Vintage Pulp

August 8 2024

THE DUKE OF HAZARDS

Chaos comes shirtless, hairy, and hella dangerous in White Lightning.

Burt Reynolds occupied a unique place in the pantheon of Hollywood stars, playing numerous smarmy good ole boys on the wrong side of the law. He had touched upon such roles earlier than in White Lightning, but this film, which premiered today in 1973, was the beginning of him basically cornering that market. It was the debut of his iconic character Gator McCluskey, hell hot driver and moonshiner nonpareil, who finagles a release from prison to help the FBI take down the crooked sherrif of Bogan County, Arkansas. The sherrif, played by Ned Beatty, has killed Gator’s younger brother for no other reason than that he was an anti-war protestor, prompting Gator to deal himself to the Feds to get revenge.

White Lightning has the same gritty feel you find in so many ’70s dramas, with its low saturation film stock and grainy look. Narratively it’s gritty too, with numerous portryals considered polarizing today. It presents Arkansans largely as clueless hicks, with opportunistic scofflaws mixed in. It’s anti-government and anti-diversity. Jennifer Billingsly is a two-timing nympho who waxes nostalgic about deflowering a nine year-old boy. And Beatty is a real beaut, railing against school integration, the NAACP, the ACLU, hippies, and the right of blacks to vote. He’s dumb as hell, but animal-clever.

Burt struts his way along the path to bloody vengeance and shows why he became such a huge star. His portrayal of McCluskey mixes swagger with an elemental kindness, a steely resolve with a core of easy humor. It isn’t all in the script. He was simply a natural. Today White Lightning would upset certain rural viewers, most progressive viewers, viewers of numerous ethnicities, and women, yet as an artifact of its era it’s hard to beat. It’s also unique in Reynolds’ ouevre. The 1976 sequel Gator, as well as later rum-running adventure flicks like Smokey and the Bandit, would lean heavily into comedy, to their detriment. Of the grouping, only White Lightning can be considered legitmately good. But anything with Reynolds—and we mean anything—is worth watching.

Arkansas, White Lightning, Burt Reynolds, Jennifer Billingsly, Ned Beatty, Bo Hopkins, Louise Latham, Diane Ladd, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

March 2 2019

THE ROAD TO HELL

This one is paved with bad intentions every inch of the way.

When we saw these two Italian posters for 1966’s I selvaggi our eyes deceived us and we thought—for a wonderful split second—that they were for a film starring Frank Sinatra and Jane Fonda. But then we realized it was Nancy Sinatra and Peter Fonda, who are pretty big downgrades, quality-wise. No offense intended toward them. Fonda is an icon of cool, but not because he can act. We aren’t aware of Nancy Sinatra wowing people with her thespian chops either. But we watched the movie anyway.

It’s better known as The Wild Angels, and it’s Roger Corman directed schlock from American International Pictures about a group called the Hell’s Angels ripping and bombing around Southern California, causing problems to law abiding folk and the police. While it’s obviously a take on the infamous motorcycle gang, in real life the gang spells its name without an apostrophe. Why that makes a difference in terms of trademark infringement we have no idea, but we assume that’s why it was put there. Or maybe it’s just a correction of an assumed typo in the real gang’s name. Or maybe nobody even noticed the difference.

Whatever the case, the Hells Angels couldn’t really have claimed that the racist and violent Hell’s Angels portrayed by Fonda, Sinatra, Bruce Dern, and company differed greatly from reality. The real Angels may not have clobbered preachers and taken over churches for all night bacchanals, but they did some terrible shit. Despite the incendiary verisimilitude of the movie, it’s mostly a bore—but one that helped establish the outlaw biker genre and pave the way for 1969’s Easy Rider. For that it deserves a little credit. Now we’re going to try and find out if Jane Fonda and Frank Sinatra ever acted together, because that’s a movie we’d like to see.

Italy, American International Pictures, Hells Angels, I selvaggi, The Wild Angels, Peter Fonda, Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, Roger Corman, bikers, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 7

1959—Dark Side of Moon Revealed

The Soviet space probe Luna 3 transmits the first photographs of the far side of the moon. The photos generate great interest, and scientists are surprised to see mountainous terrain, very different from the near side, and only two seas, which the Soviets name Mare Moscovrae (Sea of Moscow) and Mare Desiderii (Sea of Desire).

October 6

1966—LSD Declared Illegal in U.S.

LSD, which was originally synthesized by a Swiss doctor and was later secretly used by the CIA on military personnel, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and members of the general public in a project code named MKULTRA, is designated a controlled substance in the United States.

October 5

1945—Hollywood Black Friday

A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.