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

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 17

1933—Blaine Act Passes

The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

February 17

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.

February 16

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.

February 15

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

February 14

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.