees the reviews. This is bullshit to me.''

Warming to the subject, Hopper took a backward glance and noted that, right from the start, he knew, he just knew, he was going to have trouble with Johnson. Like Hopper, Johnson is a reformed hellraiser who jump-started his stalled career in the '80s after a long stagger on the wild side. But that's where the similarity ends, Hopper insisted. And even that shared background doesn't mean much.

''That's good for a couple of laughs, at first,'' Hopper said. ''But reformed alcoholics, reformed drug addicts, are still alcoholics and drug addicts. And everybody I took drugs with and drank with, it doesn't mean we're buddies. I mean, with Don, you could look back and say, 'Yeah, we sure did a lot of drugs, and a lot of alcohol. But I would have never done drugs and alcohol more than once with you, buddy! So go back to your trailer!' ''

The Hot Spot, which was filmed last year in Taylor, near Austin, and opens Friday in Houston, represents Johnson's latest, most successful bid for movie stardom after five years of glory with TV's Miami Vice. He's the hero of the piece, sort of, playing Harry Madox, a charismatic drifter who winds up in Taylor, Texas. He finds work at an auto dealership, where the employee benefits include Dolly Harshaw (Virginia Madsen), the sexy young wife of his middle-aged boss.

And then there's the little matter of the local bank, which practically begs to be robbed.

Based on a 1952 novel by the late Charles Williams, The Hot Spot is yet another modern-day version of film noir, those brooding Hollywood thrillers of the 1940s and '50s where hardboiled heroes and femmes fatales made life difficult, and exciting, for each other.

''I don't think there's a filmmaker who hasn't always wanted to make a film noir,'' Hopper said. ''And we all know that Godard and Truffaut and a lot of the French directors at a certain time were really interested in film noir, starting with Godard's Breathless.

''But (film noir thrillers) never were financially successful. That's the unfortunate problem. We all remember them as being these great hits and things. But in point of fact, they were always an alternative to, like, what the mainstream movies were that were going on.

''So, when you go to a studio and you say film noir, they put you in the elevator and send you to another floor. And you think, 'Hey, it's dark up here. What floor is this?' Because they don't want to hear about it. They say, 'You're talking about something that's never been commercial.' I say, 'What about Body Heat?' And they say, 'Body Heat is only commercial in your mind.' And then they pull out papers and charts that show you that Body Heat never made money.

''Of course,'' Hopper added with a laugh just as wicked as the one he used in Blue Velvet, ''their showing you that Body Heat never made money means it must have made a lot of money.''

In any case, Hopper managed to raise just enough of a budget to direct The Hot Spot on his terms, with a star he thought would be perfect in the lead role, in a state that he dearly loves.

''Yeah, I always have the desire to go back to Texas,'' Hopper said. ''Especially Austin. If I could figure out a way to move to Austin, to live in Austin, I'd be in Austin. I've done so many films there through the years, and I have so many friends there -- Jerry Jeff Walker, Bud Shrake, Gary Cartwright, all those guys.''

But then Don Johnson arrived in Taylor, and the storm clouds gathered.

Dead Bang, Johnson's most recent bid for movie stardom, ''had just bombed,'' Hopper said. ''So, like, he's nervous about his career. He's too nervous, in my mind, about it. He's very insecure. And it's a lot of work to get the performance out of him that I got.

''I think his performance is really good. I can't imagine anyone playing the part at this point. That's how I'm locked into his image in this picture. I think he's totally believable, and really, really excellent.

''But the man is so insecure, he has to arrive with 10 people, an entourage of 10 people, that go on salary. It cost us between $600,000 and $800,000 just for his baggage that he brought with him. Like, a helicopter pilot. Two bodyguards. Two drivers. A cook. A trainer. His own wardrobe person. His own hair person. His own makeup person.

''He walked onto the set every day with five people. This is all insecurity to me. I mean, who's trying to kill him? Where are these people at? Are they over in that building over there, Don? I mean, I'm a paranoid, and I think, 'God, maybe I'm going to get in the way of a bullet here. Maybe there's something about this guy I don't know.' ''

But, really, doesn't every big star have entourages? Didn't Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor have the same sort of functionaries on hand back in the days when Hopper filmed Giant with them in Marfa, Texas?

''I never saw anybody come on a set like that,'' Hopper said. ''Never. The only guy I ever saw like that was Elvis. And the guys around him, they were his cousins! You know what I mean? At least they were his family. They weren't bodyguards.''

For all that, Hopper insisted he was pleased with Johnson's performance in The Hot Spot. It's just a shame, he said, that Johnson wasn't equally enthusiastic.

''What it comes down to is this: You can come to a film festival and support your movie. The man was paid $2.5 million to act in this film. That's a lot of money -- way over anything I've ever seen, or thought about seeing.

''An actor comes in, he does 10 weeks' work. Well, we spend a year with the film. And then you come and show it to him, and he says, 'Yeah, that's the best work I've ever done. Yeah, I really like it. But I'm not going to do any publicity on it until I see what the other people think of it.' Well, hey, man, give me a break.

''You know, filmmaking's a little bit like childbirth. You can just forgive a lot of stuff, a lot of pain. I like Don, actually. There's a lot of stuff about him I like. But I wish he would be more supportive of the film. No, I don't wish, I think he should be more supportive.

''I think he's being a bad boy.''