You forget for a while that there's a point and get swept up in the antics of these real-life brothers who are joyriding when their car breaks down in Macon County. Scenes move fluidly from comedy to suspense; moments that look like they're going to be cliches instead reveal unexpected dimensions. Everyone in the film is believable enough to hold your attention and make you forget how unlikely the string of coincidences that happen near the end would be. As a dramatic actor he comes off a little like James Garner, a little like Clint Eastwood, but he has a distinctive style of his own. Driving through , the brothers pick up hitchhiker Jenny Scott , a pretty blond with a shady backstory that she would rather not discuss. He plays here a Southern sheriff who on the hunt for a couple of drifters who murdered his wife. It just takes to long to get getting.
While waiting for their car to be fixed, they run into the local sheriff, who takes an instant and unfair dislike to the group. Not hard to understand why this film didn't fly on original release. Beyond this, the film has little depth. MovieArt will sell no reproductions. A young Leif Garrett plays the Sheriff's son Luke. It's interesting seeing an old-timer like Emile Meyer in a movie with an up-and-comer like Leif Garret. This plot could have been a lurid exercise in bloody revenge, but instead Macon County Line which was produced and co-written by Baer takes every opportunity to make the people real and unpredictable.
The script is very well-written. Still, this is a first-rate thriller that deserves its cult status, and is ultimately a long, long way from the bucolic ideal of Sheriff Andy's Mayberry. Als die beiden Brüder Chris Alan Vint und Wayne Jesse Vint gemeinsam mit der Tramperin Jenny Cheryl Waters in einem kleinen Nest mit einer Autopanne liegen bleiben, ziehen sie sofort das Misstrauen des örtlichen Sheriffs Max Baer Jr. Leif shows an amazing emotional fluency, in his role. The actors all give strong performances and the movie looks great. Inside the house, Morgan's wife is brutally raped and murdered by two men who then kill a cop when pulled over. This film is a cut above many of the drive-in B films, that were so ubiquitous during the 70s when this movie was made.
It all adds up to make a fine film that any fan of this era of filmmaking ought to check out. Drysdale, Jethro wants to make a movie! There are bad guys here,but no real hero to speak of. Baer concocted the story himself, and co-wrote the screenplay with director Richard Compton, doing a fine job of leaving his cheerfully dumb hayseed character Jethro far behind for the first time in his career. Little does he know, the men from Chicago are not the ones. It might not have a great deal of substance and the production values are not great though certainly very good considering the obvious low budget but it's good fun throughout and I'm sure that everyone who goes to the trouble of seeing this film will not be disappointed! Certainly, it could never be made today.
This could just as well have been contemporary Philadelphia instead of the Jim Crow South in the 1950s. When you crossed the line in another place, you're about to be in a world of hurt. That's a shame because it's a really great movie. The film has a good back country vibe and effectively shows how bigotry and racism are learned traits and not innate. And the story morphs into a kind of allegory that renders it timeless.
The main hook of this sordid, and ultimately tragic, tale is an assortment of wholly engaging characterizations by the main cast: the Vint brothers, Cheryl Waters as the hitchhiker whom they pick up, Geoffrey Lewis as a local yokel garage owner, Joan Blackman as Baers' victimized wife, a very young Leif Garrett as Baers' son, James Gammon and Timothy Scott as a pair of despicable lowlifes, Sam Gilman as a deputy, Doodles Weaver as area resident Augie, Emile Meyer as store owner Gurney, et al. There's something rock solid about Baer. This is at times a very dark movie, violent and forbidding, and at times almost painfully tense. They pick up a hitchhiking girl named Jenny Scott Cheryl Waters , then cross the path of Deputy Sheriff Reed Morgan Max Baer, Jr. It's based on a true story, which makes it even more chilling.
I wouldn't fault it for occasional slowness in the second half, but where it fails is in its final scenes when the cop and his boy are chasing the two guys and the girl. Baer and Compton also co-wrote the film in which Baer stars as a vengeful county sheriff in Georgia out for blood after his wife is brutally killed by a couple of grifters. Chris and Wayne Dixon, played by real-life acting brothers Alan and Jesse Vint, are two fun loving siblings from Chicago. Waiting at the garage, they are informally threatened by Morgan, who says they could be picked up for vagrancy if they decide to stick around. The plot revolves around two brothers in 1954 traveling through North Carolina.
The cinematography by Daniel Lacambre is first-rate, the songs are wonderful, there is an appreciable sense of humor, and the finale is some genuinely atmospheric, suspenseful, and spooky stuff. Knowing that Max Baer wrote and starred in it really didn't mean much to me either way. Except for Geoffrey Lewis's overdone station attendant, the acting is first rate, with Joan Blackman a long way from her frothy Elvis movies. Unlike many films of its type, this one is not overly sleazy and if anything the tone of the film is light and breezy for most of the duration. The story takes place in Georgia in 1954.